Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has been designated as right-wing extremist by the country's federal office for the protection of the constitution.
They just moved into first place in some opinion polls a few days ago.
Some interesting things happening in County Durham. Eye-test town goes Labour thanks to a split on the right(?)
Barnard Castle Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BEWLEY, Christopher Paul Reform UK 436 FOOTE-WOOD, Chris Labour Party 456 Elected HENDERSON, Ted Local Conservatives 421 HOGG, John Edward The Green Party 97 HUZZEY, Richard Liberal Democrat 63
victoria wood's brother has won apparently.
He used to be Mr Lib Dem locally, was a candidate for multiple GEs - I wonder when/why he switched?
Phew, for a moment I thought he’d switched to Reform. The thought of the blessed Victoria’s brother going Faragist would be a sore one (though I’m sure she would have written a fabulous song about it).
A quick glance through the Durham results so far doesn't support the much-trailed Labour wipe-out. So far they seem to be gaining seats from the Tories, and losing some to Reform. Difficult to tell exactly as there have been boundary changes.
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
That's what happens when you build houses in dumps where nobody with any choice wants to live instead of in the prosperous successful areas of the country which are in desperate need of new housing.
We need 8 million or so houses to match France, but very few of those should be built in the north.
It's so staggeringly obvious where the demand is when you look at the price/incomes ratio: from memory, 4x in the north, 10x in the SE and 14x in London.
But as we're governed by a bunch of economically illiterate, social media-obsessed cowards, focused on the next opinion poll not the next generation, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Should London look like this? City centre Brisbane with a concentrated centre. Some up to 80 floors. Would provide accomodation in the limited space - but would be the reversal of the trends of recent years.
That's what Manchester looks like. And Leeds is following.
That's what happened in Basingstoke (to a lesser degree). They devolve into places where pimp-oppressed immigrant prostitutes jump off the higher floors to end the pain (yes, that was an actual incident). High-rise accommodation are just crime machines with a fire risk. Don't build anything over four floors.
That's a stereotype. It depends very heavily on where, how and who.
Hmmm. The proportion and numbers of successful high-rises is low. Grenfell was a warning we've ignored. They are a bad solution and better are available.
I think it's telling that in Scotland we keep knocking our high rises down, but our highest population density areas are actually those with four-storey tenements, and can be some of the most desirable parts of the country.
Private, expensive high rises work, because the percentage of fuckwit vandals is lower and the security and maintenance is actually done.
After Grenfell, you couldn't get fireproof doors in the UK, for the best part of a year. The councils/housing associations had bought them all to replace the one missing from their properties....
Reform have gained Labour's safest seat on Durham Council.
Neither @Taz or myself would be surprised to see Reform do very well in County Durham. The council has failed to delivery - the problem for reform is what they’ve been asked to deliver is impossible
Yes, and that’s a more fundamental problem with local govt finance. Something Labour have sadly kicked down the road.
As an aside I decided against a vote for Reform yesterday, I just voted for my independent Paul Sexton. Very active in the seat. I didn’t want a stray Reform vote costing him his seat. I found out on the way out of the polling station my wife had done the same.
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
And yet still they sell, so people clearly can afford them.
If we build enough, they will become affordable to more people. That's the glory of the market. This is true whether we build a million 5-bedroom detacheds or a million flats (though the former would cause more reshuffling).
David, there is a major difference between being sold and people being able to afford them. Far too many people are trapped paying mortgages they can't afford, which extracts cash from the economy as they can't then spend it on stuff in shops and hospitality.
Other property is bought by landlords to let to the people who can't afford a mortgage at all. Or where the exorbitant rent is paid by the state.
Either way you look at it the market is broken. We need to build a significant number of smaller houses and apartment blocks. But we can't do that - councils and housing associations are communist and broke, developers only want to build executive style homes, and MPs have too many rentier types in their ranks who refuse reforms.
The market is primarily broken by planning restrictions and micromanagement. Bringing prices down - which means expanding supply - is the biggest single thing that could address all the above problems. The details of what's built is secondary (though far from irrelevant).
As an aside, very high mortgage repayments doesn't extract money from the economy (much) - but it does recycle it from younger adults (especially) paying those mortgages, to inheritance receivers.
Easy money, openness to dodgy foreign money, and too low taxation on property ownership generally, are critical factors.
We should also consider other factors in the economy. Uber, Deliveroo and Amazon not investing in employees, the likes of Apple and Starbucks taking money out of the economy with questionable schemes to avoid paying tax in the UK, etc. Communities need affordable housing. They also need businesses who are invested in their success.
Very Trumpian logic. Buying things from foreign companies means our money is being taken?
Nah. It's fairly well-established that multi-nationals use dodgy accounting to shift as much of their profits as possible to wherever is most tax-efficient. Profit made in Britain should be taxed in Britain.
If it is "dodgy" they will be prosecuted. If it is legal it is their finance leaders fiduciary duty and nothing less than their shareholders would demand.
The idea that many companies or individuals will volunteer to pay tax when there are perfectly legal ways not to is the naivety that only someone who does not understand business would suggest.
Go back half a century and companies were more often situated in their local communities. The idea of doing things for the community was a natural part of being part of the community. We have moved towards a more extreme capitalism where shareholder value is everything and those making the money are ever more remote from where the income is being generated. Perhaps we need legal mechanisms to encourage what previously occurred naturally.
I see Andrea 'give the finger' Jenkyns' latest genius idea is to house migrants in tents rather than hotels. I'm sure Kent residents will feel a lot better when they're surrounded by migrant camps, though easier to burn down I guess.
The woman is vile in the extreme.
Not sure where she's been, housing migrants/homeless in tents seems to have been unofficial policy for a while.
If the promised improvement in processing asylum applications is achieved then this problem should reduce and hence become less of a campaigning point for Reform. Hence Jenkyns' suggestion, migrant camps will be more unpopular than migrant hostels.
“If…”
Record Number of Channel Crossings so far this year.
The Channel Crossings are noise.
The real fun is in the selling of work visas for non-existent jobs. All you need is a bunch of barely existent companies.
1) Create a job that pays £45K 2) Get the visa paperwork started. 3) Sell the visa to some poor shmuck in a developing country 4) He arrives and finds no job...
This is now an industry. Visas priced at 15K plus, they say. Some small companies are doing a few hundred visas. A year.
That sounds criminal! 😠
Yep but try and prove it and remember the people charging are probably intentionally not in the UK and never will be given that it’s illegal
"Our investigation found that Efficiency for Care employed - on average - 16 people in 2022, and 152 in 2023. Yet a letter sent from the Home Office to the company dated May 2023 - and seen by the BBC - showed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to foreign workers between March 2022 and May 2023."
By using a network of companies, with obfuscated ownership, all that happens is a company loses it's rights to grant such visas
.... and if they are charging £10K for a visa (low number)... say 6K profit. That's £7.5m. That's GetOutOfBed money....
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Wow. Another Batley & Spen seemed like the impossible dream yet LAB came within a ridiculous 6 - SIX! - votes of doing it. 'Close but no cigar' does not apply here. SKS, if he smoked, would be lighting one up and rightly so. The strong LAB performance (against the most challenging backdrop for an incumbent imaginable) is the big story here.
Agree. The really important binary divide at the moment is between those who might vote for Reform and those who certainly won't. Such evidence as Runcorn provides is that both groups are large, and that those who are anti Reform will vote tactically in substantial numbers.
If this is correct it will, if sustained over time, lead us back to a sort of quasi 2 party system in most of England - the Reform camp and the Anti Reform camp.
Also, if correct, it sharpens the Tory dilemma, possibly to the point of destruction or absorption.
If the current political impasse continues then the next GE is going to definitely be contested between those two camps of Pro-Reform vs Not Reform.
We have seen, for instance in France, how powerful that can be. But FPTP also makes it a numbers game in terms of how the voter demographics fall in each constituency.
For instance, if you’re looking at leafy parts of the northern and western Home Counties, the commuter belts around cities like Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and nice, well-heeled parts of the South West, you are going to see sizeable “stop-Reform” movements that I think will be to the benefit of Labour and the LDs.
Conversely in the smaller county towns, the coasts and the East, that “Stop Reform” coalition probably can’t build itself a large enough vote to stop REFUK (and the Tories in places) from winning.
At the moment it very much feels like we’re going to get some kind of coalition (even if not a formal one) at the next GE. I find it hard to see, given the geographic splits, how one party can engineer a majority right now. If anyone can, it’s Labour, but it will be tough.
Lots of people are presuming that FPTP will push people into camps and effectively ensure 2-party contests everywhere. What if it doesn't? What if we continue having elections like this week? Lots of candidates winning on less than 30% of the vote? Results where it is unclear how to vote tactically?
This is obviously a possibility, but history + FPTP tends towards the likelihood of a combination of voters and politicians enabling a sort of quasi binary system. We are, very obviously, in a transition period evidenced by the fact that no-one knows the future trajectory of the Tory party. This replaces an eternity of the Tories either being in power or being ready to come back to power when Labour get tired. Now, both long term governing and extinction are serious options.
This may settle into UK becoming permanent coalition territory, like so much of Europe, but more likely it settles into two camps; if that occurs, its identity looks like being Camp Reform/Toryreform v Camp Lab/LD.
This is mainly because of the marmite nature of Reform. They are a possible option for X% (up to 35%?) and impossible option for Y% (65%?) much more clearly so than other parties.
It took UK politics several decades to transition from a Con/Lib 2-party system to a Con/Lab one. If we're in a transition period now, I wouldn't assume that it would be sorted by the time of the next general election, or the one after that, or the one after that.
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has been designated as right-wing extremist by the country's federal office for the protection of the constitution.
They just moved into first place in some opinion polls a few days ago.
What is believed to have been intended to be a Soviet Venera probe failed to break orbit having been launched a week or so after Venera 8 in 1972. And has been stuck in orbit ever since. Expected to make an uncontrolled reentry next week, could impact anywhere between 51 north and 51 south...
Should break up nearly completely. A propellant tank or 2 might make the surface. But the chances of that hitting anyone is basically zero.
This part is the actual landing probe designed with a heat shield, and to withstand 92 bar pressure (equivalent to 3000 feet underwater) and 300kph winds.
People wanting to remove people's public sector pensions - could we not just tax them? A fatcat tax would be a lot less controversial, though it would be more complex.
We could tax pensions more. It would seem iniquitous to tax higher pensions of people who worked in the public sector and not higher pensions of people who worked in the private sector.
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
That's what happens when you build houses in dumps where nobody with any choice wants to live instead of in the prosperous successful areas of the country which are in desperate need of new housing.
We need 8 million or so houses to match France, but very few of those should be built in the north.
It's so staggeringly obvious where the demand is when you look at the price/incomes ratio: from memory, 4x in the north, 10x in the SE and 14x in London.
But as we're governed by a bunch of economically illiterate, social media-obsessed cowards, focused on the next opinion poll not the next generation, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Should London look like this? City centre Brisbane with a concentrated centre. Some up to 80 floors. Would provide accomodation in the limited space - but would be the reversal of the trends of recent years.
That's what Manchester looks like. And Leeds is following.
That's what happened in Basingstoke (to a lesser degree). They devolve into places where pimp-oppressed immigrant prostitutes jump off the higher floors to end the pain (yes, that was an actual incident). High-rise accommodation are just crime machines with a fire risk. Don't build anything over four floors.
That's a stereotype. It depends very heavily on where, how and who.
Hmmm. The proportion and numbers of successful high-rises is low. Grenfell was a warning we've ignored. They are a bad solution and better are available.
What we need is more low rise. 5-8 floors. Somewhere that can feel like a family home rather than a box in the sky.
That stuff is being built everywhere in London you can't get permission for towers.
Seems sensible to me.
Go look at Stratford for the result.
There is a place for towers. I love the skyscrapers being built in Manchester. I love city centre density, and the buzz it creates at ground level. But they only work in certain locations for certain demographics (largely: young people), and there is a risk of ghettoisation. Medium to high density streets of family homes have a big role to play going forward - both in providing the housing stock we need and in creating pleasant and liveable and walkable cities.
Devon: St Sidwell and St James (Exeter) ACZEL Will Liberal Democrats 298 10.2% FINDLAY Lucy Labour and Co-operative Party 981 33.5% LUSCOMBE David Conservative Party 188 6.4% RICHARDSON Thomas Morgan Green Party 1,049 35.8% WESTLAKE Jo Reform UK 403 13.8%
General active travel musings following chats during the local elections with Ashfield Independents about local appeal, and also possible issues around unitaries. For PBers, some of this will be in the "no shit, Sherlock " category.
A note on being the "Squeaky Wheel".
Highways are a Notts County responsibility, and about 15 years ago their internal setup switched from "a team for each District" to "an integrated team". A more recent move has been integration of the PROW team (ie public footpaths etc) into wider Highways, which is (obviously) dominated by Roads.
Asfield Independents argue that "potholes" here get less attention now, in the absence of organisational focus, than in wealthier areas where people have capacity to lobby more, because we do not complain and report enough.
This applies to activism - one thing we need to develop is "capacity for making lots of complaints".
Places with strong activist bases (Cambridge, London, York, Nottingham, now Greater Manchester) have the capacity to get lots of attention, and win local political arguments by dint of numbers. Then they get active travel aware Local Authorities, and the staff who are not carbrained go and work there.
They also have the activists to win political debates with anti-active-travel organisations etc. That is a different thing to where does the evidence lead; often that is secondary.
And areas like mine which are not like that become ever more disconnected and behind the best.
What happens here is that the local councillors see a noisy anti-active-travel group and put themselves at the head of it for political reasons. Aside: this is why I focus on stuff I can legally enforce.
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
That's what happens when you build houses in dumps where nobody with any choice wants to live instead of in the prosperous successful areas of the country which are in desperate need of new housing.
We need 8 million or so houses to match France, but very few of those should be built in the north.
It's so staggeringly obvious where the demand is when you look at the price/incomes ratio: from memory, 4x in the north, 10x in the SE and 14x in London.
But as we're governed by a bunch of economically illiterate, social media-obsessed cowards, focused on the next opinion poll not the next generation, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Should London look like this? City centre Brisbane with a concentrated centre. Some up to 80 floors. Would provide accomodation in the limited space - but would be the reversal of the trends of recent years.
That's what Manchester looks like. And Leeds is following.
That's what happened in Basingstoke (to a lesser degree). They devolve into places where pimp-oppressed immigrant prostitutes jump off the higher floors to end the pain (yes, that was an actual incident). High-rise accommodation are just crime machines with a fire risk. Don't build anything over four floors.
That's a stereotype. It depends very heavily on where, how and who.
Hmmm. The proportion and numbers of successful high-rises is low. Grenfell was a warning we've ignored. They are a bad solution and better are available.
I think it's telling that in Scotland we keep knocking our high rises down, but our highest population density areas are actually those with four-storey tenements, and can be some of the most desirable parts of the country.
Private, expensive high rises work, because the percentage of fuckwit vandals is lower and the security and maintenance is actually done.
After Grenfell, you couldn't get fireproof doors in the UK, for the best part of a year. The councils/housing associations had bought them all to replace the one missing from their properties....
Automatically closing firedoors are impossible for residents without the upper body strength to hold them open, because they are frail, old or in a wheelchair.
People wanting to remove people's public sector pensions - could we not just tax them? A fatcat tax would be a lot less controversial, though it would be more complex.
We could tax pensions more. It would seem iniquitous to tax higher pensions of people who worked in the public sector and not higher pensions of people who worked in the private sector.
Yes, reduce the tax threshold for oldies for the 40% band.
Now a handful of seats where it’s Ref with a Lib Dem runner up. It’ll make for interesting future battles if there are more like this. That’s not the case in Westminster seats yet.
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has been designated as right-wing extremist by the country's federal office for the protection of the constitution.
They just moved into first place in some opinion polls a few days ago.
Both myself and @RochdalePioneers were saying yesterday that the enthusiasm gap was going to defeat Labour in the byelection. I am quite pleased it was so close to be honest. It suggests to me that there is still a ceiling on the Reform vote.
We will get a better picture from the local elections today. Again, I fear that low turnouts will exaggerate the effect of the Reform vote, just as it used to for UKIP in the EU elections. With a 30% turnout every voter who can be arsed to turn out is worth 3.
The Tories are in serious trouble, there is no doubt about that. What I am not seeing is the Cameron/Osborne type figure who can lead them back. It is the complete lack of talent that is killing them and feeding Reform. Changing the leader for the sake of it yet again is only an answer if there is a much better alternative in the wings. Cleverly? Genuinely not sure.
Good morning my friend. For the Tories there have two problems: 1) A lack of a Camerosborne figure to run for leader 2) The membership wouldn't elect such a person if they existed
Do the electorate want a Cameron Osborne type figure at the moment? If they do probably the closest to it would be Mel Stride who is at least dull but competent but I can't see a Cameron Osborne figure winning back any Tory voters lost to Reform so at most they would hope to squeeze a few more from Labour and the LDs. However I can't really see that happening either given Labour are already down largely to their core and LD voters too anti Brexit for the Tories in their current guise so all Stride could do was tread water really and hope to hold the 2024 Tory vote.
If Stride did get it it would have to be by Tory MPs coronation rather like Howard in 2003, Jenrick would probably beat him if it went to the membership if Kemi was removed
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
The category error the Tories repeatedly make is thinking they have to take on Farage and Labour. At the moment they need to come up with some positive reasons to vote Tory instead. A clue, loudly proclaiming the country has gone to the dogs is not just insufficient but Reforms best possible advert.
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
REFUK doing better in the South West than I was expecting.
ATKINSON Yvonne Labour and Co-operative Party 1,054 25.0% BAKER Lucille Conservative Party 452 10.7% GILLETT Holly Green Party 544 12.9% NEWCOMBE Vanessa Liberal Democrats 1,030 24.4% STEVENS Neil Reform UK 1,126 26.7%
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
That's what happens when you build houses in dumps where nobody with any choice wants to live instead of in the prosperous successful areas of the country which are in desperate need of new housing.
We need 8 million or so houses to match France, but very few of those should be built in the north.
It's so staggeringly obvious where the demand is when you look at the price/incomes ratio: from memory, 4x in the north, 10x in the SE and 14x in London.
But as we're governed by a bunch of economically illiterate, social media-obsessed cowards, focused on the next opinion poll not the next generation, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Should London look like this? City centre Brisbane with a concentrated centre. Some up to 80 floors. Would provide accomodation in the limited space - but would be the reversal of the trends of recent years.
That's what Manchester looks like. And Leeds is following.
That's what happened in Basingstoke (to a lesser degree). They devolve into places where pimp-oppressed immigrant prostitutes jump off the higher floors to end the pain (yes, that was an actual incident). High-rise accommodation are just crime machines with a fire risk. Don't build anything over four floors.
That's a stereotype. It depends very heavily on where, how and who.
Hmmm. The proportion and numbers of successful high-rises is low. Grenfell was a warning we've ignored. They are a bad solution and better are available.
What we need is more low rise. 5-8 floors. Somewhere that can feel like a family home rather than a box in the sky.
That stuff is being built everywhere in London you can't get permission for towers.
Seems sensible to me.
Go look at Stratford for the result.
There is a place for towers. I love the skyscrapers being built in Manchester. I love city centre density, and the buzz it creates at ground level. But they only work in certain locations for certain demographics (largely: young people), and there is a risk of ghettoisation. Medium to high density streets of family homes have a big role to play going forward - both in providing the housing stock we need and in creating pleasant and liveable and walkable cities.
Interestingly in downtown Chicago there’s an area of extreme high rises (we’re talking Shard height) that’s built around an enclosed parkland area, and it’s apparently full of families with children. There’s a large (private) school there, and the enclosed geography makes it feel intimate and safe, with no traffic.
There are some similar setups in inner London. A lot of the children at my daughter’s primary school live in high(ish) rise blocks built in the last decade around play parks and garden squares.
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
REFUK doing better in the South West than I was expecting.
Presumably doing better in the Con-held seats than in the LD-held ones.
So, it's going to be an interesting day. Like @TSE I only woke up an hour ago and slept through the drama.
Reform are going to have higher stakes to play with; these election results will have a non-neutral impact and increase both potential costs and potential benefits for RfUK. They are on a longer, higher tightrope, and the practice safety net has been removed for the performance.
A couple of furthers comments on my conversation with a local candidate whilst I was voting. He is PB age - recently retired, is with the AIs, and reported that he had walked 700 miles during the run up to this election.
They have (both AI and Reform) pursued pavement politics, LD style, and the AIs rest on things such as having brought in money to the area (which is fair - £50m+ via Towns Fund etc and a two new / refurbed sports centres, and an overhaul of a couple of town centre squares, county youth centre, observatory, upgraded indoor market). And they pursue a bar-chart rhetoric focused on "it's Us vs X", when it's actually Y, plus a blizzard of Focus-alike leaflets. Rubbish collections are improved.
But the extra one-of sticky-plaster money is far less than cuts due to Osborne / Cameron, and at national level the need for Council Tax Reform has simply been ignored - the South will squeal if it is made significantly less regressive even by eg property revaluation, or removal of the 3x limit to the multiplier, so the relative increase in property values over 3 decades and the benefit thereof is used in the calculation.
Worth reminding people that the VOA (who calculate the value of properties subject to business rates and council tac) are now part of HMRC rather than being an arms length removed.
As my daughter pointed out on the all hands call yesterday it means it’s very hard to pretend to be independent
I have two bits of council tax casework on hand at the moment.
In the first, residents who had been renting out a chalet in their garden as a holiday let, registered as a business to pay (nil) business rates rather than council tax, have now decided to stop, and the council has hit them not only with council tax, but double council tax as a ‘second home’, on what they are trying to argue is now just a large garden shed.
In the second, someone who has just moved into a property has had their banding increased on the grounds that the previous owner had added a conservatory (home improvements only becoming liable for a rebanding when the property is sold).
The second case, I have some sympathy with, as a conservatory isn’t the same as an extension to make an extra bedroom or room.
In the first case, the owners have removed the toilets from their chalet in order to try and argue it is no longer habitable. I’m not sure that is going to wash.
IMO it's absolutely outrageous that people can have a second home, rent it out for half the year and then qualify for CT exemption because it's a 'small business'. Friends of ours do this with their Cornwall 'cottage' thus depriving the local population of a starter home and any CT revenue. Totally wrong - the rules need to change.
No what's wrong is we arent building houses.
You wouldn't post that if you lived in at some parts of Essex. Maldon is an example; hundreds of homes have been built to the South and West of the town. And a village nearby is protesting about 600 new homes being built. In our small town around 100 extra houses have recently been added, increasing the population by around 10%.
We had similar debates in Stockton-on-Tees when I lived there. The whole borough had been endless housebuilding for a decade. Multiple projects with hundreds of homes per site as well as smaller infill builds. And even bigger ones in the planning stage which are now going up.
The comedy factor? With the 2014 planning regs change the council was deemed to be "not building enough houses", allowing developers to do what they liked regardless of what councillors or even the MP thought.
The issue? The wrong type of houses being built. I lived on a development that ran to nearly 1,000 houses. Part of the site used to have a run down council estate on it, which was bulldozed. A small number of LHA houses added to the project did not adequately replace the hundreds of smaller affordable houses removed.
We're building houses that people can't afford.
That's what happens when you build houses in dumps where nobody with any choice wants to live instead of in the prosperous successful areas of the country which are in desperate need of new housing.
We need 8 million or so houses to match France, but very few of those should be built in the north.
It's so staggeringly obvious where the demand is when you look at the price/incomes ratio: from memory, 4x in the north, 10x in the SE and 14x in London.
But as we're governed by a bunch of economically illiterate, social media-obsessed cowards, focused on the next opinion poll not the next generation, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Should London look like this? City centre Brisbane with a concentrated centre. Some up to 80 floors. Would provide accomodation in the limited space - but would be the reversal of the trends of recent years.
That's what Manchester looks like. And Leeds is following.
That's what happened in Basingstoke (to a lesser degree). They devolve into places where pimp-oppressed immigrant prostitutes jump off the higher floors to end the pain (yes, that was an actual incident). High-rise accommodation are just crime machines with a fire risk. Don't build anything over four floors.
That's a stereotype. It depends very heavily on where, how and who.
Hmmm. The proportion and numbers of successful high-rises is low. Grenfell was a warning we've ignored. They are a bad solution and better are available.
I think it's telling that in Scotland we keep knocking our high rises down, but our highest population density areas are actually those with four-storey tenements, and can be some of the most desirable parts of the country.
Private, expensive high rises work, because the percentage of fuckwit vandals is lower and the security and maintenance is actually done.
After Grenfell, you couldn't get fireproof doors in the UK, for the best part of a year. The councils/housing associations had bought them all to replace the one missing from their properties....
Automatically closing firedoors are impossible for residents without the upper body strength to hold them open, because they are frail, old or in a wheelchair.
... and then burn to death in a fire.
The doors in question were installed when the buildings were built. Then er.... vanished.
There is a hilarious pre-Grenfell genre of emails (I have seen some) from MPs complaining about such doors existing and that stairways should have art installations, benches etc to make them feel nicer....
The problem with the magnetically held open fire doors, is that this requires regular testing to see that they haven't been blocked open.
Wow. Another Batley & Spen seemed like the impossible dream yet LAB came within a ridiculous 6 - SIX! - votes of doing it. 'Close but no cigar' does not apply here. SKS, if he smoked, would be lighting one up and rightly so. The strong LAB performance (against the most challenging backdrop for an incumbent imaginable) is the big story here.
Agree. The really important binary divide at the moment is between those who might vote for Reform and those who certainly won't. Such evidence as Runcorn provides is that both groups are large, and that those who are anti Reform will vote tactically in substantial numbers.
If this is correct it will, if sustained over time, lead us back to a sort of quasi 2 party system in most of England - the Reform camp and the Anti Reform camp.
Also, if correct, it sharpens the Tory dilemma, possibly to the point of destruction or absorption.
If the current political impasse continues then the next GE is going to definitely be contested between those two camps of Pro-Reform vs Not Reform.
We have seen, for instance in France, how powerful that can be. But FPTP also makes it a numbers game in terms of how the voter demographics fall in each constituency.
For instance, if you’re looking at leafy parts of the northern and western Home Counties, the commuter belts around cities like Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and nice, well-heeled parts of the South West, you are going to see sizeable “stop-Reform” movements that I think will be to the benefit of Labour and the LDs.
Conversely in the smaller county towns, the coasts and the East, that “Stop Reform” coalition probably can’t build itself a large enough vote to stop REFUK (and the Tories in places) from winning.
At the moment it very much feels like we’re going to get some kind of coalition (even if not a formal one) at the next GE. I find it hard to see, given the geographic splits, how one party can engineer a majority right now. If anyone can, it’s Labour, but it will be tough.
Lots of people are presuming that FPTP will push people into camps and effectively ensure 2-party contests everywhere. What if it doesn't? What if we continue having elections like this week? Lots of candidates winning on less than 30% of the vote? Results where it is unclear how to vote tactically?
This is obviously a possibility, but history + FPTP tends towards the likelihood of a combination of voters and politicians enabling a sort of quasi binary system. We are, very obviously, in a transition period evidenced by the fact that no-one knows the future trajectory of the Tory party. This replaces an eternity of the Tories either being in power or being ready to come back to power when Labour get tired. Now, both long term governing and extinction are serious options.
This may settle into UK becoming permanent coalition territory, like so much of Europe, but more likely it settles into two camps; if that occurs, its identity looks like being Camp Reform/Toryreform v Camp Lab/LD.
This is mainly because of the marmite nature of Reform. They are a possible option for X% (up to 35%?) and impossible option for Y% (65%?) much more clearly so than other parties.
It took UK politics several decades to transition from a Con/Lib 2-party system to a Con/Lab one. If we're in a transition period now, I wouldn't assume that it would be sorted by the time of the next general election, or the one after that, or the one after that.
Wasn't really sorted out until 1945, was it? If there'd been a 1940 election would/could the Libs have come back?
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
REFUK doing better in the South West than I was expecting.
Presumably doing better in the Con-held seats than in the LD-held ones.
That Ipplepen and The Kerswells was a LD held seat.
StevieB @StevieB09074258 Reports from Runcorn Labour activists: every door mentioned WFP and PIP.
Paul Lewis @paullewismoney · 2h As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Scrapping winter fuel payment for millions who needed it and cutting £5bn off disability benefits pushing 300,000 on PIP into poverty not a good look with voters.
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
REFUK doing better in the South West than I was expecting.
There was always a strong pro-Brexit and NOTA vote in the SW.
A quick scoot through the Devon results so far shows a lot of narrow results on 3-way vote splits and suggests that 30% normally wins you the seat. Reform are beating Con almost everywhere. I assume the few with a LD at about 50% are the wards they already held.
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7% DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1% GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7% JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4% JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7% KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
REFUK doing better in the South West than I was expecting.
Presumably doing better in the Con-held seats than in the LD-held ones.
That Ipplepen and The Kerswells was a LD held seat.
And, Alphington & Cowick was Labour. I expect that Reform will also gain Pinhoe and Mincinglake from that party (they won Mincinglake yesterday in a by-election).
Tory source on Kemi Badenoch: "She's done f**k all for six months. And she'll carry on if she can like that. By which point we'll be dead". So there's that..."
Rushcliffe is the wealthiest most remain bit of Nottinghamshire so it should be either Tory, or at a high watermark (2024) Labour tbh.
Tories aren't remain.
This is Ken Clarke country. Wasn't he actually kicked out of the party at one point?
Most aren't, but in Rushcliffe there's likely an outsize leafy Tory remainer vote compared to national so they'd likely outperform vs reform nationally. And Labour are also getting a kicking hence the more or less Rushcliffe Tory sweep.
Tony Diver @Tony_Diver · 20m Labour source in Doncaster says the party is facing an “extinction event” on the council, despite winning the mayoralty. There is talk Reform could win a council majority in Ed Miliband’s back yard.
Is there a specific reason for this difference e.g. is the Mayor very popular?
Candidates. If Nick Fletcher had run for Reform, Reform would have romped home.
I am almost certain that's the case. The Reform candidate for mayor looked like a bad Apprentice contestant.
Delves Lane Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219 BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620 HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276 HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386 STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461 TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
StevieB @StevieB09074258 Reports from Runcorn Labour activists: every door mentioned WFP and PIP.
Paul Lewis @paullewismoney · 2h As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Scrapping winter fuel payment for millions who needed it and cutting £5bn off disability benefits pushing 300,000 on PIP into poverty not a good look with voters.
I can understand doing the politically brave thing if the benefit outweighs the pain incurred.
At no point with either of these was that going to happen. The money saved was trivial.
Desmond Clarke Reform UK 909 35.9% Keith Frank Girling Conservatives 756 29.9% Paul Taylor Labour Party 508 20.1% Lucy Olivia Spoors Green Party 193 7.6% Rosemary Johnson-Sabine Lib Dems 164 6.5%
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
Northumberland Con 26 Fuk 23 Lab 8 LD 3 - should be a fun one to test whether Reform and Con are really the same party. I am sure that a deal can be done to keep the Tory administration going, but at what political cost?
Labour and Tories with 11% lol between them in Kirkby (Ashfield)
It's Kirby North; there's also a South.
Kirkby North: Last time Ashfield Independents had 71.6% of the votes in that one.
Result: Simon Wright Reform UK 1,604 52.1% Elected Andy Meakin Ashfield Independents 1,105 35.9% Sean Andrew White Labour Party 294 9.5% Christine Jennifer Self The Conservative Party Candidate 78 2.5%
StevieB @StevieB09074258 Reports from Runcorn Labour activists: every door mentioned WFP and PIP.
Paul Lewis @paullewismoney · 2h As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Scrapping winter fuel payment for millions who needed it and cutting £5bn off disability benefits pushing 300,000 on PIP into poverty not a good look with voters.
What would they like to cut instead? Or which taxes do they prefer to pay more on?
"Staffordshire County Council @StaffordshireCC · 35s Cannock Chase – Chadsmoor
Alex Robert Hunt, Reform UK: 2053 - ELECTED Jacqui Prestwood, Labour & Co-op: 512 Philippa Kate Haden, Conservative: 436 Joanne Susan Elson, Green: 161 Anthony John Thompson, Lib Dem: 102
General active travel musings following chats during the local elections with Ashfield Independents about local appeal, and also possible issues around unitaries. For PBers, some of this will be in the "no shit, Sherlock " category.
A note on being the "Squeaky Wheel".
Highways are a Notts County responsibility, and about 15 years ago their internal setup switched from "a team for each District" to "an integrated team". A more recent move has been integration of the PROW team (ie public footpaths etc) into wider Highways, which is (obviously) dominated by Roads.
Asfield Independents argue that "potholes" here get less attention now, in the absence of organisational focus, than in wealthier areas where people have capacity to lobby more, because we do not complain and report enough.
This applies to activism - one thing we need to develop is "capacity for making lots of complaints".
Places with strong activist bases (Cambridge, London, York, Nottingham, now Greater Manchester) have the capacity to get lots of attention, and win local political arguments by dint of numbers. Then they get active travel aware Local Authorities, and the staff who are not carbrained go and work there.
They also have the activists to win political debates with anti-active-travel organisations etc. That is a different thing to where does the evidence lead; often that is secondary.
And areas like mine which are not like that become ever more disconnected and behind the best.
What happens here is that the local councillors see a noisy anti-active-travel group and put themselves at the head of it for political reasons. Aside: this is why I focus on stuff I can legally enforce.
As somebody who lives and cycles in Cambridge, the potholes and general state of road surfaces are awful here... (I noticed on a recent holiday in Japan that they seem to generally have rather better road quality, but then they have the whole "construction state" setup where the LDP has political incentives to favour government financed infrastructure building and which probably extends to road improvements.)
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
A brief spell of Westminster coalition is the way to get rid of local LD councillors. The wisdom of the great British public.
Delves Lane Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219 BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620 HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276 HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386 STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461 TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
The Tories have just 1 seat at present - they had 54 before the election. Reform are on 32 now. From 0 Labour are on 3 (previously 4) The Lib Dems are now up to 5 from 3 last time.
Nothing at all for the various independents who held 9 seats previously.
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
Delves Lane Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219 BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620 HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276 HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386 STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461 TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
Two Lib Dem’s in Belmont now. Not a surprise.
Also two Reform in Trimdon.
Two more ReFukkers in Trimdon by a big margin.
Edit - and two more in Horden. And one more in Chilton by a big margin over an Indy.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
Tories manage to hold one of their seats in Newark - Balderton held by Johno Lee. Personal vote will have helped that as he is a well known local character.
StevieB @StevieB09074258 Reports from Runcorn Labour activists: every door mentioned WFP and PIP.
Paul Lewis @paullewismoney · 2h As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Scrapping winter fuel payment for millions who needed it and cutting £5bn off disability benefits pushing 300,000 on PIP into poverty not a good look with voters.
What would they like to cut instead? Or which taxes do they prefer to pay more on?
Ultimately, we're still not ready to admit that the public realm and the public finances are both screwed and there's no more family silver to sell off.
The assumption is still that there is a way of stabilising things that only hurts bad people; we just disagree on who those bad people are. The reality is that we're largely here because of decisions we collectively took in the past, so if anyone alive is responsible, it's us.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
The Tories are buggered either way.
Come up with a strategy that wins back seats like Witney and Esher & Walton and also wins back the Stoke seats.
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
My executive managment theory - it is indeed a very senior role, but is it a particularly challenging one that can only be done well by the top 1% of senior managers? The hardest part of those roles is the self PR to get them in the first place - and those types often make extremely short termist decisions to the detriment of the organisations to help with their self PR.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
Comments
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
@BritainElects
·
2m
Bideford West and Hartland (Devon) council election result:
REF: 36.9% (+36.9)
LDEM: 33.3% (+25.9)
CON: 17.8% (-16.7)
GRN: 9.4% (-0.2)
LAB: 2.6% (-11.3)
Reform GAIN from Conservative."
https://x.com/BritainElects
AFAICS she's crossed the floor more times than the Leeanderthal Man, in a shorter period - though not involving quite so many parties.
After Grenfell, you couldn't get fireproof doors in the UK, for the best part of a year. The councils/housing associations had bought them all to replace the one missing from their properties....
As an aside I decided against a vote for Reform yesterday, I just voted for my independent Paul Sexton. Very active in the seat. I didn’t want a stray Reform vote costing him his seat. I found out on the way out of the polling station my wife had done the same.
https://democracy.hertfordshire.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=207&RPID=60515300
ACZEL Will Liberal Democrats 298 10.2%
FINDLAY Lucy Labour and Co-operative Party 981 33.5%
LUSCOMBE David Conservative Party 188 6.4%
RICHARDSON Thomas Morgan Green Party 1,049 35.8%
WESTLAKE Jo Reform UK 403 13.8%
A note on being the "Squeaky Wheel".
Highways are a Notts County responsibility, and about 15 years ago their internal setup switched from "a team for each District" to "an integrated team". A more recent move has been integration of the PROW team (ie public footpaths etc) into wider Highways, which is (obviously) dominated by Roads.
Asfield Independents argue that "potholes" here get less attention now, in the absence of organisational focus, than in wealthier areas where people have capacity to lobby more, because we do not complain and report enough.
This applies to activism - one thing we need to develop is "capacity for making lots of complaints".
Places with strong activist bases (Cambridge, London, York, Nottingham, now Greater Manchester) have the capacity to get lots of attention, and win local political arguments by dint of numbers. Then they get active travel aware Local Authorities, and the staff who are not carbrained go and work there.
They also have the activists to win political debates with anti-active-travel organisations etc. That is a different thing to where does the evidence lead; often that is secondary.
And areas like mine which are not like that become ever more disconnected and behind the best.
What happens here is that the local councillors see a noisy anti-active-travel group and put themselves at the head of it for political reasons. Aside: this is why I focus on stuff I can legally enforce.
What about Mark Harper as a long shot? I have a few quid at 115.
DEXTER George Herbert Liberal Democrats 971 23.7%
DUFFY Niall Labour Party 248 6.1%
GRAINGER James George Reform UK 1,380 33.7%
JOHN Nicholas Independent 99 2.4%
JORY Neil Conservative and Unionist Party 972 23.7%
KIRNIG Tracy Belinda Green Party 417 10.2%
https://x.com/StaffordshireCC
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a party leading the seat count at this stage where all of its councillors are new gains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m8ZVPpvZuY
BBC page:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvg89pn4p48t
ATKINSON Yvonne Labour and Co-operative Party 1,054 25.0%
BAKER Lucille Conservative Party 452 10.7%
GILLETT Holly Green Party 544 12.9%
NEWCOMBE Vanessa Liberal Democrats 1,030 24.4%
STEVENS Neil Reform UK 1,126 26.7%
https://www.devon.gov.uk/democracy/division2025/ipplepen-the-kerswells/
Durham will have a Reform majority and it won’t be small.
There are some similar setups in inner London. A lot of the children at my daughter’s primary school live in high(ish) rise blocks built in the last decade around play parks and garden squares.
The doors in question were installed when the buildings were built. Then er.... vanished.
There is a hilarious pre-Grenfell genre of emails (I have seen some) from MPs complaining about such doors existing and that stairways should have art installations, benches etc to make them feel nicer....
The problem with the magnetically held open fire doors, is that this requires regular testing to see that they haven't been blocked open.
StevieB
@StevieB09074258
Reports from Runcorn Labour activists: every door mentioned WFP and PIP.
Paul Lewis
@paullewismoney
·
2h
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Scrapping winter fuel payment for millions who needed it and cutting £5bn off disability benefits pushing 300,000 on PIP into poverty not a good look with voters.
This is Ken Clarke country. Wasn't he actually kicked out of the party at one point?
A quick scoot through the Devon results so far shows a lot of narrow results on 3-way vote splits and suggests that 30% normally wins you the seat. Reform are beating Con almost everywhere. I assume the few with a LD at about 50% are the wards they already held.
@DPJHodge
Tory source on Kemi Badenoch: "She's done f**k all for six months. And she'll carry on if she can like that. By which point we'll be dead". So there's that..."
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1918242112459464868
Farage and Reform are making all the headlines as labour and conservatives have no answer to the question why
We seem to be moving into a very different political landscape where the big 2 really struggle to be heard
If this continues the Senedd election next year may well be bad for Labour
"Staffordshire County Council
@StaffordshireCC
Cannock Chase – Norton Canes, Heath Hayes & Wimblebury
Daniel Cecil, Reform UK: 2250 - ELECTED
Sam Priest, Conservative: 685
Lisa Wilson, Labour & Co-op: 577
Ian Douglas Wallace: Green: 196
‘New boundary’
#SCC25
https://x.com/StaffordshireCC
Delves Lane
Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes*
BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219
BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620
HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276
HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected
STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386
STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461
TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected
WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
At no point with either of these was that going to happen. The money saved was trivial.
Desmond Clarke Reform UK 909 35.9%
Keith Frank Girling Conservatives 756 29.9%
Paul Taylor Labour Party 508 20.1%
Lucy Olivia Spoors Green Party 193 7.6%
Rosemary Johnson-Sabine Lib Dems 164 6.5%
https://x.com/britainelects/status/1918261823817634295
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
Kirkby North: Last time Ashfield Independents had 71.6% of the votes in that one.
Result:
Simon Wright Reform UK 1,604 52.1% Elected
Andy Meakin Ashfield Independents 1,105 35.9%
Sean Andrew White Labour Party 294 9.5%
Christine Jennifer Self The Conservative Party Candidate 78 2.5%
"Staffordshire County Council
@StaffordshireCC
·
35s
Cannock Chase – Chadsmoor
Alex Robert Hunt, Reform UK: 2053 - ELECTED
Jacqui Prestwood, Labour & Co-op: 512
Philippa Kate Haden, Conservative: 436
Joanne Susan Elson, Green: 161
Anthony John Thompson, Lib Dem: 102
Reform win from conservative."
It looks to me more like 3 or 4 now, but it's fairly close to being 1 or 2 depending on the numbers at the edge.
So far it's a clean sweep for RfUK..
Also two Reform in Trimdon.
The Tories have just 1 seat at present - they had 54 before the election.
Reform are on 32 now. From 0
Labour are on 3 (previously 4)
The Lib Dems are now up to 5 from 3 last time.
Nothing at all for the various independents who held 9 seats previously.
It feels to me they’re going to go lower than expectations?
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
Edit - and two more in Horden. And one more in Chilton by a big margin over an Indy.
It’s a one way procession at the moment.
I’m hoping the good independents hold on though.
The assumption is still that there is a way of stabilising things that only hurts bad people; we just disagree on who those bad people are. The reality is that we're largely here because of decisions we collectively took in the past, so if anyone alive is responsible, it's us.
Come up with a strategy that wins back seats like Witney and Esher & Walton and also wins back the Stoke seats.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
Labour and the Conservatives are losing about 2/3 of their seats now.
Previous Cons and AI were neck and neck on ~1900.
AIs reduced to ~1300.
Cons reduced to ~200.
Reform: well over 2000.