Research Fellow, Jack Airey, considers whether fresh leadership at City Hall might catalyse the establishment of a more powerful mayoralty. The former Mayor of London Boris Johnson was a devolution enthusiast, consistently making the case for a wider suite of powers for both himself and London’s boroughs. Fiscal devolution, in particular, was something he strongly campaigned […]
In an article for Conservative Home, outgoing chief executive of Localis Alex Thomson gauges where’s next for localism and how/why you could take over the reigns of Localis. With the relentless pace of today’s news cycles it is often easy to forget that a Conservative has been back in Number 10 for just six years. […]
Elections since 2010 have not been the most enjoyable experience for Liberal Democrats. During the Coalition years the party lost nearly 2,000 councillors, having already been on a downward trajectory from 2006 to 2010. The Coalition ‘journey’ culminated in last year’s catastrophic General Election result, which saw the party left with only 8 MPs. However, […]
After six years at Localis, chief executive Alex Thomson is leaving for pastures new in the summer. This leaves a vacancy for the right candidate to take over the running of this highly regarded think tank, and to have a substantial voice in the devolution debate. The job description is as follows: As Chief Executive you will […]
With the EU referendum edging ever closer, yet the core arguments of the debate tending to focus on issues such as the economy, immigration and security, we at Localis have put together a couple of blogs on what a Remain or Leave vote would mean for local government. Considering the compatibility of being a localist with […]
In a series of blogs in which we consider the compatibility of localism with support for the EU, Dominic Leigh, a Researcher at Localis, makes the case below that Brexit would stunt local growth and therefore be of detriment to local authorities. You can read the opposing argument for voting to leave by Localis’ Ben Ramanauskas here. Much of […]
In a series of blogs in which we consider the compatibility of localism with support for the EU, Ben Ramanauskas, a Research Fellow at Localis, makes the case below that Brexit would benefit local government. You can read the opposing argument for voting remain by Localis’ Dominic Leigh here. Those who believe that the United Kingdom should […]
After another successful year at the party conferences last year, we are now looking for partners to work with us at this year’s conference season. You can read further about our offer either in our conference brochure or below. Our offer at the party conferences With this year’s conference season coming after a turbulent EU […]
As the Budget illustrated, there is unlikely to be any let up in neither the Government’s austerity nor devolution agendas over this parliament. Local authorities up and down the country have been through a lot of change in the past few years and given the extent of this ongoing transformation, predicting what local government will […]
In Localis chief executive Alex Thomson’s latest opinion piece for the MJ he considers the importance of councils holding reserves. You can read the piece in full here or below. A great deal has been written and said about local authority reserves in the past few years. It has been thankfully rather less high profile […]