There's nothing like not hitching yourself to the latest trend. Localism - in a nutshell the philosophy that political power should be devolved to the most local level practicable - is very trendy indeed these days. Localists have captured the zeitgeist. They're hip to the jive. They seem to have won the argument in Conservative circles. Many of them are great policy analysts and great people. But they're wrong.
Certainly the (wo)man in Whitehall doesn't always know best. Our public services are sclerotic and out-of-date. Specifically, they are hopelessly unresponsive to public demand. About that much, any non-communist would agree, the localists are quite right.
But it doesn't follow that the answer is to let local councils take over.
First of all, if a service isn't working properly we should at least question whether it should be run by government of any kind - national or local. I worry that some of the motivation behind localism may stem from a post-Thatcherite timidity to embrace privatisation.
That said, I'm not a night watchman state kind of guy. Of course health and education, for example, should operate in both the private and the public spheres. No government can be disinterested about the intellectual and physical competence of its citizens. And that inevitably means intervention of some kind, not just in funding services but also in helping to shape and style the manner in which they are provided.
And that perhaps is my main problem with localism. It would be a gross dereliction of duty for Prime Minister Cameron to abdicate responsibility for schools and hospitals. And it is a fantasy to think the public would really be happy to see councillors take up the slack on David's behalf.
Localists postulate that by giving local councils responsibility for public services, you would encourage innovation, and be freed from what one friend calls "the tyranny of the single idea". The public would have a greater influence over how their services were run by being able to personally lobby and if necessary vote out inept councils.
There's a problem though, and localists are big enough to acknowledge it. Some councils are run by lunatics. Personally I'm not willing to accept that one hospital will have an accident & emergency centre while in the next city they'll instead have an aromatherapy centre.
If we take the view that children should receive an education, we should also have some opinions about what form that education should take. Finger painting and eurythmy alone won't get the job done.
Oh, the localist will counter, but it's all about choice. Lunacy and inadequacy is the price you'd pay to enable innovation and superb services elsewhere. You could vote at the ballot box, and if that didn't work out you could vote with your feet and move. It's all about CHOICE.
Choice is cool. I like the idea of school vouchers, for example. But I suppose I'm old fashioned; I think that the market is the best mechanism for choice.
And choice in public services isn't really an end in itself. What people want is for their family to have access to outstanding doctors and teachers. THAT'S the end. Greater choice might help make it happen. Being forced to moved home, however, doesn't seem like a very fun way of exercising choice, if it feels much like a choice at all.
I'm well aware that under the status-quo lots of people feel the need to move home in order to find a good school. But localism would institionalise that phenomenon, and be smug about it.
Finally, I don't for a moment believe that beefing up councils would reduce red tape. In reality, central government isn't going to give up its claim just like that. Instead Whitehall and city halls would spend enormous amounts of time and money debating what is whose responsibility. We would be faced with a hideous combination of power-grabbing and buckpassing.
So I'm afraid this is one train to the land of the cool that I won't be boarding.