It’s a long time since Labour had a genuine feel for supporting communities (Letters, 9 February; Politicians may have forgotten about ‘community’, but British people haven’t, 7 February). As a member of a ministerial local government sounding board in the early 2000s, I was asked to imagine what the second stage of “double devolution”, from local government to communities, might look like. At the end of the presentation, a senior voice of Labour local government turned to the minister and said: “Our job is difficult enough already. For God’s sake, don’t make us work with communities as well.” That crushing contempt for communities, and fear of not being in control has not gone away.
Lisa Nandy, Jon Cruddas, Steve Reed and others behind Labour Together’s pamphlet Labour’s Covenant openly admit that Labour speaks well about devolution when in opposition but clings to centralised power when in office. They tell a good story about a better relationship between communities and the state, but it could have been written by Danny Kruger, Jerome Mayhew and others at the New Social Covenant Unit for their Trusting the People report, launched at the Tory party conference last October.
Listen up, you Covenanters: this is beyond party politics. Work together and with communities to build a cross-party consensus for a lasting devolved settlement across the union. Together, we need to remake our politics at the level at which we can all recognise that we have a shared responsibility to agree how we are housed, fed, employed and kept warm. Rescue us from the pretence that power only works in Whitehall. Do your duty, please.
Stephen Hill
London
