As a new administration at Devon County, we’ve now got our strategic plan agreed. It sets out our priorities especially around children’s services and also vulnerable adults and of course potholes.

For the moment it’s just a to do list, the easy part. The difficult bit will be the doing. Nothing is going to change overnight, but I’m confident we are starting to make a real difference.

Two clouds on the horizon; government enforced Local Government Reorganisation LGR (complete waste of time and money) and finances. We’ve inherited a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) debt of over £150 million but more worryingly an annual SEND overspend in the region of £50 million.

The plan also sets out our values. They include fairness and equity. I’d suggest they are shared by the vast majority of British people. People just don’t like it when things are unfair and yet we live in an age when unfairness and inequality abound. Income and wealth increase for the haves while the overall economy stagnates. Household bills, especially energy and food, continue to rise at an alarming rate. None of them means tested, so those families struggling to get by suffer the most.

Combined with deteriorating public services, no wonder people are so angry and frustrated when they are left behind. Within this melting pot of political dissatisfaction, it’s easy to look for simple solutions. Is there really a silver bullet out there? Will creating a little Britain, hostile to the outside world, solve our problems? I doubt it. Might suit a few, but the vast majority of us will suffer.

I rather naively thought that after Covid the country would have a reset. We would value those people that really made a difference. How depressing to see we are back to the status quo, like nothing has changed.

We are at a crossroads. We still have choices and here are some of the options as I see it.

Do we limp along with managed decline; give way to the powers of hate and division, insecurity and fear; or start to rebuild and renew society based on the values most of us cherish.

I’m pretty sure it needs to be a bottom-up approach. We can only achieve that if there is a roll out of genuine devolution. Powers and budgets must be removed from the centre.

To be fair this government talks about devolution but it has to be the real thing. The one silver lining to the LGR nonsense is the opportunity for the new unitaries to follow this devolution pathway.

As a country we must have an open and honest debate about taxation. Everything must be part of the discussion including tax avoidance.

My own view is anyone benefitting from tax avoidance, (and I don’t mean TESSAs and such like) should be removed from the decision-making process. Too much of a vested interest to make the right choices for the good of the country as a whole.