And so it begins, Reform’s Britain

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

Then they will be the bad guys

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

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bjr0

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!

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!

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?

God help us!

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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'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!)

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

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.