The UK government’s ‘Devo Manc’ proposals represent centralisation on steroids

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced on the 3 November 2014 that Greater Manchester will be given a directly elected mayor with authority over £1 billion of spending in areas such as transport and policing. Robin Hambleton writes that the plan, popularly referred to as ‘Devo Manc’, has been justified by the British government on the basis of decentralising power within England. He argues, however, that the proposals actually represent an extraordinary boost to top-down government in a state that is already one of the most centralised in the western world.

• Primary Source

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