At the Liberal Democrat party conference yesterday,  Nick Clegg spoke about giving councils more power about how they raise and spend funds, but the party of local power does not seem convinced by the coalition’s attitude to localism.

At a debate on setting the ‘yellow lines in public service cuts’, the loudest applause was for an audience member who declared communities minister Eric Pickles, self-proclaimed champion of localism, to be a ‘nutcase’.  Pickles et al may make pronouncements about giving more powers to local councils, but they are more than happy to keep telling us what to do, said another party member.
 
There are those who are positive about the party’s influence in terms of localism. Carl Minns, the leader of Hull Council, told me that  having Lib Dem ministers in power will help to ensure the shift to localism is meaningful, adding it will also be supported by a “hard core of Tory MPs who get this agenda”.

But it’s easy to call for more local power and easy to accept – even welcome – local variation when you are running a council; it’s harder to do so as a minister and not just because of the shadowy and regressive influence of Whitehall mandarins reluctant to give away power and money (who have emerged as a key bad guy in many debates on the future of localism). The political pressures of office will also take their toll: Minns told me he will know localism has succeeded when a minister questioned about a tragedy such as the Baby P case has the confidence to tell the press: ‘It’s not my responsibility’.
 
There is also the question of what localism means to each party. Giving powers to Academies and GPs is not localism, argued Lib Dem peer and former leader of Newcastle City Council Lord Shipley: it is atomisation of public services.

Constitutional reform may be being touted as the coalition’s biggest test, and protesters may be focusing on the legitimacy and nature of public service cuts but the another very real test of the coalition for the Lib Dem faithful will be in the detail, and practical outcomes, of this autumn’s localism and decentralisation bill and whether their ministers will be brave enough to keep sticking up for localism against the institutional and political pressures of central power.