And so it begins, Reform’s Britain

Grandmotherto8

My area has just elected a gold medal Olympic boxer as Reform mayor. I doubt he has a GCSE to his name, as he will have devoted himself to boxing from an early age. I doubt he was involved or even interested in politics until he got groomed into Reform. We live in an area where the wealthy and the poor live cheeky by jowl and the poor are seduced by tales of immigrants taking our jobs, houses & hospital beds. They are easy meat to unscrupulous politicians like Farage, who was rejected 7 times by different constituencies before he finally found a seat to take him. The voters in the areas of popularity for Reform are seduced by the offer of closing our borders, but fail to ask how this will be done when we have a coastline impossible to secure. My concern for our new mayor, who was an excellent boxer, is what is his acumen for the job? Has he even had an administrative post before? He won as he's a local man with a gold medal and an anti migrant platform. How will he carry out his job effectively & efficiently for his constituency? Many Reform candidates are totally unprepared for their role. They get elected on the back of a groundswell of angst, possibly misguided information & grooming. In the months to come we will find out the truth about many of the Reform councillors and mayors as they struggle to carry out their work appropriately, meanwhile Farage will continue to cosy up to Trump while ignoring his constituency.

In our area a Lib Dem candidate has just won. Before that he was on TV appearing in Naked Attraction where he WAS totally naked. 🤣🤣 doubt if he has a GCSE either, mind you Angela Rayner doesn’t either.

Leopard79

I think it's fantastic that Reform have done so well - roll on the general election.

Common sense and putting our country first for a change.

As for the jobs being moved back to an office - great - businesses paying rent etc again and the work shy back in the office working again.

Talk about generalisation and describing those working from home “work shy”

My daughter currently works from home, on a hybrid scheme, attending the office and meetings in other offices across Essex when she’s required.

She works far longer and harder than possible in an office environment, mainly because there are no interruptions.

I spent the last two years working from home, from 2020-2022, I worked in the DWP for a national team so no one else in my local office worked in the team I did, again I was at laptop at 7:45am every morning, 30 mins for lunch, and rarely finished before 6:00pm

Because people wfh they are no less or more likely to “shirk” than if they attended 100% in an office.

Working from home is valuable to so many people, disabled, carers, and many companies have downsized or sold off their offices.

doubt if he has a GCSE either, mind you Angela Rayner doesn’t either.

Irrelevant.

It's not the lack of formal qualifications that matters, it's the lack of political experience. Rayner has plenty of that, being a union official is a very political post. We have had plenty of MPs in the past who have entered politics via the union route.

A PPE degree from Oxford is as meaningless as a few GCSEs when it comes to being a good MP (or Mayor). Experience counts, not pieces of paper.

I do know that, just didn't mention it. I realised I should have done, but I'd already pressed 'send'...

The point of my post was that there is no such thing as 'road tax'.

MaizieD

I do know that, just didn't mention it. I realised I should have done, but I'd already pressed 'send'...

The point of my post was that there is no such thing as 'road tax'.

Damn, forgot to press 'paste', too (the shock of finding myself in a Reform led county has been too much for me)

They are. However, major A roads and motorways and major road building schemes are the responsibility of national Government, ie National Highways in England, Agencies on behalf of the Senedd in Wales, Transport Scotland in Scotland.

Businesses paying rent again isn't necessarily a win for the consumer as they're likely to pass on costs.

A lack of formal academic qualification should not preclude someone from standing for public office but the learning curve is very steep. Sometimes work experience can be invaluable but to parachute in a former boxer with no experience of anything else to be metro mayor with all the responsibility that entails is irresponsible to him, the public he has been elected to serve and the people who will have to work with him.

Campbell will be required to:

• chair combined authorities (groups of local councils) to which specified functions and budgets have been devolved from Whitehall.

* deal with aspects of transport, skills, housing, and local infrastructure investmen, spatial planning, policing, health and employment support.

provide strong local leadership as a prominent individual that local residents can hold directly accountable.

• provide central government with a single point of contact when they want something done in a region.

* enact policies that require coordination across public services and in areas beyond his formal brief.

How in the Hootenanny is he going to manage that?

MaizieD

I do know that, just didn't mention it. I realised I should have done, but I'd already pressed 'send'...

The point of my post was that there is no such thing as 'road tax'.

I think people still think of it as road tax even though it's vehicle licensing.

As for the jobs being moved back to an office - great - businesses paying rent etc again and the work shy back in the office working again.
What an ignorant opinion. You have no idea Leopard so try to find out what working from home is about.

Following Silverbrooks post on what is required of a metro mayor, what is problematic in "ability" is that the government has been discussing devolution of powers from central government to regional management of many major resources.

Ie as time goes on, more power and money from central government to metro areas. These will become even more significant with larger budgets if Devolution proceeds further.

Looked into it further and they are involved in managing funding.

"What is a metro mayor?

A metro mayor is the directly-elected leader of an area.

Once in place, metro mayors have executive powers and funding available to make strategic decisions over a range of issues including skills, business support and transport, and in some cases crime and health They are also the chair of the combined authority which is made up of the area’s constituent councils.

I seriously question whether it's a good road to go down if metro mayors are not capable. A region could be in chaos.

Campbell was coached by Tice, and no problem with that for a more minor role, for someone starting off in politics, like a councillor who can learn on the job - how is he going to do it?

“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.

This

It certainly does put it into perspective!

Better have a situation like we do now where Reform is "tested in practice". I do worry about some key wins as to how people will fare if ideology and but backs are put over need.

My son lives in Co Durham, works in Durham, very very disabled SEND child, DiL works locally with autistic children, so we do have real concerns.

Yes we can pretend nothing is happening that is one strategy.

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?

Galaxy

Yes we can pretend nothing is happening that is one strategy.

There is a middle line between pretending nothing is happening, and pretending this is an all out revolution. It’s neither of those things, it’s a watch and wait.

We didn’t have a council election in Trafford Whitewave nor did many areas so ‘perspective’ is difficult to prove as much as perhaps you’d like to think! Who knows how many others might have been handed to Reform UK?

Whitewavemark2

This

I did ask if local Elections had always been staggered. I'm sure they weren't years ago.

Whitewavemark2

This

It does remind me of that poster from 1978? Labour Isn't Working.

It seems that this Labour Government is not working out well for many voters.

I see this as, to a large extent, our way of saying "It's OUR country/OUR way of life and just stop with all the 'multicultural' stuff for goodness sake. Also stop these darn illegals coming across our Channel in boats.

Classy. How do you propose to stop multiculture?

FriedGreenTomatoes2

We didn’t have a council election in Trafford Whitewave nor did many areas so ‘perspective’ is difficult to prove as much as perhaps you’d like to think! Who knows how many others might have been handed to Reform UK?

We won’t ever have an answer to that. There are no more council elections until next year now.

Two of my daughters work for the local authority in a mixture of time in office, and working from home. This started in Covid times.
At this time the local authority was negotiating to buy a huge building to adapt as office space for the workers, as the workforce had outgrown the previous space.
This was stopped, and the previous space sold. Workers " hot desk" in the next town, which has a room for large meetings if needed.
We ( the paying public) have not had the £2 million pound premises cost, and don't have the ongoing expenses of heating, cleaning, electricity, heating, rubbish disposal and loo rolls for a large establishment.
I'd be less than enthusiastic about funding all of this. Would those who have strong views on WFH care to pay my share?

There may be a number of bye elections, though.

There won’t be 250 by elections though MaizieD.

Professor Tim Wilson agrees with my view that the Lib Dem’s are the ones to watch.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JOpvDrrMh8

Cossy
Because people wfh they are no less or more likely to “shirk” than if they attended 100% in an office.

The idea has persisted for a long time and often from anyone who hasn’t worked from home, or possibly has wfh, but has shirked.

When PPA time (Planning, preparation, and assessment) first came in for teachers, I sat in more than one governors meeting where governors raised points about it, e.g.
“If the teachers aren’t in school, they may not be working.”

Or “Do you trust your staff to work the full time they’re allowed for PPA if they aren’t in school?”

At the time, there was nowhere in school for staff on PPA time to go, apart from the staffroom, and there were frequent interruptions.
The head was excellent at pointing out that Yes he did trust us and were the governors aware of how much more time PPA took teachers outside the small but welcome allowance.
Now we have an area in school where teachers can work on planning together if they want, or it’s acceptable to go home.