A frenzied process of provincial match-making is in full swing, with central government having issued an edict that the country must be chopped up into regions, each of which will elect a mayor to receive devolved executive powers. City regions and combined authorities in the larger cities have operated this model for some time. Now the rest of England is to play the same game, but with the added fun of a new rule: regions should have a population of at least 1.5 million. Rather than carve up the map in Whitehall, the government has amusingly thrown it over to the nation’s Town Halls to figure it out for themselves, missing the glorious opportunity for a TV show format in the process. So where’s Reading ending up? Let’s speculate…

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