I had slightly fractitious and mildly comic encounter with the leader of Tory flgship Council Hammersmith and Fulham on Monday evening. Some of this will appear in a film about his regeneration plans I'll be helping to complete today. I also refer to it in my latest piece for Comment is Free, which starts like this:
The Tory leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council is a grassroots hero and a favourite of David Cameron too. Stephen Greenhalgh led the Conservatives to power in west London in 2006 after 20 years in opposition. His policies and political approach soon got him elevated to the head of David Cameron's Conservative Councils Innovations Unit and it's not hard to see why. Not only is he held to exemplify the George Osborne-endorsed principle of getting more for less – better services at a lower price – he has also shown a firm grasp of his leader's need to reconcile some of their party's most visceral urges with its new emphasis on healing social ills – and, better still, articulating them as localist virtues.
The rest is here.
