I’m all for giving young people opportunities but our new local Reform councillor responsible for both adult and children’s social care is 19.
Are you irritating in RL? (light hearted)
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Reform, their policies and local government
(231 Posts)An explainer of some policies that Reform will try to implement, often, it appears breaking the law.
1. Net zero
Major solar and wind energy projects face threats from Reform-controlled councils whose members are instinctively hostile to net zero policies.
“We will attack, we will hinder, we will delay, we will obstruct, we will put every hurdle in your way,” said the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, of such projects.
A solar farm in Romney Marsh, Kent, which could power 20% of homes in the county, is in the crosshairs of party, which controls the council. In Staffordshire, a proposed windfarm in the county’s moorlands area and a solar farm in Cheadle will be opposed.
But Reform’s plans will also meet hostility from within communities. In Greater Lincolnshire alone, net zero industries contribute about £980m to the local economy, accounting for 12,209 jobs, according to analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
Legally, the picture is also unclear. Reform could try to block pylons and large solar farms through the judicial review process, though the new planning and infrastructure bill aims to make the challenges harder.
2. Send provision
Farage’s unsubstantiated claims that doctors are “massively over-diagnosing” children with mental illness and special educational needs has sparked fears that Reform UK councils could further restrict or make dramatic cuts to special educational needs and disabilities provision (Send).
The 10 councils where Reform have overall control are projected to have a combined deficit by March next year of £489m. It is as much as £95m in the case of Kent and £71m in Derbyshire.
Reform councils could call for changes to the law to reduce access to education, health and care plans, which are much sought after by families of some children after years of state underinvestment in education.
However, any moves to push for cuts or reshaping of policy also potentially risks sparking a backlash from both its own voters and splits within the party. Andrea Jenkyns, the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, has spoken about her son having ADHD and appeared to contradict Farage. James McMurdock, a Reform MP in Essex, also cast himself as a champion of parents struggling to get Send support for children.
Reform councils who unlawfully try to restrict access to Send support will face the prospect of being challenged at tribunals by families.
3. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies
In an echo of the axe taken by the Trump administration in the US, Farage has already warned: “If you are working in DEI or climate change then perhaps alternative employment is where you should be looking.”
The party’s hostility to “gender ideology” could have repercussions for councils working with charities such as Positive Health, which runs sexual health promotion, education and HIV training for Lincolnshire.
Any savings from cuts to supposed DEI-related schemes are likely to be minimal. Derbyshire and Lincolnshire have each pointed out they don’t have DEI schemes.
4. Immigration
Farage has said that Reform-controlled councils will “resist” accepting any more asylum seekers, pitting then on a potential collision course with Westminster.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s chair, has also said its legal team is examining planning law mechanisms to challenge the use of hotels for asylum accommodation.
The moves would have consequences in places such as Kent, where the county council has been at the forefront of handling provision for unaccompanied minors.
But again the law would not be on the side of councils. The responsibility falls to the Home Office, which selects the hotels and contractors for the scheme.
5. Heritage and culture
Reform has said only the St George and union flag will be flown at council property, although it backtracked when it came to the question of county flags.
The policy appeared to be aimed at the flying of rainbow flags in solidarity with LGBT+ people and to celebrate Pride. It would also spell the end of councils flying Ukrainian flags, serving as a reminder that Farage has frequently been accused by Labour of “fawning” over Vladimir Putin.
Other potential culture wars could arise over council funding of museums or galleries with exhibitions that are deemed to denigrate Britain’s history or the empire.
6. Transport
Opposition to 15-minute cities – an urban planning concept that has become a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists – and support for “pro-motorist” policies have long been red meat to Reform.
Farage lashed out in the local election campaign at “cycle lanes that no one uses” while Reform’s likely leader of Worcestershire county council, Alan Amos, claimed: “All the other parties have bent over backwards to please a small minority.”
At the same time, Amos was eager to emphasise that Reform was eager to support bus travel, a hot issue in a number of counties where Reform’s voter base has tended to be older.
When it comes to cycling, existing policies at many councils are already advanced while there is strong public support for cycling schemes.
Guardian today.
David49
M0nica
See my post further above looking at the government actions that got us here.
At 7.25 yesterday your post ended 1967 so it was all the fault of Harold Wilson et al and nothing since then is at fault
I would agree with some of the things MOnica cited in her post. Failure to invest in industry, spending the money instead on trying to maintain our status as an Imperial power and struggling to come to terms with outdated union practices. but the 60s and early 70s were still a period of spending on improving infrastructure, such as the development of the motorway system, and opening up education to more people by raising the school leaving age and the inception of new universities, the 'red bricks'. Also a tremendous amount of new school building (even though those schools are now falling down around children's ears).
I think the oil pricing crisis caused huge problems with the loss of cheap energy and the start of 'stagflation'.
But the real cause of our current problems I blame firmly on Thatcher with her efforts to roll back the state and to privatise public services, justified by her belief in the supremacy of 'markets' over the mixed economy and to turn the UK into a 'services' provider through deindustrialisation.
The USA followed much the same sort of path and, although its decline hasn't been as bad as the UK's it has followed much the same trajectory. Wealth has flowed back upwards, whereas prior to the 80's it was becoming more equably distributed and the destruction of industries, supplanted by the availability of cheaper foreign made products has left significant numbers of people in insecure jobs, or with no job at all.
Others had covered the period after then. This thread now runs to seven pages. I am up to my neck on paperwork and packing surrounding our move and really do not have time to trawl through the seven pages and put together the remaining years.
M0nica
See my post further above looking at the government actions that got us here.
At 7.25 yesterday your post ended 1967 so it was all the fault of Harold Wilson et al and nothing since then is at fault
See my post further above looking at the government actions that got us here.
David49
M0nica
if you do not understand how you got to the position you are in now, how on earth do you work out how to change it for the future?
Perhaps you would like to tell us how you understand how we got into todays mire.
This got missed I was hoping for a reply
sundowngirl
David49
They don’t need costed policies to win an election they can lie in the way Johnson did and then blame the previous government for all their ills. I wouldn’t trust reform to tell me the time of day, but there are a great many who do.
Oh you mean like Keir Starmer who also told lies, flip flops on what he believes in, and then blames the previous government for all their ills. None of his 'all our policies are fully costed' was true either was it?
All politicians do it, Starmer made lots of promises not to increase certain taxes but he knew more revenue would be needed.
There are plenty of other ways to tax more or give less, which is what we are seeing now, much more to come.
With Reform- the proof will be in the pudding I suppose. See how the councillors go and whether they actually do anything or make any changes for the better. A very different system from ours here because local councillors have very little power - more the state government and federal government. The councils are run by the paid workers with lip service to the elected ones. Round here anyway, not sure about all the other states.
There is so much which is deeply ingrained and I can't see much changing at a fundamental level in our lifetime.
Allira
Oreo
Cossy
Casdon
None of that history means that it isn’t right now to start to rebuild the economy from the basics in expecting the population to work in the jobs that are now available though M0nica, does it? I hate the phrase, but we are where we are, this is the starting point for change rather than continuing to manage the decline.
Yes!
Another yes! Managed decline is what we’ve had for years now, so high time for a turnaround.
I can remember DH saying even 40 years ago that what this country was lacking was a programme of planned maintenance, let alone forward thinking on infrastructure.
When new infrastructure eg hospitals, were built, they were under the PFI schemes which cost us dearly in the long-term.
George Orwell wrote about the problems facing English society and economy in 1941 in "The Lion and the Unicorn". It's amazing how so little has changed in the intervening 84 years.
David49
They don’t need costed policies to win an election they can lie in the way Johnson did and then blame the previous government for all their ills. I wouldn’t trust reform to tell me the time of day, but there are a great many who do.
Oh you mean like Keir Starmer who also told lies, flip flops on what he believes in, and then blames the previous government for all their ills. None of his 'all our policies are fully costed' was true either was it?
M0nica
if you do not understand how you got to the position you are in now, how on earth do you work out how to change it for the future?
Perhaps you would like to tell us how you understand how we got into todays mire.
Whoops sorry, I didn’t mean to type the first bit in bold.
M0nica
if you do not understand how you got to the position you are in now, how on earth do you work out how to change it for the future?
You misunderstand me *M0nica I think. I know the history, and I’m 100% certain that Starmer knows the history. Knowing it doesn’t detract from the requirement to now do something to change the future.
if you do not understand how you got to the position you are in now, how on earth do you work out how to change it for the future?
Oreo
Cossy
Casdon
None of that history means that it isn’t right now to start to rebuild the economy from the basics in expecting the population to work in the jobs that are now available though M0nica, does it? I hate the phrase, but we are where we are, this is the starting point for change rather than continuing to manage the decline.
Yes!
Another yes! Managed decline is what we’ve had for years now, so high time for a turnaround.
I can remember DH saying even 40 years ago that what this country was lacking was a programme of planned maintenance, let alone forward thinking on infrastructure.
When new infrastructure eg hospitals, were built, they were under the PFI schemes which cost us dearly in the long-term.
Cossy
Casdon
None of that history means that it isn’t right now to start to rebuild the economy from the basics in expecting the population to work in the jobs that are now available though M0nica, does it? I hate the phrase, but we are where we are, this is the starting point for change rather than continuing to manage the decline.
Yes!
Another yes! Managed decline is what we’ve had for years now, so high time for a turnaround.
Workers are workers everywhere, they want a fair share of the wealth, instead of Thatcher just dumping them manufacturing should have been modernized. It wasnt just Government folly company management was dreadful, the motor industry in particular was producing awful cars, motorcycles and trucks that were far below the quality that our competitors made.
I agree about failure to modernize in the 60s and especially the 1970s, unions belligerence and management incompetence, then Thatcher made it worse, the service economy theory hasn’t worked yet, far too many want services for nothing.
Casdon
None of that history means that it isn’t right now to start to rebuild the economy from the basics in expecting the population to work in the jobs that are now available though M0nica, does it? I hate the phrase, but we are where we are, this is the starting point for change rather than continuing to manage the decline.
Yes!
None of that history means that it isn’t right now to start to rebuild the economy from the basics in expecting the population to work in the jobs that are now available though M0nica, does it? I hate the phrase, but we are where we are, this is the starting point for change rather than continuing to manage the decline.
In the 1950s British industry was becoming less and less competitive because the then government chose to invest US money coming into the country through the Marshall Plan into the NHS and other social welfare measures rather than in modernising industry, the technical and physical basis of which was antiquated, and ill maintained, while other recipients of Marshall Plan money, like Germany, Japan and other countries used it to rebuild industries whose infra-structure was in a similar state to ours. By the late 1950s, we were losing international markets to our 2 late enemies, while the emergent EEC was wrking together to help each other.
We went into the 1960s, with poor productivity, antiquated Union organisation and too heavy reliance on heavy industry and labour intensive industries that could not compete internationally with lower wage regimes By the end of the decade concern was already being expressed about the amount of British industry being bought up by foreign companies and then, often closed down. We had rampant inflation and never fully recovered from the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and the oil crisis of 1973.
MaizieD
^think more in terms of the 1950s when taxes were much higher,^
I'd love to think of it in terms of the 1950's David. That was when the mega wealthy were taxed at 80% of their income (and sometimes more), when wealth distribution was becoming more equable and when economic growth was increasing. When the mega wealthy were subject to capital controls and were not able to squirrel so much of their money (money made from the poorer people in the UK) off abroad in tax havens. It was when nationalised industries reinvested their profits instead of paying out dividends to shareholders and fat cat salaries to the top management.
If you would only recognise the absolute fact that all money in the UK (apart from foreign earnings) is issued by the state and that the fact that the mega wealthy gather so much of it to themselves, when it should really be a public resource more equably distributed and used to fund public 'goods', is shameful and indefensible.
In the 1950s we were a productive industrial economy, using our own resources to export across the world, wartime debt was still very high, hard work and high taxation reduced the debt. By the mid 60s conditions were much easier we had earned a better lifestyle, this was not done by borrowing more it was done by exploiting the resources we had.
Today we have almost stopped exploiting resources, we import far more than we export, we even have it import Labour because our own workers don’t want to do the work. The Labour government has acknowledged this and is trying to increase GDP, reduce migration and control borrowing, but the concept of actually having to earn our lifestyle is meeting a lot of resistance.
think more in terms of the 1950s when taxes were much higher,
I'd love to think of it in terms of the 1950's David. That was when the mega wealthy were taxed at 80% of their income (and sometimes more), when wealth distribution was becoming more equable and when economic growth was increasing. When the mega wealthy were subject to capital controls and were not able to squirrel so much of their money (money made from the poorer people in the UK) off abroad in tax havens. It was when nationalised industries reinvested their profits instead of paying out dividends to shareholders and fat cat salaries to the top management.
If you would only recognise the absolute fact that all money in the UK (apart from foreign earnings) is issued by the state and that the fact that the mega wealthy gather so much of it to themselves, when it should really be a public resource more equably distributed and used to fund public 'goods', is shameful and indefensible.
”I would credit the public with a bit more sense than that, personally”
Really????
I only hope you’re right but past experience doesn’t bode well!
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