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Escape from Omnishambleshire: the case for the old county boundaries

I don’t care how local councils are arranged. I just want people in England to know where they live

25 October 2014

9:00 AM

25 October 2014

9:00 AM

Just over 35 years ago, in August 1979, Christopher Booker wrote a cri de coeur in The Spectator calling for the return of England’s ancient counties and the repeal of the 1972 Local Government Act, under which most of them had been either merged, mauled, mangled or murdered.

It drew a large and almost wholly supportive response from figures as distinguished as Professor Richard Cobb (‘Booker has rendered us all a ray of hope’) and Michael Wharton, a.k.a.

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Engel’s England was published this week.


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