As we hurtle rapidly towards September, local government is set to spend the rest of the summer wrestling with local lockdown and planning for recovery. But for a huge chunk of local government, the devolution and local recovery White Paper – the latest incarnation of the Government's long-awaited devolution plans – will dominate their thinking. Not least as it has become inextricably linked with local government reorganisation. 

As ever, it is being pitched as a battle between the county councils and their districts – but nothing could be further from the truth. This is not a case of who ‘wins' – this is a case of scrapping both sides and starting again with a new, modern unitary.