As always, there's a new-term feel to this time of year, as we spring or crawl back to our desks – depending on how successful our summer holidays were – and look forward to the year ahead. In the political arena, this new term is most obviously marked by party conference season. For all the main political parties this looks likely to be a somewhat fraught time. Each in their own way faces profound – possibly existential – crisis and each looks likely to be caught between Brexit strategy on the one hand and internal party management on the other. The domestic agenda is squeezed out by these powerful forces.

Local government policy is a victim of this dynamic and I've written before in these pages about the challenges and opportunities offered by this stasis. What does become increasingly clear, however, is the precise nature of the challenge we face. And that is to bridge the gap between two competing realities.