Author Archives: Barry

365. The Economy Follows Energy, Not Government

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Much political debate assumes that governments determine the future of the economy.

They do not. Governments influence many aspects of society, but they do not control the underlying direction of economic development.

That direction is determined principally by the availability of surplus energy.

Every economy is an energy system before it is a financial system. Without energy there is no transport, manufacturing, agriculture, communications or construction. More importantly, it is not simply the amount of energy that matters, but the surplus energy available after the energy sector has met its own needs.

When surplus energy is abundant, economies expand. Industries become more specialised. Trade grows over longer distances. Cities increase in size. Public services expand. Governments collect more tax revenue and can afford larger programmes.

When surplus energy begins to decline, the reverse process gradually takes place. Economic growth slows. Discretionary spending falls. Governments experience increasing financial pressure. Businesses consolidate or disappear. Production becomes more local because long and complex supply chains become increasingly difficult to sustain economically.

This is not primarily the result of government policy. It is the natural evolution of an economy responding to its energy base.

Governments certainly matter, but they operate within limits imposed by the physical economy. They can influence the detail without changing the overall direction.

For example, governments can influence:

  • taxation;
  • public spending;
  • regulation;
  • education;
  • planning policy;
  • land ownership;
  • housing policy;
  • the distribution of wealth;
  • the legal rights of citizens.

These decisions affect how fairly society functions and who benefits from the available resources. They influence the quality of life, but they do not determine the overall size of the economy.

The size of the economy is determined by the quantity of surplus energy available to support productive activity.

This distinction is fundamental.

The structure of the economy evolves naturally in response to changing energy availability.

The details of how society operates are influenced by successive governments.

Confusing these two levels of change leads to unrealistic expectations. Elections cannot restore economic conditions that were made possible only by abundant, inexpensive surplus energy. Likewise, no government can legislate sustained growth if the underlying energy surplus is shrinking.

This helps explain why governments of different political parties often struggle with the same economic problems. Each administration introduces new policies, yet the broad direction remains remarkably similar because all are operating within the same energy constraints.

As surplus energy declines, the United Kingdom is experiencing a gradual transition towards a smaller, less complex economy. This should not be confused with a temporary recession. It represents a long-term structural adjustment driven by physical realities rather than political ideology.

The important political questions therefore become different.

Instead of asking how governments can restore perpetual economic growth, we should ask:

  • How should land ownership be organised?
  • How can essential services be protected?
  • How can greater equality between citizens be maintained?
  • How can communities become more resilient?
  • How should power be distributed between central government and localities?

These are questions that governments can influence.

They cannot, however, determine the overall size of the economy. That is ultimately governed by the amount of surplus energy available to society.

Understanding this distinction changes the entire debate about Britain’s future. The evolution of the economy is largely determined by energy. Politics determines how society adapts to that evolution.

364, Devolution Is Not Localism 

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The current debate about devolution assumes that transferring power from Whitehall to larger regional authorities will create stronger economic growth. It is certainly an improvement if decisions are taken closer to the people affected by them. Local knowledge is almost always better than decisions made hundreds of miles away.

However, devolution should not be confused with localism. They are not the same thing.

Devolution merely moves power from one level of government to another. Whitehall gives powers to combined authorities, regional mayors or county authorities. The structure remains essentially the same. Decisions are still made from above. Taxation, regulation and administration remain the principal tools of government.

Localism is fundamentally different.

The localist model begins with the locality itself. Instead of asking how government can manage economic growth, it asks how people can meet more of their own needs where they live. The emphasis shifts from administration to production, from bureaucracy to practical activity.

The Daily Telegraph rightly warns that devolution could simply become another layer of taxation, regulation and administration. That danger is real. New political institutions have a tendency to justify their existence by creating more officials, more plans and more spending. Unless there is genuine economic change beneath the political structure, little will have been achieved.

The deeper question is whether the industrial economy that made large-scale central government possible is now beginning to contract.

For two centuries Britain became steadily more centralised because abundant, cheap fossil-fuel energy allowed production, transport, communication and government to operate on an ever larger scale. Economic growth supported increasingly complex institutions. Centralisation was not simply a political choice. It was made possible by abundant surplus energy.

As surplus energy declines, that process begins to reverse.

Economic activity naturally becomes more local because long supply chains, distant administration and highly specialised systems become increasingly expensive to maintain. This is not an ideological programme. It is the natural evolution of a post-growth economy.

In that world, local government itself will have to change. Success will depend less on attracting outside investment and more on increasing local resilience.

A successful locality will produce more of its own food. It will conserve water. It will generate part of its own energy. It will maintain local skills, workshops and small businesses. It will make greater use of local materials and local labour. Money will circulate within the locality instead of constantly leaking away to national and international corporations.

The role of government also changes. Instead of attempting to stimulate endless economic growth, it becomes an enabler of local production. It removes unnecessary barriers, supports local enterprise and helps communities organise the essential services upon which daily life depends.

Competition between regions, as suggested in the debate on devolution, has some value. But cooperation within localities is even more important. The future is unlikely to be won by competing to attract the next multinational employer. It is more likely to depend on rebuilding the local economy from the ground up.

This is why localism goes beyond devolution.

Devolution changes who exercises power.

Localism changes where economic life takes place.

One is primarily constitutional.

The other is structural.

As Britain moves beyond the age of continuous economic growth, transferring powers from Westminster to regional authorities may prove useful. But unless that process also encourages the rebuilding of genuinely local economies, it risks becoming little more than a different way of administering decline.

The real challenge is not to create bigger local government.

It is to create stronger local economies.

363. A comprehensive guide to effectively stockpiling food

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As the government endorses stocking up in case of an emergency, our food expert advises how best to approach it without panicking

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Xanthe Clay food writer Show biography Xanthe Clay

Published 15 July 2026 5:56pm BST

Be prepared, says the Boy Scout motto, and the phrase has taken on a new significance. For years, people who stockpile as a safeguard in the event of national emergency have been the butt of jokes and even a Radio 4 satire, Preppers. Now they are being given government endorsement, with new advice on what to keep at home in the event of a breakdown in power or food supply.

Not-so-neurotic, then. But in fact experts such as Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at City St George’s, University of London, have often warned that we need to ready ourselves. “For too long a ‘don’t frighten the public’ ethos has ruled,” he says, “yet other countries take a more grown-up approach to the public.” He is right that countries such as Sweden have detailed advice for coping with food shortages in an emergency, and Lang’s Just In Case report for the National Preparedness Commission warns of the vulnerabilities in the food system, from war, climate change, terrorism and myriad other threats.

So what can we do? Firstly, don’t panic – and don’t panic buy. But we can give a little thought to how we’d manage if the power went out for a day or a week, or if the internet stopped working, or shops ran low on supplies. In fact, a little less dependence on all these props of modern life can’t be a bad thing. Here are some starting points.

Store-cupboard essentials to stock up on

Items that last without being kept chilled or frozen – what supermarkets call “ambient goods” – are the cornerstone of any food cache, as they’ll survive long power outages. We can all take inspiration from the old-fashioned pantry.

board items should be the cornerstone of any food stockpile  Credit: Andrew Crowley

Pasta

Allow 75g per person per meal; a family of four eating pasta every other day for a week will need about 1kg. Allow 1.25kg for bigger appetites.

Rice

Plan on using about 70g per person in a risotto or as a side dish. 1kg will be enough for a family of four, eating rice every other day.

Bread flour, yeast and baking powder

The smell of freshly baked bread is guaranteed to lift the spirits. You’ll need 500g flour and 1 sachet (7g) of easy-blend yeast for each small loaf. Even if you can’t get the oven going, you can use the dough to make warm flatbreads on a hob, using either yeast or 1 tsp baking powder.

Crackers and biscuits

Include a pack of each per person per week for instant carbs and a vital adjunct to a cup of tea.

Pulses

Beans, lentils and chickpeas are a good source of protein and are better than meat at keeping us fuller for longer. Dried pulses last pretty much indefinitely, although beyond their best-before date they may take longer to cook. Crucially, they take up much less space than tinned, and 100g dried weight will swell to around 240g (roughly the amount in a tin) once cooked. Tins, however make sense when time, fuel or water for cooking are in short supply. Allow half a tin or 120g cooked weight of pulses per serving.

Tinned meat

Worth considering for variety. Spam and corned beef are salt-heavy, so how about tinned mince? M&S’s version (one of Delia Smith’s favourite “cheat” ingredients) has a respectable 1.26g per 200g serving. Use it for bolognese and cottage pie, or good old mince and potatoes. Allow 90g per serving, more for cooked meat and stews.

Tinned vegetables

Allow 1.5 x 300g tins per person per day. Carrots, peas and green beans from a tin or jar will count towards your five a day, but I advise dousing them in plenty of olive oil or ghee when cooking.

Pickles

A livelier alternative to tinned vegetables, and they don’t need to be refrigerated, unlike trendy “live ferments” (which will explode if kept at room temperature). Pickled onions, cabbage and gherkins are game on.

Tinned fruit

Tinned fruit such as pineapple, pears and peaches can be just as nutritious as fresh. Ideally, choose those in fruit juice or water rather than sugar syrup (allow 1 x 400g can per person per day), and add a cheering tin, or carton, of custard too.

A jar of tomato purée

Tomato concentrate is a great space saver. Once opened, press a piece of greaseproof paper onto the surface of the purée and store in the fridge or a cool place. Two tablespoons of it mixed with 90ml water make a substitute for tinned tomatoes or passata.

Tinned fish

Tinned sardines, tuna and anchovies are excellent sources of omega-3 and protein. Eaten straight out of the tin with bread and butter, they are even rather chic.

Dairy

Include a tub of powdered skimmed milk, and cartons of full-fat long-life milk as well, if you have space. Tins of ghee will keep for a year or more and fill the butter gap.

Fixes from the freezer

Keeping the freezer stocked is worthwhile for short-term power cuts and supply-chain glitches. Spare space? Keep ice packs in there, ready to add to insulated cool bags to lengthen the life of chilled food if the fridge stops working.

Frozen veg

Peas, of course, and bags of mixed med veg will add much-needed colour to dinnertime. Blocks of frozen spinach pack a lot of veg in the smallest space and are great for a quick shakshuka.

Water

Frozen bottles of water work as ice packs, too, and you can drink the water as it defrosts. Empty the top couple of inches before freezing so the plastic doesn’t split.

Fresh top-ups

Supply of fresh foods is the most vulnerable to disruption, so lettuce may be off the menu. But if you have a cool room, cellar, shed or garage, stock up on the following:

Root vegetables

Mature roots such as carrots, beetroot, celeriac and swede keep for months buried in damp sand or wood shavings, but trim off leafy tops and make sure there is good air flow by making holes in any plastic bags or boxes.

Onions and garlic

Look for traditional bundles with plaited stems, as this keeps bacteria from entering through the tops. Hang in a cool, dark place, and they should last six months, but keep using and rotating them.

Apples

Home-grown apples can be wrapped individually in newspaper and stored on racks or plastic mushroom trays in a cool, dark place. Inspect the stash regularly to check for any rotting fruit.

Fresh pickles

Ferments such as kimchi and sauerkraut last for as much as a year in the fridge, with the flavour developing over time.

362. The Missing Debate: Has the Industrial Economy Reached Its Limits?

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Comparing economist Robert Peston’s view of the economy with the localist view

Robert Peston is not an economic pessimist in the sense of predicting imminent collapse, but he has been consistently concerned that the UK has deep-seated structural economic weaknesses that politicians have failed to address.

His views can be summarised like this:

  • Low economic growth
    • He argues that Britain’s biggest problem is persistently weak productivity.
    • Without higher productivity, wages, tax revenues and living standards cannot rise significantly.
    • He frequently says governments of all parties have promised growth without tackling its underlying causes.
  • High government debt
    • Peston believes the UK’s public finances are under severe long-term pressure.
    • He points to:
      • an ageing population,
      • rising NHS and social care costs,
      • defence spending,
      • climate transition costs.
    • He argues that future governments will probably face difficult choices involving higher taxes, lower spending, or more borrowing.
  • Living standards
    • One of his recurring themes is that many people feel poorer even when GDP is growing.
    • He has highlighted that real wages have grown very slowly since the 2008 financial crisis.
    • In his view, this explains much of the political frustration seen across the UK.
  • Investment
    • He believes Britain invests too little in:
      • infrastructure,
      • research,
      • skills,
      • training,
      • technology.
    • He argues these are essential if productivity is to improve.
  • Brexit
    • Peston has repeatedly argued that Brexit has reduced trade with Europe and made the economy less productive.
    • While he does not blame every economic problem on Brexit, he regards it as an additional drag on growth.
  • The Bank of England
    • He generally supports the Bank’s independence.
    • However, he has criticised occasions when monetary policy or communication has been unclear, especially during periods of high inflation.

Peston does not usually claim that:

  • the UK economy is about to collapse;
  • capitalism is ending;
  • Britain is running out of physical resources or energy.

Instead, his analysis is that Britain faces long-term stagnation unless productivity and investment improve.

Peston’s view Compared with the localist view

Localism is more radical.

Robert Pestonlocalism
Weak productivityEnd of economic growth
More investment can restore growthGrowth itself is ending
Structural reforms are neededSociety must adapt to a post-growth economy
Concerned about debtConcerned about declining surplus energy and shrinking economies
Expects national institutions to continueExpects increasing importance of local communities

The key difference is diagnosis:

  • Peston: Britain’s problems are mainly economic and political, and could be improved through better policy.
  • Localism view: The problems are rooted in natural limits to growth—particularly energy, resources and economic contraction—so localism is an adaptation of what is occurring naturally and not a matter for government policy choice.

So, Peston identifies many of the same symptoms that concern localism (weak growth, stagnant incomes, strained public finances), but he attributes them to policy and productivity, whereas localism analysis sees them as natural consequences of how the economy works.

Neither Peston nor other classical economists say that the industrial economy has ended thia seems to be the bigger difference beween them and localism

I think we have identified a fundamental difference in the starting assumptions rather than just a disagreement about policy.

Most mainstream economists, including Robert Peston, generally assume that the industrial economy is still the dominant system and will continue, although it may need reform. Their questions are usually:

  • How can productivity be increased?
  • How can investment be encouraged?
  • How can innovation, technology and skills raise output?
  • How can governments manage debt and taxation?

The possibility that the industrial economy is entering a terminal phase is usually outside their framework.

The localist perspective starts from a different premise:

The industrial economy was built naturally on abundant, cheap energy, expanding material consumption and increasingly complex global supply chains. If those foundations weaken, the issue is not how to restore growth but how society reorganises itself after growth.

From this viewpoint, many of the problems identified by economists – stagnant wages, falling productivity growth, unaffordable housing, public debt, pressure on services – are not isolated policy failures but symptoms of a system reaching its limits.

The difference can be expressed like this:

Mainstream economicsLocalism / post-growth analysis
Growth is the solutionGrowth will no longer be possible
Productivity can keep rising through technologyTechnology itself depends on industrial supply chains and energy
More investment creates expansionInvestment may increasingly maintain existing systems rather than expand them
Globalisation increases efficiencyGlobalisation creates vulnerability
National governments remain the main actorsLocal communities naturally become more important
Economic decline is a temporary problemDecline is a long-term evolution from fossil fuel based industrial and consumerist growth to food based local economies.

The concept that bridges these views is surplus energy. Economists traditionally focus on money, capital, labour and productivity.

Analysts such as Tim Morgan argue that the economy is fundamentally a system for converting energy into useful work, and that declining energy returns constrain economic possibilities.

Where localism differs is that it treats this not merely as an economic adjustment but as a social transformation. The question becomes:

If the industrial economy cannot continue expanding, what replaces it?

The localist answer which evolves naturally will be:

  • shorter supply chains,
  • greater local food production,
  • community ownership,
  • repair and reuse rather than replacement,
  • local energy systems,
  • mutual support networks,
  • reduced dependence on distant complex systems.

This is not simply a forecast of industrial based economic decline, it is a different model of adaptation. Mainstream economics asks: “How do we restart growth?” Localism replies: “We are creating a new kind of society in which economic growth is no longer the organising principle?”

That distinction is probably the central argument you have been building in Chatting about Localism: that localism is not an ideological preference, but a practical response to the end of the industrial growth era.

361. The Bank of England Governor has urged the incoming Prime Minister to focus on one issue above all others

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The Governor of the Bank of England has delivered a stark warning as Andy Burnham prepares to take office.

Speaking to MPs, Andrew Bailey said the UK’s biggest economic challenge cannot be ignored.

Mr Bailey said the country’s weak economic growth should be the new Government’s top priority, warning Britain has struggled to grow its economy for almost two decades.

Appearing before the Treasury Committee, he said: “The overall message I would give is that I think the big issue is growth in the economy.”

Mr Bailey said the UK’s weak growth has persisted for around 16 to 17 years and stressed it is a long-term problem rather than the fault of any one Government.

“So this is not a story about any one government… but I think it’s important because a critical structural issue,” he told MPs.

Andy Burnham is on course to become Britain’s next Prime Minister as early as next week after securing the backing of more than 85 per cent of Labour MPs.

The Bank of England’s comments come ahead of the latest economic figures from the Office for National Statistics, due to be released on Thursday.

If confirmed, it would mark the second consecutive monthly contraction after the economy also shrank by 0.1 per cent in April, the first monthly decline since August last year.

Before that, the economy grew by 0.3 per cent in March and 0.4 per cent in February.

The April decline was driven by the services sector, which makes up the largest part of the UK economy, despite growth in construction and manufacturing.

The conflict between the US, Israel and Iran continues to weigh heavily on Britain’s economy through persistently high fuel and energy costs.

These elevated prices squeezed both businesses and households throughout April and May, though wholesale costs have eased somewhat in recent weeks.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves acknowledged the domestic fallout, stating: “It was not a war we wanted or joined, but one that will have an impact at home.”

Government ministers have cautioned that economic repercussions from the Iran conflict could linger for eight months beyond any ceasefire.

Food industry figures have also warned that supermarket prices could surge by up to 10 per cent later this year as the war’s inflationary effects filter through.

Mr Bailey emphasised that economic expansion cannot occur without a stable financial system, responding to questions about whether regulatory frameworks might be hampering growth.

“We will not get growth if we don’t have financial stability,” the Governor told the committee, while noting signs of resilience within the financial sector.

Despite the gloomy outlook, some economists identified potential bright spots.

360. The Housing Market Cannot Escape a Shrinking Economy

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The difficulties now facing major housebuilder Vistry are unlikely to be an isolated business problem. They are another indication that the housing market is beginning to collide with a shrinking economy.

For decades, housebuilding has depended upon one simple assumption – that tomorrow’s buyers will have more spending power than today’s. That assumption no longer holds.

In a shrinking economy, incomes come under pressure, secure employment becomes less common, banks become more cautious and households become less willing to take on large debts. Every one of these trends reduces demand for new housing.

The result is straightforward. Developers still face rising costs for land, materials, labour and finance, but fewer buyers can afford prices high enough to cover those costs. The response is familiar. Prices are discounted, profits disappear, building slows and companies cut investment. Eventually some fail altogether.

This is not simply a housing problem. It is the inevitable consequence of trying to operate a growth-based housing market in a non-growth economy.

The effects spread much further. Estate agents, solicitors, surveyors, mortgage lenders, furniture retailers, DIY stores, removal firms and countless other businesses all depend upon a steady flow of house sales. As transactions fall, demand falls throughout the entire housing economy.

At the same time, people begin adapting.

Instead of buying larger homes, families share existing ones. Older relatives remain with younger generations. Empty rooms are occupied. Large houses are divided into smaller units. Buildings that once stood empty are brought back into use. Existing homes are repaired and altered rather than replaced by new ones.

This is not a new idea. It is how housing operated for much of the nineteenth century, before the era of mass mortgages and speculative housebuilding.

The modern mortgage market itself may gradually contract. For most of history, people did not borrow thirty or forty years of future income from banks in order to obtain a home. Housing was often financed through family savings, local investment, building societies rooted in their communities, private agreements and gradual self-building as resources became available.

A shrinking economy may well push Britain back towards these more local and less debt-dependent arrangements. The house becomes a place to live rather than a financial asset whose value is expected to rise indefinitely.

This is where localism becomes important.

A locality that is increasingly self-reliant needs homes that support stable communities, not speculative investment. Local builders can concentrate on adapting existing buildings. Local skills become more valuable than large national developers. Empty properties become community assets rather than opportunities for speculation.

As the national housing market contracts, the importance of local housing solutions will grow. The transition may not be easy, but it is likely to be unavoidable.

The housing market was built for an expanding economy. The economy is now shrinking and housing will have to change with it.

The age of debt-fuelled expansion is now giving way to something much older – locally financed, locally adapted and locally owned housing, rooted in the needs of the community rather than the demands of the financial markets.

359. The Future of the Bicycle in a Local Economy

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The bicycle has one of the longest and most successful histories of any form of transport. During the nineteenth century it evolved from simple wooden machines into the familiar pedal cycle. By the late Victorian period Britain had become one of the world’s leading bicycle manufacturers. Thousands of local workshops produced frames, wheels, chains, saddles and components. Many engineering skills that later supported the motor industry were first developed in bicycle factories.

The bicycle was a truly local product. Every town had cycle shops that not only sold bicycles but repaired and modified them. Parts were interchangeable, skilled craftsmen could braze broken frames, and a bicycle might remain in service for decades.

The twentieth century brought enormous changes. Steel tubing became highly specialised, aluminium alloys became common, and later carbon fibre transformed racing bicycles. Manufacturing became concentrated in large factories, mostly overseas. The local cycle maker largely disappeared, replaced by retailers selling imported machines.

This model depends upon abundant energy, long international supply chains and continuous supplies of high quality metals. As the industrial economy contracts, each of these assumptions becomes less certain. Steel production requires huge amounts of energy and complex infrastructure. Aluminium is even more energy intensive. Carbon fibre depends upon sophisticated chemical industries. If these systems begin to fail, complete bicycles will become increasingly difficult to obtain.

That does not mean that cycling itself disappears. Quite the opposite. As fuel becomes expensive and motor transport contracts, bicycles become more valuable than ever. The question is not whether bicycles survive, but how they are made.

The answer may lie in rediscovering local manufacture using materials that can be obtained within the locality or recovered from the existing economy.

The first source of material will be recycling. Millions of bicycles already exist. Their frames, wheels, chains and gears represent an enormous stock of engineering materials. Even badly damaged bicycles contain useful components. Local workshops can recover, repair and rebuild machines almost indefinitely.

Eventually, however, even recycled steel may become scarce. Local communities will then need to explore other materials.

Timber offers one possibility. Modern wooden bicycles already exist, using laminated hardwoods such as ash, oak and beech. Properly designed wooden frames are surprisingly strong, absorb road vibration well, and can last for many years. Unlike metals, timber can be grown within the locality and replenished continuously through careful woodland management.

Bamboo provides another example where climate permits. It has exceptional strength for its weight and has been used successfully for bicycle frames in several countries. Although not suitable everywhere in Britain, it illustrates how natural materials can replace industrial ones.

Other parts can also return to natural materials. Wooden mudguards, leather saddles, wooden rims for certain applications, natural fibre baskets, hemp ropes and locally produced accessories all reduce dependence upon imported industrial products.

Local blacksmiths and engineering workshops could manufacture the few metal fittings still required from recycled steel. Bearings, axles and chains may remain the most difficult items to replace, making their careful maintenance increasingly important.

The bicycle itself may also change. Modern multi-speed machines are highly efficient but mechanically complex. Simpler designs, single-speed bicycles and direct chain drives require fewer specialised components and are easier to maintain locally.

This represents a return to an older philosophy. Throughout most of cycling’s history, people expected to repair rather than replace. A broken frame was brazed. Worn bearings were adjusted. Wheels were rebuilt repeatedly. Ownership meant stewardship rather than consumption.

Localism naturally supports this approach. Every locality could sustain a bicycle workshop employing skilled mechanics, woodworkers and metalworkers. Apprentices would learn practical engineering rather than simply replacing factory-built parts. The bicycle would once again become part of the productive economy instead of the consumer economy.

Ironically, the decline of industrial abundance may restore the bicycle to its original role. Not a fashionable recreational item, but an essential machine that local people understand, build, maintain and value.

The future bicycle may look rather different from today’s lightweight racing machines. It may contain more timber than steel, more craftsmanship than automation, and more local knowledge than imported technology. Yet it will still perform the same remarkable task that has made the bicycle one of humanity’s greatest inventions – transporting people efficiently using nothing more than human energy.

In a shrinking economy, that may prove to be one of its greatest strengths. The bicycle does not belong to the age of limitless industrial growth. Properly adapted, it belongs just as naturally to the age of localism.

349. Giant Solar Farms and the Death of Local Decision-Making

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The Government’s decision to approve the One Earth Solar Farm in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire is another reminder that Britain’s planning system has become increasingly centralised. It is not simply about renewable energy. It is about who has the right to decide how land is used.

In this case, the Government’s own planning inspector recommended that permission should not be granted. The inspector had considered the evidence, weighed the arguments and concluded that the proposal should be refused. Yet the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, simply overruled that recommendation.

This illustrates one of the greatest weaknesses of Britain’s highly centralised system of government. Local people, local authorities and independent inspectors can spend years examining a proposal, only to have their conclusions swept aside by a minister in Whitehall.

That is not local democracy. It is central command.

The One Earth Solar Farm will cover thousands of acres of productive agricultural land. At a time when Britain imports a growing proportion of its food, replacing fertile farmland with industrial-scale energy developments raises serious questions about national resilience.

Many of these low-lying areas have also experienced flooding. Large solar arrays alter the way land is managed. Maintenance tracks, fencing, drainage works and extensive ground disturbance can affect the movement of water across the landscape. Whatever mitigation measures are proposed, flooding risks should always be considered carefully before approving developments of this scale.

Local communities understand these landscapes far better than distant departments in London. They know where water collects, which fields remain wet throughout the winter and how changing land management affects neighbouring properties.

This is precisely why decisions should be made as close as possible to the people who live with the consequences.

Localism does not mean opposing renewable energy. It means asking whether electricity generation should become another function returned to the locality rather than imposed from above.

Instead of a handful of enormous solar installations owned by large corporations, localism points towards many smaller schemes owned by communities, farms, cooperatives and local businesses. Electricity generated close to where it is used reduces transmission losses, spreads risk and allows income to remain within the local economy.

Large developments also make communities increasingly dependent upon national infrastructure and national political decisions. Smaller locally owned systems build resilience because they can evolve with local needs and local resources.

The approval of the One Earth Solar Farm therefore represents more than another planning decision. It demonstrates how Britain’s planning system has drifted away from local accountability.

When ministers can overrule their own inspectors, local consultation becomes little more than a procedural exercise. The message is clear: decisions are made in Whitehall, not in the communities that must live with them.

If Britain is serious about creating a resilient future, we need more than renewable energy. We need a planning system that trusts local people, protects productive farmland, respects local knowledge of flood risk and allows communities to shape their own future.

That is what localism is about.

348. The Pension Crisis Points Towards Localism

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A recent Daily Telegraph article examined Britain’s growing state pension problem by comparing it with Slovakia, which has introduced reforms to make its pension system more affordable. The conclusion is clear. Britain faces rising pension costs, fewer working-age people to support retirees, and difficult political choices over taxation, borrowing and retirement age.

But the article raises a more fundamental question.

Why has the pension system become unsustainable in the first place?

The answer lies in the ending of the growth economy.

For most of the last century governments assumed that each generation would enjoy higher productivity, higher incomes and a larger workforce. Economic growth would generate enough tax revenue to support an expanding retired population. The system depended upon continuous expansion.

That expansion is now faltering. Energy is becoming more expensive to obtain, natural resources are under increasing pressure, debt has grown to extraordinary levels, and birth rates have fallen across much of Europe. Governments are trying to maintain promises that were made under conditions that no longer exist.

The result is predictable. Pension ages rise. Benefits come under pressure. Taxes increase. Governments borrow more. None of these measures addresses the underlying cause. They merely delay the adjustment.

Localism starts from a completely different understanding.

Instead of asking how central government can continue financing an ever more expensive welfare state, localism asks how people can recover the ability to provide more of life’s essentials within their own locality.

This is where the emerging wood economy becomes important.

As fossil fuels become more costly and less available, wood once again becomes a valuable local resource. Managed woodlands can provide building materials, fuel, furniture, tools, charcoal, compost, craft products and many other necessities. They also create meaningful work that cannot easily be moved elsewhere.

Older people have a particularly important place in such an economy. Many possess practical knowledge, traditional skills and life experience that can be passed on to younger generations. Their contribution is measured not only by paid employment but by teaching, mentoring, repairing, organising and strengthening the social fabric of the locality.

At the same time, local communities naturally provide much of the practical support that older people need – friendship, transport, meals, small repairs, shopping and companionship. These are things that no amount of central government spending can organise as effectively as neighbours who know one another.

The pension itself remains important. People who have contributed throughout their lives deserve financial security. But money alone cannot provide resilience. A pension paid

At the same time, local communities naturally provide much of the practical support that older people need – friendship, transport, meals, small repairs, shopping and companionship. These are things that no amount of central government spending can organise as effectively as neighbours who know one another.

The pension itself remains important. People who have contributed throughout their lives deserve financial security. But money alone cannot provide resilience. A pension paid into an isolated community with few local skills and little local production buys progressively less security as national systems come under strain.

A locality that produces more of its own essentials, values the contribution of every generation and shares responsibility for one another is far more resilient.

The pension debate is therefore about much more than retirement ages or Treasury budgets. It is about the future shape of society.

The growth economy assumed that security would come from expanding national wealth.

The local economy recognises that lasting security comes from productive localities, healthy woodlands, practical skills and strong human relationships.

The pension crisis is not simply a financial problem. It is another sign that Britain is moving from one economic age into another. Localism is not an escape from that transition. It is one of the few practical ways of living successfully within it.

347, The Daily Telegraph reports that Britain is approaching a point where the present economic system is becoming impossible to sustain.

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The Office for Budget Responsibility warns that ever higher taxes will discourage work, while advances in artificial intelligence could remove millions of jobs over the coming decades.

The discussion is framed as a crisis. How will governments pay for everything if fewer people are in paid employment?

From a localist perspective, this may be asking the wrong question.

The industrial economy has taught us to believe that people only become economically useful when they are employed by someone else and paid through the national money system. Anyone outside that system is seen as a cost, supported by taxes collected from those who remain in work.

Yet throughout history this has been the exception rather than the rule.

For thousands of years people created wealth directly within their own localities. They grew food, repaired buildings, made tools, cared for one another, passed on skills and maintained the landscape. Much of this work never appeared in government statistics, yet it sustained society.

Today millions of unemployed, retired and underemployed people possess experience, practical ability and local knowledge. The present economic system largely ignores this resource because it values only paid employment.

Localism sees something entirely different.

These people are not an economic problem. They are the seed from which a new local economy can grow.

Given access to land, workshops, woodland, community buildings and local markets, they could help produce food, repair household goods, restore neglected buildings, manage local woodlands, teach traditional skills, care for neighbours and create countless small enterprises that reduce dependence on distant supply chains.

Many already have the time. Many have the willingness. What they lack is not ability but opportunity.

As national systems become increasingly strained by debt, taxation and declining growth, local production becomes more valuable. Every item produced locally is one that does not need to be transported long distances or purchased from outside the locality. Every practical skill shared strengthens local resilience.

Artificial intelligence may replace many office jobs, but it cannot coppice a woodland, repair a dry stone wall, maintain a village hall, grow vegetables, restore biodiversity or care personally for an elderly neighbour. These activities are rooted in place.

The unemployed therefore represent a reserve of human energy waiting to be released. Instead of paying people simply to remain outside economic life, society could create the conditions in which they become active participants in rebuilding their own localities.

This is not a return to the past. It is a recognition that the future may depend less on creating ever more jobs within a shrinking industrial economy and more on enabling people to create genuine wealth where they live.

The question is not how many people leave the national labour market.

The real question is how many of them can become the pioneers of a thriving local economy.

Source

The Daily Telegraph article, “Two million could quit work: Burnham warned on tax rises”, 8 July 2026, discusses the long term fiscal outlook published by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the growing pressures on taxation, employment and public debt.

346, Could There Be Some Beauty in Collapse?

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Professor Jem Bendell has published a thought-provoking essay entitled “Could There Be Some Beauty in Collapse?” It can be read here:

Could there be some beauty in collapse?

The title itself challenges one of our deepest assumptions. Collapse is normally seen only as something to fear. Bendell does not ignore the hardship that accompanies the breakdown of complex societies, but he asks whether such a process might also create the conditions for a better way of living.

This question goes to the heart of localism.

Our industrial economic system depended upon continual growth, abundant energy, expanding global trade and increasing complexity. Yet these same forces have steadily weakened local communities. Production has moved further away. Decision-making has become centralised. People have become consumers rather than participants in the places where they live.

The growing evidence is that this system is reaching its limits. Economic growth has ended as energy is becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain, public finances are under increasing pressure and many institutions struggle to perform the functions expected of them. These are not isolated problems. They are symptoms of a civilisation that has grown beyond what can be sustained.

If this is true, then the future will not simply be about managing decline. It will be about discovering how society can function at a smaller and more human scale.

That is where localism offers hope.

As large systems become less reliable, localities become more important. Food can increasingly be produced close to home. Small businesses can meet more everyday needs. Skills that have almost disappeared can return. Repair can replace disposal. Local woodland can provide timber, fuel and employment. Housing can be built using local materials. Young people can find worthwhile work without leaving the places where they were born.

A shrinking economy does not have to mean a shrinking quality of life. If wealth is measured only by money, the future may appear bleak. If wealth includes security, friendship, purpose, practical ability and belonging, then a very different picture emerges.

Throughout history, people have shown extraordinary resilience during periods of change. Communities that work together often become stronger, not weaker. They discover that many of the things that bring satisfaction cannot be bought in a supermarket or delivered through a national bureaucracy.

The beauty in collapse, if there is any, lies not in the suffering that accompanies it but in the opportunity to rediscover ways of living that industrial society has pushed aside. Simplicity can replace excess. Cooperation can replace dependency. Responsibility can replace bureaucracy. The locality can once again become the place where people shape much of their own future.

Localism is therefore not a reaction to collapse. It is preparation for it. It provides a practical framework through which people can rebuild economic life, restore community and recover a sense of belonging. In doing so, it transforms what many see only as decline into the beginning of renewal.

Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of Bendell’s argument, his essay deserves careful reading. It encourages us to look beyond the immediate difficulties and ask what sort of society might emerge afterwards. That is a question localism has been asking for many years.

Perhaps the greatest beauty in collapse is that it reminds us of something we should never have forgotten – that the strongest society is not built from the top down, but grows from the locality upwards.

345, James Robertson and “Turning Point” – A Quiet Architect of Decentralisation

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James Robertson was one of those rare writers who worked steadily outside the spotlight, yet whose ideas continue to surface whenever people begin to question the direction of the modern economy. His newsletter, Turning Point, was not simply a commentary on policy. It was an attempt to describe a shift in civilisation itself, away from centralised economic control and towards a more locally rooted way of living and organising society.

Robertson began from a simple but unsettling observation. The dominant economic model, built around continuous growth and large scale institutions, was beginning to lose coherence. It was producing wealth in aggregate terms, yet leaving growing instability, dependency, and a weakening of local social fabric. For him, the issue was not just efficiency or distribution, but structure. An economy organised from the top down would inevitably drift away from human scale needs.

Turning Point set out the argument that change would not come primarily from governments reforming themselves, but from a deeper shift in how people understood power, money, and place. He believed that decentralisation was not an ideological preference but an evolutionary adjustment, as large systems became too complex and distant to manage the realities of everyday life.

A central theme in his writing was the idea of relocalising economic life. Production, services, and decision making would increasingly need to sit closer to the communities they affected. This was not nostalgia for a pre industrial past, but a recognition that scale had limits. Beyond a certain point, coordination costs rise, trust weakens, and systems become fragile.

Robertson also challenged the assumption that national economic indicators could meaningfully describe wellbeing. Growth in GDP, he argued, could coincide with deterioration in health, community, and environmental stability. In Turning Point, he repeatedly returned to the idea that what mattered was not how large the economy became, but how well it served people in specific places.

There is a clear connection between his thinking and what is now often described as localism. He anticipated many of the pressures that are now widely discussed, including the strain on centralised welfare systems, the vulnerability of global supply chains, and the weakening of mid level institutions that once connected national policy to local reality.

What makes Robertson’s contribution distinctive is its tone. He did not present decentralisation as disruption or protest, but as adjustment. In his view, societies were already moving in that direction, not because of ideology, but because central systems were slowly exceeding their practical limits.

Seen from a present perspective, Turning Point reads less like a prediction and more like a diagnosis written early. It identifies a moment when the structure of the economy begins to change direction, not suddenly, but through accumulation of pressure at the edges.

In that sense, Robertson’s work remains relevant to anyone thinking about localism today. It suggests that decentralisation is not an alternative system waiting to be chosen, but a process already underway, shaped by necessity as much as by design.

344. Delays are a Symptom of Centralisation, Not Simply of Road Building

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The latest delay to approval of the first phase of the Hereford bypass is being presented as an administrative matter. Approval of the Full Business Case has slipped from July until September, while work on the Holme Lacy Road improvement scheme has also fallen behind schedule because of design changes and technical issues. The council says it will not enter a construction contract until the business case has been approved.

For many people this is simply another frustrating postponement. Yet the real lesson goes much deeper than delays to one road.

Britain has developed a system in which almost every important local decision depends upon lengthy approval procedures, detailed business cases, central government funding and layers of professional assessment. The result is that even projects which enjoy broad local support can spend years moving from one stage of bureaucracy to the next.

This is not simply a Herefordshire problem. It is a national problem created by centralisation.

Localism asks a different question. Why should local communities have so little authority over their own future?

A genuinely local system would allow localities to decide many of their own infrastructure priorities, raise a larger proportion of the money locally, and commission work directly. Decisions would still need to be made carefully and transparently, but they would be made much closer to the people who live with the consequences.

The endless cycle of studies, revisions, approvals and delays consumes both time and public money before a single vehicle uses the road. Every delay increases costs and undermines public confidence.

The bypass itself should not be viewed simply as another transport project. It raises a more fundamental question about how places organise themselves.

In a localist society, transport would be planned as part of a much wider pattern of local economic life. If more employment, shopping, food production, education and services were located within each locality, many journeys would disappear altogether. Roads would still be needed, but their purpose would change. They would connect self-reliant localities rather than compensate for an economy that requires people and goods to travel ever greater distances.

That does not mean bypasses have no place. Existing patterns of development have left Hereford with unacceptable congestion, and practical solutions are needed. But localism reminds us that the long-term answer is not simply to build more roads. It is to reduce unnecessary travel by rebuilding local economies that meet more of people’s daily needs close to home.

The repeated delays to the Hereford bypass therefore illustrate two different futures.

One future continues with increasing central control, where local projects wait for approval from distant institutions and progress depends upon complex administrative processes.

The other future trusts local people with greater responsibility for shaping their own places, reducing dependence on central bureaucracy and creating communities that need fewer large infrastructure projects because more of life takes place locally.

The debate about the bypass is therefore not just about transport. It is about where power should reside. As long as decision making remains concentrated at the centre, delays such as these are likely to remain a normal feature of public life rather than an exception.

343. The Real Answer is Not Civil Service Reform – It is Local Self-Government

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David Frost’s recent article argues that the Civil Service is becoming an increasingly independent power within the British state. His concern is that unelected officials may acquire greater authority, making governments less able to carry out the policies for which they were elected.

Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of that argument, it highlights a much deeper problem. Britain has become so centralised that almost every important decision depends upon a vast national bureaucracy. As government grows larger, so too does the Civil Service required to administer it. The result is an inevitable struggle between ministers and officials over who really exercises power.

Localism approaches the problem from a completely different direction.

Instead of asking whether ministers or civil servants should control more of the machinery of the state, localism asks why so much power has been concentrated in Whitehall in the first place.

Most decisions affecting everyday life do not need to be made in London. Housing, local transport, small business support, woodland management, energy, local food production, planning, care services and much of education can all be organised within localities by people who understand local circumstances.

As responsibility moves back to local communities, the need for enormous central departments naturally declines. The question of whether permanent officials or ministers dominate those departments also becomes less important because fewer matters require national control.

Every transfer of responsibility to a locality removes work from Whitehall. It reduces paperwork, regulations, consultations and layers of administration. It also shortens the distance between those making decisions and those affected by them.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of highly centralised government is that responsibility becomes blurred. Ministers blame officials. Officials point to legislation. Agencies refer to guidance. Local authorities say they are following national policy. Eventually no one appears genuinely accountable.

Localism restores accountability because decision-makers live alongside the people affected by their decisions. Their successes and failures cannot be hidden behind complicated administrative structures.

There is another important consequence. Large bureaucracies naturally develop their own culture, priorities and institutional interests. Over time they seek stability, continuity and self-preservation. This is not necessarily because individuals have bad intentions, but because every large organisation acquires a life of its own.

Smaller local institutions are less able to become detached from the communities they serve. They remain visible, accessible and easier to influence.

The debate about Civil Service reform therefore risks treating the symptom rather than the cause. The real issue is not whether Britain should have a stronger Civil Service or a weaker one. It is whether so much authority should reside in Whitehall at all.

A genuinely localist Britain would still require a national government and a Civil Service, but both would be considerably smaller because they would perform fewer functions. Their purpose would be to deal with matters that genuinely require national coordination, leaving everything else to local decision-making.

The best way to prevent unelected institutions accumulating excessive influence is not endless constitutional reform. It is to reduce the amount of power that is concentrated at the centre.

The future of British democracy may depend less upon changing the Civil Service than upon rebuilding the capacity of local communities to govern themselves.

342. Sinking Ground and the Case for Localism

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Recent reports from the British Geological Survey have drawn attention to a growing problem affecting large parts of London and the South East of England. The issue is often described in the press as “houses sinking”, though this is misleading. The buildings are not falling into holes. What is happening is more gradual and more revealing. The ground itself is moving.

Much of the area is built on clay soils, particularly London Clay. These soils behave in a predictable but increasingly disruptive way. In wet periods they expand, and in dry periods they contract. As climate patterns become more erratic, with longer dry spells and more intense rainfall events, the movement becomes more pronounced. The result is subsidence, slow distortion of buildings, cracking, and increasing repair costs.

The scale is not small. Large numbers of properties are now considered at risk over coming decades, and insurers are already paying out substantial sums in dry years when ground shrinkage is at its worst. This is not a future possibility but an ongoing adjustment in the relationship between climate, soil, and the built environment.

From a localist perspective, this is not simply an engineering or insurance issue. It is a sign of structural imbalance in how settlement has developed.

A central feature of modern development in the United Kingdom has been concentration. Population, investment, infrastructure, and housing demand have been drawn disproportionately towards London and its surrounding areas. Over time this has produced extreme density and pressure on land systems that were never intended to carry such sustained load at such scale.

Localism begins from a different assumption. It treats land, soil, water, and climate as active parts of a locality rather than neutral surfaces waiting for development. Each place has limits that are not just legal or economic but physical and ecological. Clay soils that swell and shrink are one such limit. They are not defects to be engineered away indefinitely, but conditions to be respected in how and where building takes place.

The subsidence issue shows what happens when that principle is ignored over time. The more activity is concentrated, the more intensively land is used, and the more heavily infrastructure is layered onto a single geological setting, the more stress is placed on the underlying system. Climate change then acts as a multiplier, increasing the variability of moisture and exposing weaknesses that were previously managed by more stable conditions.

Seen in this light, the “sinking houses” narrative is not about collapse but about feedback. The land is responding to patterns of settlement that have become too concentrated and too uniform. It is a physical reminder that growth is not abstract and that location always matters.

A localist response would not treat this as a problem to be solved only through deeper foundations, stronger materials, or more insurance adjustment. Those have a place, but they are secondary. The primary question is where and how we build in the first place. If development were more evenly distributed across smaller localities, with greater sensitivity to ground conditions and environmental limits, the pressure on any one system would be reduced.

There is also a financial dimension. Concentration creates hidden long-term costs. Subsidence damage, drainage failure, and repeated repair work are not incidental. They are the accumulated cost of ignoring local conditions at the planning stage. These costs eventually return to households, insurers, and public systems, often at far greater expense than a more distributed pattern of settlement would have required.

In this sense, the issue is not only about housing stability but about the wider model of development. A system that continually draws activity into a few high-pressure areas will eventually encounter physical limits, even if those limits appear slowly.

Localism offers a different direction. It suggests that resilience comes not from forcing uniform solutions onto diverse ground conditions, but from allowing development to reflect the character of each locality. In doing so, it reduces strain on land, reduces long-term cost, and builds a more stable relationship between people and place.

The movement of clay beneath London is therefore more than a geological curiosity. It is a quiet signal that the balance between settlement and land has been disturbed. The question it raises is whether that balance is restored by further concentration and engineering, or by a more distributed and locally grounded pattern of living.

341. A Very British Famine – The Case for Localism

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The article “A Very British Famine” argues that Britain has become dangerously dependent upon long and fragile supply chains for its food. We have assumed that supermarket shelves will always remain full, imports will always arrive, fuel will always be available and money will always buy whatever we need. Yet these assumptions rest upon an industrial system which is becoming increasingly vulnerable to energy constraints, financial instability, climate disruption and international conflict.

If these pressures intensify, food shortages are unlikely to appear first as complete starvation. Instead, they will emerge as empty shelves, rationing, rising prices, shortages of particular products and growing difficulty in obtaining basic necessities. Those with money may still struggle to buy what is simply unavailable.

The conventional response is to imagine that government will somehow rescue the situation. But national governments can only redistribute what already exists. If there is insufficient food entering the country, no amount of administration can create supplies that do not exist.

Many people assume that communities would then depend upon charity. That may happen for a time, but charity is not a stable economic system. It relies upon surplus. As surplus disappears, charity also becomes increasingly difficult.

Localism offers something entirely different.

In a localist society, people do not depend primarily upon gifts from strangers. They depend upon the productive capacity of their own locality. Food is grown locally because local people require it. Skills are shared because neighbours depend upon one another. Land is used productively because idle land becomes an unaffordable luxury. Security comes from participation rather than from dependence.

This is not a moral argument. It is simply the way societies have organised themselves whenever large-scale systems have failed.

As imported food becomes less reliable, more land will have to return to cultivation. Gardens, orchards, smallholdings and unused land will once again become productive. Families will rediscover skills which industrial society allowed them to forget. Local food processing, storage, repair and distribution will all become valuable occupations.

In such circumstances, local cooperation is no longer an act of generosity. It becomes ordinary economic behaviour. People work together because everyone benefits from reliable local production.

This is why localism should not be presented merely as an attractive political philosophy. It is the natural outcome of a society adapting to physical limits. As national systems lose resilience, local systems gain importance.

The future is therefore unlikely to consist simply of greater hardship. It is more likely to involve a gradual transfer of responsibility from distant institutions to local people themselves.

That transition will not be easy. It will require changes in land ownership, education, planning, farming and local enterprise. But once the old assumptions no longer hold, the direction becomes increasingly obvious.

Localism is not charity.

It is the practical means by which people secure food, livelihoods and prosperity when large systems can no longer guarantee them.

340. The Economy Through the Lens of Energy – Tim Morgan’s Most Important Article

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Before reading this article I expected it to be another of Tim Morgan’s thoughtful essays. Instead, I found a substantial work that is closer to a short book than a blog post. At approximately 18,000 words, it took me about five hours to read carefully and absorb its arguments. It is not something to skim. It deserves to be studied.

The article is available here:

Surplus Energy Economics – #327: Surplus Energy Economics

Tim Morgan brings together the ideas he has developed over many years into a single, comprehensive explanation of how the economy really works. His central argument is deceptively simple. The economy is not created by money. It is created by energy being used to transform raw materials into the goods and services on which civilisation depends. Money is simply a claim on that real economy.

From this foundation he develops several important conclusions.

The first is that economic growth has not ended because of poor government policy or temporary crises. It has ended because the surplus energy available to society is declining. As more energy has to be used simply to obtain energy, less remains available for everything else. Rising living costs and slowing prosperity are therefore structural, not temporary.

Second, Morgan argues that conventional economics mistakes money for wealth. GDP measures financial transactions rather than material prosperity. Expanding credit and creating more money cannot create the physical resources needed for genuine economic growth. The financial economy has become increasingly detached from the physical economy on which it ultimately depends.

Third, he explains why technology, including artificial intelligence, cannot escape physical limits. Every technological system requires energy, minerals, water and manufacturing capacity. Technology can improve efficiency, but it cannot abolish the laws of physics. Claims that innovation alone will restore endless growth ignore these material realities.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the article is that it provides a coherent framework rather than a collection of isolated observations. Readers who have sensed that housing, pensions, public finance, energy, inflation, food prices and environmental pressures are somehow connected will find an explanation of how these issues arise from the same underlying causes.

From a localist perspective, the implications are profound. If prosperity increasingly depends upon secure access to real resources rather than expanding financial claims, then resilient local economies become far more important than global financial growth. Communities that shorten supply chains, conserve energy, rebuild local production and strengthen local relationships are likely to prove far more resilient than those dependent upon ever-expanding international systems.

Whether one agrees with every conclusion or not, this article represents one of the clearest and most comprehensive explanations of surplus energy economics currently available. It rewards careful reading, but it demands concentration. I found it one of the most significant pieces Tim Morgan has written. It is long, detailed and challenging, but it provides a framework for understanding many of the problems that otherwise appear unrelated.

339. The Basques, the Kurds and the Natural Emergence of Localism

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Modern politics usually assumes that the nation-state is the natural way to organise society. Large central governments, national economies, giant corporations and mass systems are treated as signs of progress. Yet in several parts of the world, there remain peoples whose traditions developed in a very different direction. Two particularly interesting examples are the Basques of the Pyrenees and the Kurds of the Middle East.

Although separated by geography, language and history, both societies display features which resemble localism.

The Basques inhabit areas on both sides of the Pyrenees in Spain and France. For centuries, their mountain geography encouraged strong local identities and relative independence from distant rulers. Villages, valleys and small towns became important social and economic units. Shared grazing land, local forestry, cooperative labour and mutual aid were common features of life.

Even today, the Basque Country retains strong traditions of local identity and cooperative economics. The Mondragon cooperative system in northern Spain became one of the largest worker-owned economic systems in the world. Rather than concentrating wealth into distant shareholders, many businesses were designed around worker participation, local employment and community benefit.

The Kurdish experience is different but also contains localist features. The Kurds are spread across several countries, including Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. In northern Syria, during the breakdown caused by war, Kurdish communities developed a system sometimes called “democratic confederalism”. This approach attempts to place power at the level of neighbourhoods, villages and local councils rather than concentrating it entirely in a central state.

In both cases, there is a distrust of over-centralisation and an emphasis upon the locality as the foundation of society.

There are several reasons why such systems emerge.

Mountain societies often evolve local structures naturally because geography limits central control. Communities become more self-reliant because transport is difficult and outside assistance is uncertain. Shared survival encourages cooperation. Local knowledge becomes valuable. Families and communities remain economically important.

In addition, societies under pressure often reorganise from below. When distant systems become weak, expensive, or ineffective, people increasingly turn to local solutions. Food production, practical skills, informal exchange and mutual support regain importance.

This may become increasingly relevant in the future.

Modern industrial economies were built during a period of abundant fossil fuel energy and rapid economic growth. Large cities, long supply chains and huge administrative systems became possible because cheap energy allowed enormous complexity. However, if economic growth slows or reverses, societies may gradually move back towards smaller-scale and more local forms of organisation.

The Basque and Kurdish examples suggest that localism is not merely a political theory. It may instead represent a recurring social pattern which appears whenever people seek resilience, identity and practical control over daily life.

Importantly, localism does not necessarily mean isolation. Both the Basque and Kurdish approaches involve networks of local communities cooperating with one another. The emphasis is not upon complete separation but upon beginning with the locality rather than with the distant centre.

Perhaps this is one of the most important lessons for the future. As large national systems become increasingly strained by debt, energy costs, infrastructure pressures, and social fragmentation, the locality may once again become the most practical and human-scale level at which society can function effectively.

In that sense, the Basques and the Kurds may offer glimpses of how societies naturally reorganise themselves when large systems begin to weaken.

338. Maurice Ash of Dartington – A Quiet Architect of Localism

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Maurice Ash was one of those twentieth century thinkers whose influence is easier to trace in institutions and practices than in public fame. His work at Dartington placed him at the centre of an experiment that quietly challenged the assumptions of centralised planning, industrial scale thinking, and cultural uniformity.

At Dartington Hall and through the work of Dartington Hall Trust, Ash helped shape an environment where education, agriculture, arts, and social organisation were treated not as separate silos but as parts of a living local system. This was not localism as slogan, but localism as practice.

Ash arrived at Dartington in the post war period when Britain was increasingly committed to centralised solutions. Planning, welfare, housing, and education were being standardised through national systems. Against this backdrop, Dartington became an unusual counter current. It explored what happens when a locality is allowed to evolve its own interlocking systems of work, learning, culture, and land use.

His relevance to localism lies in this insistence that scale matters. Ash did not reject organisation or planning. Instead, he questioned whether effective human systems could be designed from a distance without losing vitality. At Dartington, the emphasis was on human scale relationships, on learning rooted in place, and on economic activity that supported rather than extracted from its setting.

One of his key contributions was to treat rural life not as a residual category of the modern economy but as a potential centre of innovation. Agriculture at Dartington was linked with education and experimentation. The arts were not decorative but part of how a community understands itself. This integrated approach anticipated many of the arguments now associated with localism, particularly the idea that resilience grows from diversity within a locality rather than dependence on distant systems.

Ash also recognised the limitations of large scale institutional thinking. He was working at a time when the dominant belief was that bigger systems were necessarily more efficient and more just. Dartington quietly tested the opposite proposition, that beyond a certain scale, complexity becomes fragility, and that human wellbeing is often strengthened by smaller, interconnected units of organisation.

Seen from the perspective of contemporary localism, Ash’s work feels increasingly relevant. The pressures now facing centralised systems, whether in energy, housing, food, or education, have revived interest in locally grounded models. Dartington stands as an early attempt to demonstrate that such models are not nostalgic retreats but viable frameworks for organising life.

The lesson of Maurice Ash is not that central systems should disappear, but that they should recognise their limits. His legacy at Dartington suggests that when decision making, culture, and production are rooted in place, the result is not fragmentation but coherence at a human scale.

337, The Energy Denial: “Everything Runs Itself”

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A deeper layer of denial sits underneath climate change itself, and it is rarely acknowledged directly: the denial that energy is what makes modern life possible at all.

Most people do not think in terms of energy. They think in terms of systems that simply “work”:

  • food appears in supermarkets
  • heating comes from a thermostat
  • transport arrives on demand
  • goods are always available
  • electricity is assumed to be permanent and invisible

This creates a powerful illusion: that society is self-running, almost natural. In this mindset, energy is not seen as the foundation of everything, but as just another utility, endlessly available and adjustable.

In reality, every part of modern life depends on continuous, high-density energy flows. Food is not just grown, but fertilised, irrigated, harvested, processed, refrigerated, transported, and retailed. Housing is not just built, but heated, lit, repaired, insured, and maintained through vast supply chains. Even information systems depend on large-scale electricity networks, data centres, and global logistics.

Yet this dependence is rarely felt directly, so it is mentally excluded. This is the second denial: not only is climate change softened into something “somewhere else in nature”, but energy itself is erased from the mental model of everyday life.

Climate Change Meets Energy Denial

When Climate change begins to affect crops, water, and infrastructure, it is not experienced as an energy problem. It is experienced as “weather”, “prices”, or “supply issues”.

The connection is broken in perception.

But in physical reality, climate disruption is fundamentally an energy disruption. Heat stress reduces agricultural output. Drought reduces hydroelectric generation and irrigation. Extreme weather damages transport and distribution systems. All of this feeds back into higher energy use required to repair, cool, and stabilise systems that are already under strain.

The article on overheated food prices highlights exactly this chain: rising temperatures do not stay in the atmosphere. They move through land, labour, logistics, and finally into household cost.

Yet most responses remain fragmented:

  • food inflation is treated as monetary or political
  • energy prices are treated as market cycles
  • heat waves are treated as temporary anomalies

The unified energy system behind all of them is rarely acknowledged.

Heat Waves and the Collapse of the “Normal Future”

Heat waves are important because they briefly make energy visible.

During extreme heat:

  • cooling systems strain electrical grids
  • transport slows or fails
  • productivity drops sharply
  • water demand rises
  • infrastructure becomes fragile

In other words, society is forced to spend more energy just to maintain normality.

But once the heat wave passes, the system appears to reset. This reinforces denial in two ways:

  1. It feels like recovery, not escalation
  2. It restores the illusion that stability is the default state

So even as heat waves become more frequent, they are often processed as separate incidents rather than as evidence of a rising baseline energy load on the system.

The Deeper Psychological Pattern

This links back to a broader structure of denial:

  • Climate change is softened into “weather variation”
  • Energy is softened into “services”
  • System dependence is softened into “normal life”

All three work together to preserve a central belief: that the future will broadly resemble the present, with manageable adjustments.

Accepting the opposite would be more disruptive than most people are prepared for. It would require acknowledging that:

  • stability is energy-intensive
  • energy itself is increasingly constrained and stressed
  • climate change is not external to the system, but embedded in it

So the mind does what it has always done under strain: it compartmentalises.

Conclusion: The Invisible Foundation

The real denial is not simply about climate change. It is about the refusal to see that modern civilisation is an energy-dependent structure operating at the edge of environmental stability.

Heat waves do not just test comfort. They briefly expose the cost of maintaining normal life at all.

And when they pass, the illusion returns.

That cycle – disruption, then forgetting – is what allows both climate change and energy dependence to remain widely acknowledged, yet only partially believed in their consequences.