The Labour leadership have supported the government sending commissioners into the City of Liverpool following the shocking Caller report into corruption there. As someone who has edited more than a few reports on local government in my time, I can tell you that they are rarely as blockbuster or as gripping as this one. Labour had no choice but to follow suit. But the important question is what they do next. Accepting the commissioners has to be the first line of a whole new approach to local government by the Labour Party – led from the top but delivered at all levels of the party.

The way politics is currently shaped, there are councils where the only opposition to the leading party comes from within. Strongholds are just that with one party holding not just a super majority of seats, but nearly all of them. This means that when issues occur, it can only be from within the party in charge that scrutiny and challenge can come.