Okay, here's the thing with you theater, artsy, liberal types, you think you know it all.

But trust me, saving the earth is a filthy business.

In Kyoto, the acclaimed five-star new play from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Good Chance,

I'll show you what really happened that night at the UN's groundbreaking climate conference in Japan.

Kyoto, at London's Soho Place for a limited season. Book now at Soho Place.org.

The New Statesman.

Hello, I'm Hannah Barnes, and this is where every Friday I put your questions to the New Statesman team.

Remember, if you'd like to get in touch, you can go to newsstatesmen.com forward slash you ask us,

or leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube.

On this delightful Valentine's Day, I am joined by our associate political editor, Rachel Cunliff, and our policy correspondent, Megan Kenyon. Plenty

of love in the air. Hello, ladies. There is no one that I would rather spend Valentine's Day

with. The new two. Feelings mutual. Let's dive in.

Our first question is from Callum, who asks,

how can my local council decide to delay my right to vote and opt to merge into a super council without first getting a consensus of the people who live here?

This is related to devolution plans announced by Angela Raina, the Deputy Prime Minister,

which mean that some local elections due in May are now being postponed for nine councils

for up to a year. Rachel, just remind us what's going on here. DeVolution is what's going on.

So the formula to remember is district council plus county council equals or is going to equal

unitary authority, which is meant to simplify things. It's a sort of two-tiered local government

going to want it, it's meant to give them more power. And for the nine councils that this applies to,

it means that they won't have local elections in May. They'll have them in a year's time. And it's just worth pointing out that all

of the councils, like they had to apply for this. They had to say that this is what they wanted.

...