Thanks for all the thanks. I will waffle on a bit more if I may, first in response to nanna8.
there seems to be a lot of people voting for Reform
There have only been two main opportunities for some to vote - the 2024 General Election and the 2025 local elections, which did not take place everywhere.
In the 2024 GE, of 28,809,340 votes cast, 4,117,610 were for Reform. Most people don’t want them. Even their big names didn’t secure a big percentage of votes in their constituencies. They won because of FPTP, some by quite narrow majorities. Again, most people don’t want them.
The same happened in the local elections. Low turnouts don't help. For all the fuss Reform made about having elections this year, it's likely that relatively few people will bother to vote.
What we saw in both main elections was a massive swing away from the Tories.
We know that it’s usual for voters to switch from Tory to Labour or vice versa so it was inevitable that Tory voters went to Reform. One only has to look at GE stats for the elections in 2019 and 2024 to see the swing to Reform was mostly from Tories age 60+.
Reform are not popular with younger voters. Current voting intention shows Reform at just 7% with 49% for the Greens.
Some 600,000 people die each year most of them old. Between 2024 and 2029, some 3 million people will have died. If 65% of those were Tory/Reform that’s 2 million of their voters gone, replaced by young voters who don’t like them.
It explains why Reform are dangling the triple lock carrot, to appeal to their elderly voter base. But, as I explained above, at wage or general inflation of say 5%, it would be a pension increase at current rates of around £4 a week more than the minimum 2.5%. It wouldn’t even buy a cup of coffee out. It might run to a loaf of bread and something to spread on it.
Would I vote Reform just to get an extra £4 a week pension (£3.20 after tax). No. I would rather have a local council of experienced, reliable people, as we head towards the massive reorganisation of local councils into unitary authorities. I don’t want incompetents like Reform's George Finch or Joseph Boam overseeing that or the tetchy, foul-mouthed authoritarianism of a Linden Kemkaran.
Logically, why would the result of the upcoming local elections trigger a leadership challenge? If it did it would be based on an assumption that people are not voting on local issues. Only 66 of the 317 councils in England and Wales are under Labour control. No doubt there will be gains for Reform and the Greens probably leading to more councils in which no party has overall control, which is no bad thing if it means cross-party collaboration and cooperation. If Reform were to gain control of more councils I can’t see their performance over the coming 12 months being any better that the chaos we have see in other Reform councils since May 2025. This should, hopefully, make more people realise that if Reform can’t manage a council, it certainly couldn’t manage a country.
I’m not a particular fan of Labour now although they are slowly doing some good things. My politics are further to the left of Labour under Starmer but I do think he is a steady hand internationally in these times and that’s crucial. He’s shown too that he can withstand the constant onslaught from the right-dominated media. That must come from his training as a barrister. He knows how to operate in an adversarial environment. His big mistake was McSweeney and I’m glad he’s gone. I would be very disappointed if Starmer were to be challenged now by someone putting personal ambition before national stability.
