Why? That’s the mystery. Why go through the upheaval of a mighty local government reorganisation, merging hundreds of district councils with the counties above them, when it will exhaust capacity in already overstretched and near-bankrupt councils? It wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto – and its electoral system for mayors will do Labour untold damage.

It’s baffling to watch the government struggling with abolishing districts and reordering unitary councils, for no practical or political purpose. It looks like a displacement activity: everyone knows financially crippled councils need relief from the social care crisis, and reform of the hated council tax system in which Buckingham Palace pays less than an average house in Hartlepool. But this busy deckchair-shifting avoids those. Nor is there very much devolution in it.

Former Tory local government minister Eric Pickles was George Osborne’s axe-wielder, who nitpicked officials over the cost of their biscuits at meetings. But he said one wise thing: “I’ll have a pearl-handled revolver waiting in my drawer for the first civil servant who suggests another local government reorganisation.” Even so, abolition of district councils was begun by the Tories, with Labour completing it.

For example, in 2018 Dorset shrank nine councils into two, and cut councillors from 333 to 158. I have no idea how many councillors there should be, or the right size of councils, but Prof Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, the great expert, says no one else does either, not even him. “There’s no evidence that Hampshire, with its district councils, is better or worse governed than say, Shropshire or........

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