A generation of UK politicians from all parties and at both local and national level were scarred by the exhausting infighting behind local government reorganisation in the 1990s and to a lesser extent in 2009 with the creation of the new unitaries.

Conservatives, who tended to dominate shire districts, were more scarred than others, which explains why in May 2010 on forming the coalition the new local government minister Bob Neill promptly blocked the creation of more unitaries in Devon, Suffolk and Norfolk.