And so it begins, Reform’s Britain

Some statistics from a national census of local authority councillors in 2022:

www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Councillors%27%20Census%202022%20-%20report%20FINAL-210622.pdf

Councillors’ work

• On average, councillors had served for 9.1 years in their current authority; 48 per cent had served for up to 5 years while 12 per cent had done so for more than 20 years;

• 54 per cent of councillors held a position of responsibility, most commonly as chair or vice-chair of a committee;

• Councillors spent, on average, 22 hours per week on council business, the largest chunk of which was on council meetings (8 hours);

Councillors’ personal characteristics

• 40 per cent of councillors were retired, and 32 per cent were in full- or part-time employment;

• 61 per cent of councillors held other voluntary or unpaid positions, such as school governorships;

• 64 per cent of councillors held a degree or equivalent or higher qualification; only 4 per cent did not hold any qualification;

• 59 per cent of councillors were male, and 41 per cent female;

• The average age of councillors in 2022 was 60 years; 16 per cent were aged under-45 and 42 per cent were aged 65 or over.

• 92 per cent described their ethnic background as white;

• 84 per cent described their sexual orientation as heterosexual or straight;

• 16 per cent had a long-term physical or mental health problem which reduced their daily activities;

• 46 per cent of councillors had a responsibility as a carer, most commonly looking after a child.

On the day of the 2024 local elections, Labour had the most councillors in England (5,609), followed by the Conservatives (4,825) and the Liberal Democrats (2,909). A further 1638 seats were held by other parties and independents. (Source: Local Government Information Unit).

That’s a total of 14981 seats in England.

Reform now hold 677 or just 4.5%, winning control of just ten councils out of a total of 317.

Last Thursday, Reform won 648 seats and the Conservatives lost 635 so though Labour also lost seats this was about the shift away from the Tories.

These local elections only really represent the same shift we saw in the 2024 GE with a raft of former Tory voters - mostly the elderly - voting for Reform. We can see it in a comparision of the percentages for the last two GEs

This is how older voters voted in GE 2019:

Tory 67%
Labour 14%
LibDem 11%

And in the GE 2024

Tory 46%
Reform 15%
(61% in total)
Labour 20%
LibDem 11%

I dont know the age demographics for last Thurday’s voting but turnout was low and history tells us it’s most older people who vote in local elections.

I view these local elections as somewhat like the EU referendum where it was mostly older people voting Leave. David Aaronovitch recorded a video after talking to pollster Peter Kellner about the Brexit majority having died before the UK actually left the EU almost four years later.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TSgi9WsoaQ

I think this surge towards Reform is another version of that and that people will eventually realise that this isn’t the way.

Perversely, I am somewaht happy to see last week’s results. We now get to see Reform in action rather than their constant carping from the sidelines.

My gut feeling is that give it a few years and, just as more and more people now acknowledge that Brexit was a terrible mistake, they will also realise that Reform is. The majority of younger people will have more sense than their grandparents and great-grandparents and soundly reject Farage.

As for the mayoralties, it will soon become apparent that neither Andrea Jenkyns (who achieved nothing of any note in her nine years as a Tory MP) and boxer Luke Campbell (with no experience at all) are not Andy Burnham.

Farage complaining about people WFH is really quite amusing, as an MP he spends more time working in different jobs, often in different countries than he does either in parliament or seeing his constituents. What a hypocrite!

When is he going to start work, apart from benefiting his own ends!

When is he going to start working 9-5 in an office?

You can tell the calibre of the wretched man, when one of his first initiatives is to point to a group of people who wfh to one to degree or another, and his immediate reaction is to cause division and dissent.

Nothing about the social services, or library services, or roads or education initiatives.

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.

It's possible to look at the figures and, with knowledge, come to reasonable conclusions. These elections covered only 1,500 seats. For comparison, last year there were 2,600 and the year before was 6,000.

A lot of this years votes went to councils that may not exist in 5 years time. This is because of "uniterisation", planned to be completed by 2028. Also they were mostly rural councils and tended to be Conservative councils.

Last time these seats were contested was in 2021 when there was a "covid bounce for Boris Johnson as the vaccine was being put out and the possibility of normal life returned. This was a very good year for the Tories so we cannot be surprised a loss of seats this time round.

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.

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

There may be a number of bye elections, though.

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?

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.

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?

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.

Whitewavemark2

This

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

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?

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.

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?

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

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.

This

“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.

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?

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.