In this article the author examines the response of the Labour leadership to the Conservative-led Government's policies for restructuring and re-agenting the school system. His focus is on the role of local authorities and local democracy. He identifies two contradictory dynamics in Labour's current thinking. One promises to enhance local democracy and community empowerment. The other, dominant, accepts the new landscape of academies and free schools and advocates new powers for local school commissioners and elected mayors in the school system. Neither, however, offer a vision of enhanced local democratic accountability through the reinvigoration of local authorities. (Contains 5 notes.)