Read all about it | 28 February 2019

The announcement this week that Capital, Heart and Smooth radio are cutting back their local news shows might not in itself seem important — they have loyal audiences keen to know what’s happening outside London — but it’s part of a worrying trend. Over the past two decades, important powers have been devolved to regions and local areas, a process that began with Tony Blair’s regional assemblies and picked up with David Cameron’s ‘localism’ agenda. We now have several elected mayors, while local authorities have more responsibility over the NHS. The decisions that affect our lives are more likely to be taken locally than nationally.

And yet at the same time the local media that once held local government to account has atrophied. While councillors and local officials make ever-more important decisions, fewer and fewer of us find out what they are up to. This matters. When Lynton Crosby was David Cameron’s campaign chief, he eschewed BBC radio and instead alternated between Heart, Smooth and Magic, saying he wanted to hear about the country as ordinary voters did.