On local government and the two-party system
Some of my writings elsewhere
As a wise man never once said: A Substack is for life, not just for Christmas. And I have neglected this Substack. So for 2025 if I can’t get around to writing any original content, I will at least be using it to share what I have written elsewhere.
Broke and Broken: The Crises Facing Local Government in England
Following the local elections in May 2024, we at the Department of Politics at the University of Liverpool hosted an event to analyse the results (you can watch my analysis of the Reform and Green performance here).
After this, I was asked to write something about the state of local government broadly - which I duly did, for Political Quarterly. In true academic style, it took me 5 months to write and then 2 months to publish.
I basically argue that we need more - not less - local government, and a more representative voting system. You can read the piece here: https://politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/broke-and-broken-the-crises-facing-local-government-in-england/
Britain’s two-party system is crumbling
Semester 1 saw me teaching POLI239: British Party Politics. I’ve been doing this for 7 years now, and one of my favourite parts is talking about the effective number of electoral parties and the effective number of legislative parties - and not just because I like the look of sheer horror on my students’ faces when I show them this formula:
(all is explained in this covid-era pre-recorded lecture, here, but I actually think I’m quite kind because I link them to this amazing PDF from Michael Gallagher outlining the figures for pretty much every national democratic election you could think of).
So I jumped at the chance to write a brief piece for UnHerd on how the rise of Reform is pushing FPTP’s ability to maintain a two-party system in the legislature, based on More in Common’s new MRP, where I managed to shoehorn these figures in.
You can read the piece here: https://unherd.com/newsroom/britains-two-party-system-is-crumbling/