"It's about bread-and-butter, life and death issues in your community": races to watch in May's local elections

In two weeks the country will just have elected some 8,000 new local councillors and we'll know who's going to be in control of town halls from Liverpool to Leicester and from Middlesbrough to Milton Keynes. May's local elections are generally described from a national media standpoint as a litmus test of the popularity of our main party leaders - which is understandable given that we could be just a year out from the next General Election. But actually these kinds of sweeping generalisations overlook the fact that at a local level the elections on May 4 could make a massive difference to the political scene in towns, villages and cities across the North of England. On The Northern Agenda podcast this week Rob Parsons speaks with Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit think tank about the races to watch in the North and why we really all ought to be voting. And Rob's joined by friend of the podcast Edna Robinson of the People's Powerhouse movement to talk about the North-South health divide, protests at the snooker and why Rishi Sunak's 'maths for all' plan doesn't add up. *** The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices