In opening the book John offers the thought that it is easier to write about uniformity than diversity. But as the purpose and justification for local government is diversity and difference, the book seeks to draw out the richness of different experience and circumstance which characterizes different councils, their members and staff.

There is a danger that a description of diversity will be a series of anecdotes – it is much easier to weave a theory around uniformity than to link the diverse experience of local authorities into a coherent thesis. A series of anecdotes from John Stewart is no bad thing – his lectures and talks have always contained the illuminating evidence of individual experience to illustrate a point – but can this book succeed in developing a theory of diversity, perhaps even provide a genuine antidote to the pressure for uniformity which has underpinned national political action (and probably thought) about local government’s role over the past few decades?

This is a fascinating book to dip into and enjoy John’s stories about how politics and culture in local authorities combined with personalities of members and officers to produce diverse outcomes. Sometimes you want to know more – ‘there must be more to it than that!’ Or in the cases where the reader does know more, a desire to see the full detail of the real experience fully explored. There was more to Hertfordshire’s experience in the early 1990s with town and parish councils than ‘parish friends’. And more careful proof reading would have corrected some unfortunate misspelling of the names of some important local government figures. But it is churlish to complain. In 300 pages this book has a breadth and depth of what constitutes local governance which should help members and officers in local authorities everywhere recognize and rejoice in the opportunity to be different and continue to resist the pressure for uniformity that government, media, national parties and sometimes our own lack of self-confidence engender.

And, of particular interest to the reviewer, John has some cautionary messages for the Local Government Association – a national association for local government is almost a contradiction in terms’. The dangers, he says, are that the senior players come to accept the assumptions of the Whitehall village and lose contact with the reality of local government, and that the grind of consultation causes the association to be reactive – and end up working to the government’s agenda. The tensions of uniformity and diversity meet at the association and can only be successfully managed by being aware of the dangers and constantly reminded that the role is to promote the merits of difference and diversity and to promote notions of added value – in service, responsiveness, democracy – from local discretion. John comments that the present government’s policy for local government contains themes of uniformity and diversity and only the future will tell which is likely to be the more pervasive. If the association is to tilt the balance in the direction of diversity it will need to develop strategies to influence the agenda of discussion with government and to pay attention to the learning from the diversity of local authorities. Critics will no doubt judge in future whether the LGA’s ideas for New Commitment to Regeneration, Local Challenge and local Public Service Agreements will come to represent a sufficient response to the former. John’s book will certainly provide a useful quarry for the latter.