Thus New Labour faces an old dilemma. Resolving it may require a consideration of participation and especially alienation and an assessment of the extent to which more or less devolution to local authorities serves the priorities of our time. Other proposals, however, are concerned with the constitutional position of local government, which for various reasons is viewed as in need of 'democratic renewal'. At the time we were engaged in what was then a rather innovative project involving collaboration between a local authority and health authorities in order to involve people who use services in developing both the policy and practice of community care. The political party group is the most important place in which councillors consider and debate local issues, decide political tactics and, in the majority group, make political decisions.
Group processes are private.
Moreover, party groups demand, and receive, members' loyalty over and above even the wishes of the councillor's own electorate. This paper considers councillors' group loyalty and its impact on the democratic renewal project. It examines how groups could react to maintain influence under new political management, and argues that whilst the democratic renewal debate has so far largely ignored the party group, it represents a barrier to that project. Moreover, new models of political management generate pressures that, far from opening up local political processes, will drive them further into the privacy of the group. The tension between leadership and democracy is always implicit in the governance of the contemporary city.