ABSTRACT
The chief alternative offered to direct control over money by the users of services is ‘the new localism’. Edward Davey, writing on ‘Liberalism and localism’, shows that the new localism continues the existing system of central–local relations. The Treasury’s vague talk of managerial decentralisation completely avoids democracy. Concepts such as ‘earned autonomy’ reveal that no power shift is envisaged. An agenda of ‘freedoms and flexibilities’ is set in terms of Whitehall’s own targets, inspections and judgements. He urges that there must be mechanisms for checking state power, and promoting quality and choice by the individual. The division of powers, the localisation of actions and the restraint of the centre is attractive if genuinely radical steps follow. Nothing like as radical an idea is now offered by our three main political parties, but a ‘new localism’ is on their common agenda.
