Best Of

A good contribution, although a little bit partisan which risks obscuring the real debate.

Local government seems to me in England to be entirely performative, which is why I've never stood as a councillor.

Voting is effectively cosmetic because they have no real power to change anything other than trying to square the impossible.

Unfortunately for those of us whose instincts are on some version the right, that's largely on us.

Democracy has to include the freedom to make mistakes, if it's what the people vote for. Thatcher reduced that freedom with rates caps and abolition of disagreeable councils like the GLC. Major made it worse by changing the balance of local to central funding to make the Community Charge less painful.

Osborne did a lot of austerity by passing the buck to.local councils, then Eric Pickles made it all but impossible to increase Council Tax to meet changing needs, let alone political wants.

So now councils do social care, almost nothing else, and nobody can make the Sims add up. And the more prudent your council has been in the past, the worse the problem since there's less residual muscle to cut.

God knows why anyone would bother being a local councillor now.

A good contribution, although a little bit partisan which risks obscuring the real debate.

Local government seems to me in England to be entirely performative, which is why I've never stood as a councillor.

Voting is effectively cosmetic because they have no real power to change anything other than trying to square the impossible.

You have influence, but no real power nowadays. But then you could say the same about the job of the backbench MP. Indeed, in terms of decision-making, the average council cabinet member or committee chair probably has more individual influence on the world than does the average backbench MP.

I really wouldn't want to be a local councillor, beyond trying to get your local roads repaired (overriding the desires of your neighbouring councillor) the only thing you may get to do is decide on some planning applications.

Meanwhile things will continue to fall apart and workers get made redundant as social care costs continue to eat all the none social care budgets..

Trump says dangerous for the UK and Canada to be doing business with China, as Starmer heads to Shanghai and after Carney's recent trip

"Donald Trump says 'very dangerous' for UK to do business with China as Starmer lands in Shanghai - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0keyyeyr41o

Burner phones and ‘safe’ charging cables. Nothing to see here.

Starmer, and the British Establishment generally, still believe in international order and free trade as taught in GCSE economics and PPE 101. We got ripped off by the Americans and we will get ripped off by the Chinese. Heck, we even got ripped off by the French. They think China will play by the rules because they think everyone plays by the rules.

And in doing so they'll piss off the Americans because they want to piss off Trump but have not thought about what happens after Trump pisses off when his term ends in three years or less. They've forgotten about not burning your bridges on the way out.