George Osborne has been busily signing more devolution deals today, with five pilot schemes moving power over health policy and spending from Whitehall to London boroughs. It’s part of the Chancellor’s devolution revolution that he is making a key part of his brand. It’s also – as is always the case with Osborne – a bit of clever politicking.
Osborne caught Labour on the hop with his devolution deal for Greater Manchester earlier this year, with Andy Burnham struggling to work out what the party’s official line was on Labour councils happily signing up to a Tory deal. Many of his Labour colleagues were unimpressed with the then Shadow Health Secretary’s response to the deal.
The party is still not really managing to respond to the latest waves of devolution announcements, and this has frustrated those MPs who are particularly keen on Labour speaking to English voters. Ben Bradshaw and former Southampton Itchen MP John Denham are trying to convince the party leadership – which is rather preoccupied at the moment, funnily enough – to take Englishness and English voters’ fears that they are being left out in the debate about greater powers for Scotland seriously.
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