The Government’s plan to scrap Gloucestershire’s district councils isn’t local reform – it’s regional centralisation.

By removing an entire layer of accessible representation and replacing it with a single, remote authority, Westminster is quietly reshaping English democracy without a mandate, a vote, or public consent. Gloucestershire is simply the latest warning: a local “efficiency” project that signals a much larger national problem – the steady erosion of democratic layers in favour of bigger, more distant political structures.