Centre for Cities

Full audio of our City Horizons event with Tristram Hunt MP, held at the People's History Museum in Manchester on 18 April 2016. In his speech, Tristram argued that Labour should embrace political devolution for cities, and suggested three areas where the party could go further than what has been offered by the devolution deals so far: greater fiscal devolution, public service reform, and local civic ownership of utilities. In the Q&A session after the speech, Tristram addressed concerns about local engagement with the devolution process, how to square devolution with redistribution, and the extent to which the programme he has set out is supported by the Labour leadership.

In this month's episode, Andrew looks at how the politics of cities have changed since the General Election, and what we can expect from the Local Elections on the 5th May. The conversation touches on the influence of national politics on the local campaigns, how party divisions on devolution and austerity might affect the result, and what the impact of new directly-elected mayors will have on the standing of local politics. Joining Andrew are Tom Clarkson, Research Team Leader at ComRes, Jonn Elledge, Editor of CityMetric, and David Kirkby Senior Research Fellow at Bright Blue.