When it can be bothered to look, the London media tends to peer down its nose at the policies of the devolved administrations of the United Kingdom, attributing any success to the largesse of the Barnett formula rather than any innovation made possible by the devolution of power. So it is of little surprise that we haven’t heard much about the success of Wales’s new 5p levy on single use carrier bags or Northern Ireland’s plans to introduce a similar scheme in 2013. Aside from the Daily Mail, which has run a high profile campaign on the issue, efforts to ban plastic bags or dramatically reduce their use in the UK have gone largely unremarked. Continue reading →