My colleague Jessica is often confused about which “divvie card” to use in which shop as we have our own independent Lincolnshire Co-op as well as the national Co-op.  When I was at Lincolnshire TEC our Chair Keith Darwin became national chair of the Co-op through his role as CEO at the independent Lincolnshire Co-op.

I was confused about the relationship between the two organisations and he admitted that he still had some confusion about how the Co-op empire worked – he described Co-op politics as more “Byzantine” than local government. As I look back on this, having worked in a positively benign local authority world for 20 years, on an off, I feel strangely comfortable with this movement growing and developing.

I am biased, but in these globally cynical times, there is something reassuring about the notion of the Co-op. In Lincolnshire we also benefit from our Co-op CEO Ursula Lidbetter also being Chair of our new LEP – it is after all our County’s largest rural business.