Health, policing, housing, crime: Westminster has so much to deal with. How can a flawed reorganisation be a priority?

Why? That’s the mystery. Why go through the upheaval of a mighty local government reorganisation, merging hundreds of district councils with the counties above them, when it will exhaust capacity in already overstretched and near-bankrupt councils? It wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto – and its electoral system for mayors will do Labour untold damage.

It’s baffling to watch the government struggling with abolishing districts and reordering unitary councils, for no practical or political purpose. It looks like a displacement activity: everyone knows financially crippled councils need relief from the social care crisis, and reform of the hated council tax system in which Buckingham Palace pays less than an average house in Hartlepool. But this busy deckchair-shifting avoids those. Nor is there very much devolution in it.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist