All the evidence shows voters want Labour to shift to the left — but initial signs from Andy Burnham are worrying on that front, cautions DIANE ABBOTT
LOCAL authorities across the UK are being starved of funding but also have a list of statutory duties.
Councils in Scotland have fared no better. The traditional powers excised by local government over decades have not been safeguarded.
The Scottish government is bypassing local authorities, and in the name of giving more powers to head teachers, taking more direct control of schools, which effectively takes education out of local democratic control.
This follows the centralisation of Fire and Rescue and Police Scotland.
Years of underfunding are eroding Scotland’s local services and deepening inequality in communities, says VINCE MILLS
In the second of a series of interviews with leaders of progressive parties in Wales ahead of the May 7 Senedd election David Nicholson talks to Welsh Green Party leader ANTHONY SLAUGHTER
ANSELM ELDERGILL is a member of Your Party and he suggests how the new party should reform Britain’s constitution
On the release of her memoir that reveals everything except politics, Sturgeon’s endless media coverage has focused on her panic attacks, sexuality and personal tragedies while ignoring her government’s many failures, writes PAULINE BRYAN


