Stephen Greenhalgh is hated and feted. To Labour, he is a tyrant for keeping council tax low at the expense of frontline services in the west London borough he has led since 2006. To the Conservatives, he is a town hall trailblazer, praised by the communities and local government secretary, Eric Pickles, who describes Hammersmith & Fulham council as “the apple of my eye”.

Greenhalgh has perhaps baffled both parties by announcing he is to quit the leadership for the council backbenches in order to help steer a pilot community budget in White City, a deprived area of the borough. Rumour had him in line for a peerage. Read the rest of my interview with Stephen Greenhalgh in the Guardian’s Society pages.