FINANCE

MHCLG's new lockdown hobby

Lockdown has prompted many of us to take up new hobbies – from painting to learning a language.

Lockdown has prompted many of us to take up new hobbies – from painting to learning a language.

And it seems that levels of boredom at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) have reached such levels that the press office has turned to blogging its way through the coronavirus crisis.

‘MHCLG in the Media' bills itself as a review of stories about the department in the news, including ‘rebuttal of inaccurate comment'.

In a move that has the remnants of Dominic Cummings' clammy fingerprints all over it, the blog has been busy laying into Guardian editorials - which apparently ignore ‘the fact councils' core spending power rose by over £2.9bn this financial year even before additional emergency funding was announced' – and tweets by Newsnight's policy editor.

The blustering bloggers also variously described suggestions in the Manchester Evening News about the future of rough sleeping support as ‘inaccurate, simply wrong, entirely wrong, entirely incorrect and misleading'.

Diary awaits the next installation of the blog, which might look to correct MHCLG's own press statement referring to ‘City of Lincolnshire Council'.

FINANCE

Spring Statement: An opportunity not taken

By Mike Emmerich | 28 March 2025

Mike Emmerich says the chancellor avoided a chance to use the Spring Statement to change the fiscal mood music, and the Spending Review can’t come soon enough

FINANCE

Nothing is impossible when it comes to creating new councils

By Heather Jameson | 27 March 2025

Heather Jameson writes: 'After a rapid, bumpy start to reorganisation, where councils have scraped together first thoughts at breakneck speed, it is back in ...

FINANCE

Learning the lessons of past reform

By Mike Palin | 19 March 2025

As the Government vows to slash quangos, Mike Palin looks back at previous attempts to cut red tape and considers what lessons we should learn

FINANCE

Can AI reorganise local government?

By Paul Marinko | 13 March 2025

The MJ team put AI to the test to see if it could come up with workable solutions to local government reorganisation, as the Government’s deadline for propos...