The countdown is on – just one week left until Parliamentary recess, yet the Government's to-do list still looks like it could be written on a loo roll rather than a side of A4. It was ever thus.

The end of the Local Government Association conference has always coincided with the start of a frenzied period of ‘let's get everything through the Parliamentary machine before ministers jet off to Tuscany'. This so-called silly season is only mildly foolish these days: when was the last time local government sipped Aperol and enjoyed the dog days of summer free from crisis or calamity?