Yes, I tend to put the nation's ills down to a combination of over-centralisation, an archaic voting system creating safe seats, and continued decline in local authority funding and powers. Each of these, of course, is a mini-essay in itself of course.



Yes, this is when the high-level ideal hits reality first. One of the more painful things I've come to accept is that whilst I still think institutions matter, they are operated by people. Some federal states have done well in the pandemic, others less so, often both in the same country. Different approaches will lead to different outcomes, but outside of an emergency differences in policy and implementation provide some ground for experimentation. Whenever I've discussed this with friends, one view that always comes out is the unhappiness with the idea that services might not be the same across the country.

There's also the question of which powers should lie where, and I don't think there's a hard and fast rule on this. It also requires people to keep aware of who does what and where, and an eagerness to use these bodies as more than just a chance to show two fingers to Westminster. Perhaps one failing of the UK's EU experience was people never understood what the supranational level did and how it worked (myself included) so it became seen as a layer of expensive deadwood rather than anything beneficial to their lives.

You can have the wisest constitutional settlement, but ultimately it means nothing without money. Germany has an equalisation clause meaning that the richer Länder have to support the poorer ones, and something like that would have to be implemented in a way that keeps everybody happy.

This is a topic I can happily discuss and play around with all night. I'm also well aware of the kindly six word teardown my old university tutor made after I'd presented a paper extolling the wisdom of federalism: "Explain the American Civil War then".