I've been wondering what we've been trying to do in Huddersfield with events like this, and publications like this.
I think the answer is that we are trying to get rid of any distinction between our government and the place that it's in.
The government - Kirklees council - has to be pulled back into the place that it's in, and the place has to take over its own government again.
What's so interesting about Newsome (an area of Huddersfield) is that it's really hard to see the joins between local activists, council staff and local councillors. They all seem to be doing the same things at the same time.
(If you missed Diane Sims's talk about Newsome Grapevine last night - I was very happy to hear that there is a real grapevine! - then Councillor Andrew Cooper's piece in Any Plan Will Do is a good reference point)
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have local government. Just the opposite.
Our government needs all the powers necessary to do what we want to do.
Making that happen is a big job, and I'm not sure Hudds has got the muscle, the idealism or the creativity for it any more, but we'll see.
Here's a professor from the LSE saying that reducing the powers of local government in the name of the Big Society isn't localism, it's just more centralisation - though there can't be much left to centralise by now.
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