If Scotland is to be given devolved tax powers, why not give similar powers to our big city-regions, asks Dan Corry

So, what do we make of the recent local elections? One way of looking at them is with a national and a personality perspective. The story goes a bit like this.

Prime minister, David Cameron, did surprisingly well, given the cuts his government is making. He may be ‘Flashman’ to some, but he seems more ‘Teflon man’ in the eyes of the public.

How he will fare when the cuts actually start biting in local communities, we will have to wait and see.

Labour leader, Ed Miliband, did fairly well, especially in Wales, but he failed to make major breakthroughs across the southern parts of England and, of course, he got trounced in Scotland.

He is deemed to have lots of work to do and many commentators to convince, if the British voting public are to warm to him and see Labour as a viable alterative government.

And, of course, deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, was hammered.

Not only did his party get savaged across the country, but the AV vote is held to have been lost as much because people wanted to give Mr Clegg a bloody nose as because they were concerned to defend the existing first-past-the-post voting system.

This sort of analysis is interesting and fun but, by its nature, pretty speculative. Often, years later, judgments such as these, made on the basis of elections only 12 months into a new government, turn out to be fairly misleading.

But, there are other things emerging from this first set of elections post-New Labour, that we are more certain about – and that will have real effects for some time. First, the whole issue of Scottish independence is now up in lights and will not go away. In Alex Salmond, the SNP have the pre-eminent Scottish politician by a long chalk. Until Labour can find some raw and charismatic talent which stays in Edinburgh rather than seeking their fortunes in London, then they are going to struggle.

Indeed, this problem for Labour illustrates how immature our devolved world still is. In many countries, ranging from the US to Germany, aspiring politicians make their names as leaders in their region, state, province or city before, if at all, going national.

In the UK, that habit has not yet grown up – and, in fact, most ex-council leaders who have become MPs have not enjoyed glittering careers over recent years.

Perhaps the advent of mayors, which the Government is giving another – if rather weird – push, will change that, as the expertise and kind of character who can be successful running for and leading a major city might also be skills which transfer well to party leadership.

If we do end up with Scottish independence, it might well have ramifications throughout England, most likely, increasing the pressure for more council and city independence, not least, as the more northern cities may see themselves replacing Scotland, as the areas most ignored by governments in far off Westminster.

But even if Mr Salmond pulls back from going for a full independence referendum – since the polls suggest he would probably lose that – he is bound to use his new strength to argue for more fiscal powers for Scotland.

And that is likely to lead to new calls in England for reform of Barnett, the distribution formula which has historically been fairly generous towards Scotland and has, perhaps surprisingly, not been tackled by a Tory-dominated Government which actually wins few seats there.

It also raises questions for the rest of the UK and England. If, in the end, Scotland is to be given increasingly-powerful devolved tax powers, why should some of our big city-regions not be granted similar powers, if they have the right governance?

After all, Scotland’s population at five million is not that large when one compares it with Greater Manchester, with 2.6 million, or a putative Birmingham ‘city-region’ of more than three million.

The second big change is that we now have a situation where Labour is starting to be back in charge of the urban North and – to some extent – edging back in the Midlands, with the Liberal Democrat/Tory coalition only holding out in our second city, Birmingham, due to the particular wards being fought this time.

This poses issues all round. The LGA already has enough problems sticking together and holding on to members as a result of eye-watering spending settlements and councils feeling less need for a body to negotiate with central government as we supposedly move to localism. Either the Labour urban North will start flexing its muscles within the LGA, or it will start to bypass it through its own organisations.

The counties and the mets have never had the same interests – and neither has much to do with the districts – but have been bound together against the ‘might’ of the centre.

If that really weakens – still a big ‘if’, given top-down approaches ignoring local government in police, health and education reforms – and North and South politics start to splinter, then will the LGA start to break up?

Central government itself has got problems too. Do its members let a divide emerge? It may not matter much to the Tories, who never get that many MPs in the North anyway – and so the secretary of state at the DCLG might not be worrying about this.

But the Liberal Democrats have seen the potential for lots of parliamentary seats to go, and they will not want to allow the idea to gain currency in Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool or Stockport that they are cutting off from their old northern bases.

This election was not the moment when the world turned upside down in local government. At 199, the Tories run a few more councils in England after the elections and Labour, up 26 to 77, a few more than before.

But it may yet come to be seen as the beginning of a long struggle between the two big parties. When the fall of the Liberal Democrats speeded up, the urban North turned back to Labour, and when future skirmishes in the Midlands and the South – which will determine the next election result – came sharply into focus.

Dan Corry is at FTI Consulting and was a former economic and policy adviser at the Treasury and in Downing Street