The Dale Farm case reminds us of the limitations of unadulterated localism. For the eighty families of Dale Farm about to be forcibly evicted in the coming days, the 'deadening' hand of the central state might be a welcome reprieve from the whip hand of the local.

Localism is buzzword of the political age, summing up the zeitgeist in no more than four syllables. The government, in its unending quest to free local authorities from control of the things they don't care about, has allowed unprincipled local authorities to abandon the people they don't care about, with equal vim.... read more