Believe it or not, there was a plan by Gordon Brown on becoming prime minister.

He had it all mapped out months previously, as you would expect, since there were no surprises about his taking over from Tony Blair.
And then, along came ‘events', and Mr Brown has been trying to catch up ever since. I remember, to excuse a personal anecdote, when interviewing ex-press chief, Alastair Campbell, soon after he stepped down from Number 10 in 2004, how he, too, had said his main priority was sticking to the agenda and not being blown off course by events.
But, of course, events are the stuff of government, and one assumes our expert Whitehall mandarins are adept at advising their untrained amateurs, the ministers, how to respond to them without losing sight of their goals.
So, when a large tome dropped into our e-mail box last week from the Cabinet Office, marked Realising Britain's potential: Future strategic challenges for Britain we realised that Mr Brown's plan trundles on, unmarked by the shrapnel thrown up by events. In this case, though, we could have knocked the report off in a couple of days, aided by copious use of websites, such is its repetition of old mantras.
And what does it reveal? First, much of it is about public services, and not a lot of it will happen without local government. Population change caused by migration and ageing will impact on social care, public expectations from their public services will continue to rise, and these, in turn, will need to be tailored to ‘individual needs', while education remains a top priority and housing shortages will remain a concern.
Astonishingly enough, apparently, ‘local communities will continue to be important in supporting family life', while local leaders ‘will face increasing demands to ensure positive and vibrant places for people and families to live'. Neighbourhood policing will continue to ‘play a crucial role.' 
Putting aside its elementary, Wikipedia approach to analysing the challenges to Britain, the Cabinet Office report, nonetheless, makes it plain that the answers to these challenges are mostly local and should be dealt with locally.
We will all agree that particular strategy must not be knocked off course by events.
Michael Burton
Editor, The MJ