And so it begins, Reform’s Britain

Just been watching & listening to Sir Richard Dearloveon GBNEWS. He’s the former chief of M16. He’s 80 now which surprised me to be honest. Such a sensible chap. Alert to all possibilities o regarding potential harms to the UK - Chinese threat ‘this goverment needs to take this situation more seriously’. Trump - ‘after 100 days let’s see how things actually pan out in another 200 days. He says a lot but some of what he says isn’t how things end up. Look at Ukraine, he’s not given up on them, he’s sending (some type of bomber, I can’t remember its name, sorry) to be used as much needed spare parts. And Farage? Do I think he’d make a good PM? Yes, of course he will.”

Such endorsement, no?

Oreo

Reform do only hold 4.5% council seats in England and control 10 councils out of 317 but imagine what may have happened if all councils in England had been holding elections last Thursday.They weren’t but if they had done those %figures could have been sky high.

Unlikely. You can't use what happened on Thursday as a strong yardstick as most of those 23 councils are not places where Labour held any significant control.

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough is the only mayoralty where Labour lost to Conservative. I suspect that had much to do with the former Labour mayor Dr Nik Johnson standing down. He is a working paediatrician and had announced that he would not be seeking re-election saying it was "a step too far" because of the heavy toll the role had taken on him. The winner Paul Bristow was MP for Peterborough between 2019 and 2024 so he was a known quantity.

Labour won three of the six contested mayoralties.

Doncaster is the only council that was under Labour control and lost to Reform but chose very sensibly to retain Ros Jones as mayor instead of chosing Reform's male model/currency trader Alexander Jones.

I agree with that David. Much of the press has squeezed out moderate reporting by constant attacks on Starmer on the one hand and reports on Reform on the other.

I think there is real concern given what is happening with Trump that Farage is just importing ideas so we talk about them.

Most of the public are probably aware of USA DEI initiatives and immigration but not of the wholesale attacks on the judiciary, social care, medical care, and end of Due Process nor the banning of material in libraries, schools, universities of a whole raft of histories that dont fit in with the current administrations re-write of history.

Having just won a few seats of local power Farage is already on high horse declaring (the Times) that Reform have declared they will begin a campaign to “re-moralise” young people: clamp down on “woke” in universities, have a “patriotic” curriculum, and erect statures of the Great British figures around the country as well as ending working from home and cutting all diversity initiatives.

Grandstanding when the real concerns are how councils can best deliver services in difficult times without cutting its vital social care and other functions.

V3ra

^What has not been mentioned is that, where voters could not bring themselves to vote for Reform, the Liberal Democrats have prevailed and are the main party in some Councils.^

We're now a Reform county council. All our town's five representatives on it are Reform.
We didn't have a LibDem candidate on our ballot paper, don't know about the other wards.

The Lib Dem’s have played it completely differently to Reform. They have identified specific areas, and been out on the ground canvassing, gaining seats and winning in their target areas Their plan is more sustainable I think, because without making loads of noise about it, they prioritise local issues and generally make good councillors because of that. I don’t think they won because in some areas people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Reform either, I think the seats they won had electorates who were more one nation Tories, not right wing Tories.

I don't think giving specific information about voting patterns is in any way "down playing" Reforms results. It is putting that success into perspective rather than putting a spin on it to make it more news worthy. If only a third of the voters bother to vote, it's not possible to extrapolate what that result might be if 70% voted, equally in the past, it's not been very reliable to use local election results to predict future GEs. That's not to down play Reform's results again I am just putting it into a context.

What has not been mentioned is that, where voters could not bring themselves to vote for Reform, the Liberal Democrats have prevailed and are the main party in some Councils.

We're now a Reform county council. All our town's five representatives on it are Reform.
We didn't have a LibDem candidate on our ballot paper, don't know about the other wards.

No one pays any attention to the media anymore, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Galaxy

I think those arguments are based on how politics used to be, I think they have been changing for the last decade, I think left and right are becoming more and more redundant.

Politics is changing, there seems to be much less socialist sentiment, more right wing media pressure gradually changing opinions. Reform gets so much media more attention that it deserves, that is echoed in comments on social media, many much more extreme than mainstream sources. Sensible moderate views often get shouted down by strongly held but unreasonable opinions.

growstuff

I was wondering about unitarisation PoliticsNerd. Kent County Council has applied for unitarisation, so I don't know when they'll be ready to hold elections. Essex County Council is apparently going to be ready in 2026.

The UK is certainly heading for unitary councils accross the country to be completed by the end of this Parliament A quick bit of research revealed that there is no mandated sequence; it depends on:

1. The specific councils involved.
2. Local circumstances and political considerations.
3. Central government guidance and legislation

Previous transitions and common best practices do show a typical sequence of activities. There isn't a rigid, one-size-fits-all sequence, but I could list the activities that are represented in the key stages and tasks that councils undertake during a transition to unitary status in the UK are likely to encounter. It's a very long list as the specific order and emphasis will depend on the circumstances of each transition.

Thank you for the prompt that made me look it up - it's very interesting. I have a busy day today but will try and follow it up more later.

I’m going to be back in 2029 saying I told you so about the Lib Dem’s, I’m quite confident about that.

Reform do only hold 4.5% council seats in England and control 10 councils out of 317 but imagine what may have happened if all councils in England had been holding elections last Thursday.They weren’t but if they had done those %figures could have been sky high.

I'm sure you're right, Oreo

What has not been mentioned is that, where voters could not bring themselves to vote for Reform, the Liberal Democrats have prevailed and are the main party in some Councils.
Lib Dems won in Gloucestershire but with one short of the number needed for a majority. Reform took 11 seats and Greens 9.
It should be interesting as long as they can work together and not just end up fighting.
(The potholes are dreadful, some like craters, incidentally!)

Sarah Pochin won by six seats. If we had PR, Labour’s Karen Shore would have won.

This from Reform’s 2024 Contract:

Proportional Representation Voting for the House of Commons. Large numbers of voters have no representation in parliament and new parties are shut out of the political system. Voter turnout could be some 10% higher with PR. A referendum is needed.

I can assure you my head is not in the sand. I am just not getting overexcited because Reform now hold only 4.5% of the council seats in England and only control ten councils out of 317.

I think that posters trying to downplay the significance of the Reform council wins, and the by-election win by them, are doing the same heads in sand thing as Labour and the Conservatives are doing.It may comfort them to do it but if they fail to learn from it then the next GE will be lost to Reform.

These last few posts give a much needed perspective. For me the media have gone to town with this election and far too much attention has been given to Farage, as usual. Why the media love him I don't know- but this is how Trump got elected.
Here in the UK I hope we have more common sense.
I see the Reform vote this time has nothing more than a protest vote against the Tories.
Maybe the Tories can get their act together- but Farage will never be PM.

I think those arguments are based on how politics used to be, I think they have been changing for the last decade, I think left and right are becoming more and more redundant.

Generally, the things that concern younger voters are not the same things that bother old ones.

They are not obsessed with race and gender as some older people are - and as Reform is.

There has been a lot of statistical work done on voting patterns. People don’t tend to lurch from one end of the political spectrum as the other.

This chart shows the movement from 2019 to 2024. What happened last week showed a similar patten.

Thanks for the information Silverbrooks I have huge respect for our local councillor who won with 64% of the vote, I'm sure he puts in much more time than most local councillors and is IMO really effective and active in our community. It was interesting looking at the results for the county. Reform has taken quite a few seats but never with a high percentage of the extremely poor turnout (34% overall) and it's clear that votes have come at the expense of the Conservatives. I live in a Conservative county and in the past protest votes in GEs tend to go to the Lib Dems but this time have gone to Reform. The areas with the most deprived areas of the county have gone to Reform with Labour taking a hit as well as the conservatives but the actual number of voters is very very low and Reform winning on less than 30% of the vote.

God help us!

Mollygo

And if it’s shown that it was mostly younger people who voted reform?

It would be a change from the general election if that’s the case, as the younger age groups were the least likely to vote Reform then. I wonder if there will be a similar analysis for the council elections?

vintage1950

I worked from home for many years, as a freelance, sometimes till the early hours, at weekends and on Bank Holidays. It was a routine which fitted in well with looking after my children. So I had no childcare or travel or workwear expenses and didn't waste valuable time commuting. The clients didn't mind my working from home as long as I could be contacted within office hours, did the job properly and on time. What's wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing!

Whitewavemark2

“Perspective

Reform has won 677 council seats out of the 19,228 council seats available.

They have 5 MPs out of 650.

Farage has yet to hold a surgery in his constituency. He's a grifter not a grafter.

When UKIP won & then fucked up in Thanet, Farage ran for the hills.”

We shall see, but this does put things into perspective.

Thank you!

Perspective, and hope!

Lucy Powell didn’t help the Labour cause with her Dog whistle comments yesterday. On any questions.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bjr0

Then they will be the bad guys

And if it’s shown that it was mostly younger people who voted reform?