I've noticed an awful lot of podgy 8-10 year years (boys) and seriously overweight teenagers/young men (aka Rag'n'Bone man) with bad tattoos recently. There seems to be something of a class dimension to this.
I can't remember it being this noticeable 10-20 years ago.
Why, in 2025, are young boys and men getting so overweight so young?
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Lie is a strong word. Perhaps you'd like to point out anything I have said that is a lie.
“police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against”: doing so would be against UK employment law. You are talking about very moderate schemes to encourage some underrepresented groups to apply more and get considered. Likewise, the Sentencing Council was not trying “to enshrine two tier sentencing”: the proposals were not about sentencing, but about reports prior to sentencing, while two tier sentencing would again be illegal under UK law.
For me the standouts on the Sentencing Reports issue was the outstanding cynicism of Jenrick and Philp:
1 - The whole thing had been consulted on, and supported by, Rishi Sunak's Government, in which Jenrick (not sure about Philp) was a Minister. 2 - They did not present a shred of evidence to support their claims that a "problem" existed.
Jenrick was trying to leverage the trope of "racial discrimination against white men", getting the poor darlings to feel oppressed by comparing them with, depending on channel, black people, disabled people, and women.
It's the normal tactic of that type of politics. Firstly, convince your target group that they are victims. Secondly, justify it by creating an "other" for them to resent. Thirdly, get them to follow you down your rabbit hole and become your mushrooms.
Furthermore much reporting on the matter overlooked two factors you allude to: the complicity of the Tories in the SC guidance, and the distortion of the meaning of the guidance.
In these horrible days for truth, objective reporting should systematically go further than repeating party political lies and distortions. The BBC and others are far too reliant on the easy job of telling us what was said by a polemicist, not reliant enough on reporting what is actually the case. They are different sorts of truth, and they both matter. (Ie, It is true that X said Y. That does not make Y true in any sense at all.)
I am not sure how much Labour have taken on board the rise of Reform, but as of now large parts of England will have councillors dedicated to stopping the boats and housing migrants in hotels, DOGE style cost cutting and ending DEI, firmly anti net zero with opposition to solar farms and pylons and in Tice words 'every means possible will be used to prevent these developments'
Apparently Andrea Jenkyns has said that in Lincolnshire migrants will not be housed in hotels but tents !!!
Politics has just become extremely divisive
Good morning Big G. The fascinating thing will be how Reform manage expectations. DEI is one of those things where practically everyone has been tales of diversity officers taking a fortune at councils and in the NHS etc etc. in reality it’s mostly fiction. Dame Andrea Finger pledged to sack the DEI officers at her council. And there aren't any.
As for DOGE, I have no principled objection to cutting waste. I’m an advocate for wholesale reconstruction of services because we’re spending money in the wrong way. But - and it’s a very big but. DOGE appears to have save $0. Actual savings a fraction of what was claimed, the immediate cost of making those savings is the same dollar value as what was cut, and the down the line costs remain unknown but likely a lot.
This is the problem with crayon politics. It’s easy when it’s slogans. Less easy when it’s policy.
The real reason for DOGE was to make life hell for bureacrats, so that many as possible of the "deep state" would quit their jobs.
There is a quote from Russ Vought, the OMB Chief, saying that : “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains ... We want to put them in trauma.”
DOGE looks likely to have created a net cost to the US because their cuts to IRS staff has hit tax revenues. Whether that was Musk’s intention all along or just incompetence, it’s hard to say.
It seems clear getting hold of a shedload of government data was very high up the priority list, as was self promotion of Musk. US govt finances much lower down.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Lie is a strong word. Perhaps you'd like to point out anything I have said that is a lie.
“police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against”: doing so would be against UK employment law. You are talking about very moderate schemes to encourage some underrepresented groups to apply more and get considered. Likewise, the Sentencing Council was not trying “to enshrine two tier sentencing”: the proposals were not about sentencing, but about reports prior to sentencing, while two tier sentencing would again be illegal under UK law.
No I am not.
Though that in itself is discriminatory, as the corrollary of 'underrepresented groups' being targeted for job opportunities and being given favourable consideration is the 'overrepresented' groups being discriminated against - it is impossible to have one without the other.
I am talking about this (amongst many other examples): (Ai summary from Telegraph stories and West Yorkshire Police website)
West Yorkshire Police (WYP) has implemented a recruitment system where jobs are made available to ethnic minority candidates before they are opened to white British applicants. This approach is part of the force's efforts to boost diversity within its ranks. According to a whistleblower, ethnic minority candidates are given months to register interest and complete applications, while white British candidates are often given as little as 48 hours to apply.
The force encourages black and Asian candidates to apply early to become police constables, before the positions are opened to other applicants. This process is intended to attract a more diverse pool of candidates that better reflects the communities served by the police force.
However, this practice has raised concerns about potential unfair treatment and positive discrimination. The force maintains that these measures are in line with equality laws and do not give ethnic minority candidates an unfair advantage in the application process.
So without telling anybody, West Yorkshire police implemented "two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against."
So that wasn't a 'lie' or even an exaggeration or spin, it was the truth.
As for the sentencing guidelines, again, the necessity to create a pre-sentencing report is *designed* to make a custodial sentence less likely or shorter. Hence its mandatory applicability in the case of pregnant women. To apply that in favour of all people from ethnic and religious minorities *is* actively to discriminate against people not from those minorities. There isn't an argument against this. Would you try to argue that if a sentencing report was mandatory in the case of white males that this wasn't disciminatory against non-white females? It's an absurd nonsense.
I've noticed an awful lot of podgy 8-10 year years (boys) and seriously overweight teenagers/young men (aka Rag'n'Bone man) with bad tattoos recently. There seems to be something of a class dimension to this.
I can't remember it being this noticeable 10-20 years ago.
Why, in 2025, are young boys and men getting so overweight so young?
Sitting inside playing video games while drinking sugary energy drinks and eating junk food delivered by Deliveroo?
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
That's a good point. There's a sweet spot between "I'm top dog, deserve to be, and luving it" and "oh this weighty weighty office, it humbles and intimidates me".
SKS needs to move a bit away from the second towards the first.
Personally, I think a 1978 election would have led to a hung parliament, and not another Labour victory.
By that time the country was changing fast and Labour was simply behind the times.
In 1978 both inflation and industrial relations had stabilised (albeit temporarilly) and the second oil crisis caused by the fall of the Shah not really started, so a Labour win was quite plausible.
The chickens would have come home to roost, with a post rather than pre election winter of discontent.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
Confidence needs an aim / plan / purpose. And I simply don't see that from Labour what I'm seeing is more of the same and that simply isn't enough.
Now ideally Labour would have come into the election with the plan contained in the manifesto but it wasn't there for "reasons" (some good, some bad). But it then started with no plan and it's quickly reverted to austerity on the quiet which definitely isn't doing them any favours.
I have to admit the spending review is starting to sound scarily bad for Labour's longer term prospects...
Another interesting alt-history is Brown calling an election in the narrow window afer he became PM (perhaps autumn 2007) and before everyone realised he was Gordon Brown, and before we all learned that 'no more boom and bust' was strangely fictional.
Tory majority at the next election, and no subsequent coalition, I expect ?
The Reunion on R4 was quite interesting. Clegg apparently lacked the bottle to make it clear to Brown that any deal with Labour would mean his going. Danny Alexander had to do so - and Brown pretended not to have heard.
As we talked, Brown appeared on the television screen behind us. He said he would step down before the Labour conference in the autumn if that was what it would take for the Lib Dems to agree to a deal. David Cameron. For the Record.
And also it must be hard for Badenoch to have those absolutely closest to her in CCHQ still be briefing the press every time she eats a pot noodle or looks below par. I mean she could have only had close contact with two or three people that day - she must know who these people are.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
That's a good point. There's a sweet spot between "I'm top dog, deserve to be, and luving it" and "oh this weighty weighty office, it humbles and intimidates me".
SKS needs to move a bit away from the second towards the first.
I don't think he is capable of it, and there isn't any obvious positivity on the rest of the front benches either. Not much optimism on the government backbenches too.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
Charisma plays a big part. Starmer was lucky that the Tories imploded so spectacularly he didn't need to do anything other than not lose too many votes to become PM. But now his stiff, awkward persona is in the spotlight having to get people onside, and the results are predictable
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
Personally, I think a 1978 election would have led to a hung parliament, and not another Labour victory.
By that time the country was changing fast and Labour was simply behind the times.
In 1978 both inflation and industrial relations had stabilised (albeit temporarilly) and the second oil crisis caused by the fall of the Shah not really started, so a Labour win was quite plausible.
The chickens would have come home to roost, with a post rather than pre election winter of discontent.
Yes, I know, but I don't think that's where the zeitgeist was at and that would have crystallised during the campaign.
Thatcher's victory was down to more than simply good timing.
I've noticed an awful lot of podgy 8-10 year years (boys) and seriously overweight teenagers/young men (aka Rag'n'Bone man) with bad tattoos recently. There seems to be something of a class dimension to this.
I can't remember it being this noticeable 10-20 years ago.
Why, in 2025, are young boys and men getting so overweight so young?
Round here it looks more like schoolkids are normal weight even if their parents are not. Possibly regional variations or we both suffer from confirmation bias.
Bad tattoos as in smudged-looking? Dunno. Unlikely to be prison tats on teenagers.
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
What's the definition of replaced?
She became leader on 2nd November so it's only from 2nd November that she is open to a vote of no confidence. Even if she loses that on November 3rd the leadership election will take weeks unless Jenrick is the only candidate and it doesn't go to a members vote.
Any membership vote and on 1st January 2026 Kemi would be the lame duck leader
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
Charisma plays a big part. Starmer was lucky that the Tories imploded so spectacularly he didn't need to do anything other than not lose too many votes to become PM. But now his stiff, awkward persona is in the spotlight having to get people onside, and the results are predictable
He was further helped by Sunak coming across as odd in a different way and machine gunning his own legs off by doing stupid things like leaving the D-Day anniversary early for an ITV interview.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
An even loonier take than none of the above's. Do you people even look at the polling?
Why are you in denial that Boris flouting his own covid restrictions had an negative effect on public opinion ?
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
We know what the negative effect on the polling of Boris's general grubbiness was - the Tories were about 4 points behind when Boris left. That cannot be 'the leading cause' of a defeat the scale of Sunak's.
The Truss disaster was a direct consequence of Boris's self-destruction.
If Boris had managed self-control the Conservatives would likely have won in 2024.
Trouble is that’s like saying if Hitler had stopped at Czechoslovakia, he’d still have been in power in 1960. While that might have happened, it wasn’t in his nature.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
Charisma plays a big part. Starmer was lucky that the Tories imploded so spectacularly he didn't need to do anything other than not lose too many votes to become PM. But now his stiff, awkward persona is in the spotlight having to get people onside, and the results are predictable
I disagree. I think charisma gets you in the door, but politics is now about bread and butter. I think as good as Farage is at the charisma stuff, if Reform get in and things don't improve, they will have a very short shelf life. And they know that.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Reading YouTube comments on any channel is a rapid route to madness.
Reading comments online anywhere is a rapid route to madness.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
Charisma plays a big part. Starmer was lucky that the Tories imploded so spectacularly he didn't need to do anything other than not lose too many votes to become PM. But now his stiff, awkward persona is in the spotlight having to get people onside, and the results are predictable
I disagree. I think charisma gets you in the door, but politics is now about bread and butter. I think as good as Farage is at the charisma stuff, if Reform get in and things don't improve, they will have a very short shelf life. And they know that.
Yes, charisma is more about getting in the door, but the planets aligned for Sir Keir in a way that his lack of charisma was no obstacle. Had he been competent, (which I thought he would be, I just didn't see the black swan that enabled him to become PM) his stiffness wouldn't matter, but I think it would be a big help if he were able to come across as relatively normal, with the common touch at the moment. But that will never happen
I've noticed an awful lot of podgy 8-10 year years (boys) and seriously overweight teenagers/young men (aka Rag'n'Bone man) with bad tattoos recently. There seems to be something of a class dimension to this.
I can't remember it being this noticeable 10-20 years ago.
Why, in 2025, are young boys and men getting so overweight so young?
Trend started decades ago and has been gradually moving upwards. Obviously food advertising is a big part of it - I remember being told a mars a day helps me work, rest and play. Evidence from the US suggests the weight loss injections will start to turn it around. Probably quite sharply once in pill form.
As James Callaghan famously said, if everyone's a special case, no-one's a special case.
There should perhaps be a national inquiry to establish WTF is going on with mental health. Is the explosion due to long Covid, a new environmental pollutant, or just rampant self-diagnosis (or self-misdiagnosis). Whatever the cause, between SEND, PIP and unemployability, and in some severe cases, institutional care, it is costing a fortune. And there are probably humane arguments as well.
There's pretty good evidence that it isn't a specifically British phenomenon, but rather one affecting nearly every developed country.
I think there is a lot to Haidt's theory about a screen-based childhood, and the rise both of Social Media and gaming culture. Screens are the crack cocaine of the modern world, addictive, over stimulating, destructive of attention and a cause of neglect of more positive aspects of life.
Time for this doctor to take his own prescription and log off. Lots to do today.
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
Probably. The Conservatives don't think there's any problem on earth that can't be solved by a good knifing of their leader.
Though Sam Freedman's comment on this is relevant, amusing and (for those who think Reform are even worse) alarming;
Her best chance of survival is fear of the alternative. Many MPs are (rightly) concerned that Robert Jenrick would win a new leadership contest. He is not well liked, with a level of ambition that is a bit much even for Conservatives. Plus, the fight has just gone out of a lot of them. They seem resigned rather than eager to plot yet another leadership change, which is perhaps the most worrying sign of all for them. Tories not wanting to plot is like a usually vivacious child lying listless on the sofa.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Reading YouTube comments on any channel is a rapid route to madness.
Reading comments online anywhere is a rapid route to madness.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
This....telling voters who are exercised about the issue that its ok we disconnected the sauna and there is no room service will be met with short shrif.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
Arguably, also why "stopping the boats" isn't actually going to be enough in of itself for Labour even if they achieve that somehow.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Reading YouTube comments on any channel is a rapid route to madness.
Reading comments online anywhere is a rapid route to madness.
Hello fellow mad PB commentators.
I wonder if Kemi is aware of PB?
Conservative central office definitely seem very much aware of Betfair.....
Personally, I think a 1978 election would have led to a hung parliament, and not another Labour victory.
By that time the country was changing fast and Labour was simply behind the times.
In 1978 both inflation and industrial relations had stabilised (albeit temporarilly) and the second oil crisis caused by the fall of the Shah not really started, so a Labour win was quite plausible.
The chickens would have come home to roost, with a post rather than pre election winter of discontent.
Yes, I know, but I don't think that's where the zeitgeist was at and that would have crystallised during the campaign.
Thatcher's victory was down to more than simply good timing.
I agree, that is why I predicted a 1983 Thatcher win in my own alternative history.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
They are staying in buildings that were run down 4 star hotels of the 80s/90s which were usually slowly dying where the Government has given them one final massive pile of money to solve a problem...
The issue is that people see the 4 star hotel and miss the dingy, dying, no customers needing a complete refurbishment part of the sentence...
No, the issue is that @MattW lied. He claimed there are no migrants in 4* hotels. I’ve proved that there are
He didn’t qualify his remark by saying “yes ok they’re 4 star but check the meagre new offerings at the breakfast buffet”
Also, a lot of these hotels are not crappy, declining shacks - quite often they are the go-to place for locals who want a wedding, a function, a meet up. Suddenly it is taken away to house Eritreans for free, on our shilling
The whole issue is unbelievably toxic and explosive and Labour’s only idea is to make it worse by giving the asylum seekers guaranteed housing
If the offering is meagre, then its no longer 4 stars.
To be 4 star you need to offer 4 star facilities, if the facilities are axed, then its no longer 4 star, even if it used to be.
Asylum seekers in 4 star hotels is a mix of truth, exaggeration, spin and misdirection. I am not sure it is valueable to point out the exaggeration, spin and misdirection though.
Whatever one's views on asylum it is madness that we have been doing this for a decade now. I say it is down to the deliberate choices of the last few Conservative governments and that is the point that needs to be made. And Labour now have to fix that or be held accountable themselves as well.
Yes it's not valuable pointing out that @Leon is full of shit, anyone who hasn't already figured that out never will. I think people just do it for fun, though it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
There used to be a website keeping track of all the demonstrable lies Trump said. I think they gave up once they reached several thousand. I guess it would be quicker to list the times he says something that is true.
Anyway, I think most people would be happier if asylum claims were dealt with quickly, and people denied asylum quickly deported. That's probably what the government should concentrate on for a start.
If they’re getting the auditors in they need to go for the best of the best.
I hear @kinabalu is in retirement. But so were Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone in most of their movies.
Time to send Kinabalu for one last job: Lincolnshire council.
Do Reform not realise that local councils already have auditors? It seems not...
These are some sort of auditors with a political dimension.
I did wonder for a minute if they were going to get the Freeman on the Land in, complete with "freedom drones" flying over Council Offices, and dot and tittle arguments with the security man.
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
What's the definition of replaced?
She became leader on 2nd November so it's only from 2nd November that she is open to a vote of no confidence. Even if she loses that on November 3rd the leadership election will take weeks unless Jenrick is the only candidate and it doesn't go to a members vote.
Any membership vote and on 1st January 2026 Kemi would be the lame duck leader
I see. Thanks.
The Rules for the market say that "we will settle this market on the date the Conservative Party officially announce their new Permanent Party Leader. Temporary/interim leaders do not count."
Iranians arrested in terror plot. Worth mentioning the prominence of Iranians on the march against antisemitism. In fact there seemed to be more of them than there were native white Britons which was rather disheartening. On the whole they seem very glad to be here.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
I think the only way to stop them is to withdraw from the international conventions on asylum entirely.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
I think the only way to stop them is to withdraw from the international conventions on asylum entirely.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
I think the only way to stop them is to withdraw from the international conventions on asylum entirely.
And of course that doesn't solve the problem of all the other abuses of the immigration system.
The core issue is in reality there is the lefts reductive positon "but but but if we stop immigration no NHS" (every developed country allows high trained / highly skilled people like doctors in) and the opposite reductive of the right, "just stop all of it, all of it for 5 years"....while the main 3 legacy parties just dance around making empty slogans that at best will move the needle a tiny amount.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
If and when they fail, it will have been 1) thwarted by the deep state and 2) done the wrong way by the wrong people, so the next nutter faction really needs a go at being in charge this time.
Iranians arrested in terror plot. Worth mentioning the prominence of Iranians on the march against antisemitism. In fact there seemed to be more of them than there were native white Britons which was rather disheartening. On the whole they seem very glad to be here.
Possible links to the Ayatollah?
I wonder if we will ever really find out what the target was.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Isn't DOGE currently a net deficit? Due to falling IRS receipts? Or is that fake news.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
They are staying in buildings that were run down 4 star hotels of the 80s/90s which were usually slowly dying where the Government has given them one final massive pile of money to solve a problem...
The issue is that people see the 4 star hotel and miss the dingy, dying, no customers needing a complete refurbishment part of the sentence...
No, the issue is that @MattW lied. He claimed there are no migrants in 4* hotels. I’ve proved that there are
He didn’t qualify his remark by saying “yes ok they’re 4 star but check the meagre new offerings at the breakfast buffet”
Also, a lot of these hotels are not crappy, declining shacks - quite often they are the go-to place for locals who want a wedding, a function, a meet up. Suddenly it is taken away to house Eritreans for free, on our shilling
The whole issue is unbelievably toxic and explosive and Labour’s only idea is to make it worse by giving the asylum seekers guaranteed housing
If the offering is meagre, then its no longer 4 stars.
To be 4 star you need to offer 4 star facilities, if the facilities are axed, then its no longer 4 star, even if it used to be.
Asylum seekers in 4 star hotels is a mix of truth, exaggeration, spin and misdirection. I am not sure it is valueable to point out the exaggeration, spin and misdirection though.
Whatever one's views on asylum it is madness that we have been doing this for a decade now. I say it is down to the deliberate choices of the last few Conservative governments and that is the point that needs to be made. And Labour now have to fix that or be held accountable themselves as well.
Yes it's not valuable pointing out that @Leon is full of shit, anyone who hasn't already figured that out never will. I think people just do it for fun, though it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
There used to be a website keeping track of all the demonstrable lies Trump said. I think they gave up once they reached several thousand. I guess it would be quicker to list the times he says something that is true.
Anyway, I think most people would be happier if asylum claims were dealt with quickly, and people denied asylum quickly deported. That's probably what the government should concentrate on for a start.
Exactly. It would also have the visible benefit of emptying some asylum seekers’ hotels.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
That's a good point. There's a sweet spot between "I'm top dog, deserve to be, and luving it" and "oh this weighty weighty office, it humbles and intimidates me".
SKS needs to move a bit away from the second towards the first.
I don't think he is capable of it, and there isn't any obvious positivity on the rest of the front benches either. Not much optimism on the government backbenches too.
I'd give it a while longer but you may be right. If so it will be a handicap to Labour winning again and he'll need to step aside before the next election. I personally am not fussed about the PM having a warm and vivid public persona but I know lots of people are.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
I think the only way to stop them is to withdraw from the international conventions on asylum entirely.
And of course that doesn't solve the problem of all the other abuses of the immigration system.
The core issue is in reality there is the lefts reductive positon "but but but if we stop immigration no NHS" (every developed country allows high trained / highly skilled people like doctors in) and the opposite reductive of the right, "just stop all of it, all of it for 5 years"....while the main 3 legacy parties just dance around making empty slogans that at best will move the needle a tiny amount.
To be fair, Boris did manage to move the needle a very large amount.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
They are staying in buildings that were run down 4 star hotels of the 80s/90s which were usually slowly dying where the Government has given them one final massive pile of money to solve a problem...
The issue is that people see the 4 star hotel and miss the dingy, dying, no customers needing a complete refurbishment part of the sentence...
No, the issue is that @MattW lied. He claimed there are no migrants in 4* hotels. I’ve proved that there are
He didn’t qualify his remark by saying “yes ok they’re 4 star but check the meagre new offerings at the breakfast buffet”
Also, a lot of these hotels are not crappy, declining shacks - quite often they are the go-to place for locals who want a wedding, a function, a meet up. Suddenly it is taken away to house Eritreans for free, on our shilling
The whole issue is unbelievably toxic and explosive and Labour’s only idea is to make it worse by giving the asylum seekers guaranteed housing
If the offering is meagre, then its no longer 4 stars.
To be 4 star you need to offer 4 star facilities, if the facilities are axed, then its no longer 4 star, even if it used to be.
Asylum seekers in 4 star hotels is a mix of truth, exaggeration, spin and misdirection. I am not sure it is valueable to point out the exaggeration, spin and misdirection though.
Whatever one's views on asylum it is madness that we have been doing this for a decade now. I say it is down to the deliberate choices of the last few Conservative governments and that is the point that needs to be made. And Labour now have to fix that or be held accountable themselves as well.
Yes it's not valuable pointing out that @Leon is full of shit, anyone who hasn't already figured that out never will. I think people just do it for fun, though it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
There used to be a website keeping track of all the demonstrable lies Trump said. I think they gave up once they reached several thousand. I guess it would be quicker to list the times he says something that is true.
Anyway, I think most people would be happier if asylum claims were dealt with quickly, and people denied asylum quickly deported. That's probably what the government should concentrate on for a start.
Exactly. It would also have the visible benefit of emptying some asylum seekers’ hotels.
Added to which, a serious effort to significantly reduce hospital waiting lists would revive the government’s popularity more than any other measure.
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
What's the definition of replaced?
She became leader on 2nd November so it's only from 2nd November that she is open to a vote of no confidence. Even if she loses that on November 3rd the leadership election will take weeks unless Jenrick is the only candidate and it doesn't go to a members vote.
Any membership vote and on 1st January 2026 Kemi would be the lame duck leader
Standout lay imo. She's almost certainly toast but not this year.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
Votes at full council won't be a problem, and the dimmer members can be told what to do.
It will be all the responsibility stuff, audit, scrutiny and appeals panels, that will be the problem. Not glamorous, very time-consuming, but the bulk of what backbench councillors do these days.
As for policy... What normally happens when the members aren't up to it is that the officers run the show. We've seen that in here in Havering since the Residents' Association has taken control. The catch is that Reform's whole raison d'etre is to shake things up and not listen to the technocrats.
Buckle up, everyone, even those of you who think that is nanny state nonsense.
I very much agree. Cumbria was very officer run as were some of the old districts especially Eden. The old Cumbria prior to 2001 was just a shouting match where councillors just argued the toss about God knows what. So the officers just got on with it. The councillors were truly irrelevant. BUT the problem really was the knock on effect for The Lake District Special Planning Board where back before 1996 county councillors were the only elected members and 2/3 didn't represent a division within the park. It was like Eastern Europe - maybe that was Starmer's vision of the UK. Truely is was a catastrophe for the purposes of the National Park. And, Yorkshire Dales was little better.
"Labour MP Jo White, chair of the Red Wall group, has said that Sir Keir Starmer needs to stop "pussyfooting around." Writing in the Telegraph, she has told the PM to "take a leaf" out of Donald Trump’s book and an announce an immigration crackdown."
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
They are staying in buildings that were run down 4 star hotels of the 80s/90s which were usually slowly dying where the Government has given them one final massive pile of money to solve a problem...
The issue is that people see the 4 star hotel and miss the dingy, dying, no customers needing a complete refurbishment part of the sentence...
No, the issue is that @MattW lied. He claimed there are no migrants in 4* hotels. I’ve proved that there are
He didn’t qualify his remark by saying “yes ok they’re 4 star but check the meagre new offerings at the breakfast buffet”
Also, a lot of these hotels are not crappy, declining shacks - quite often they are the go-to place for locals who want a wedding, a function, a meet up. Suddenly it is taken away to house Eritreans for free, on our shilling
The whole issue is unbelievably toxic and explosive and Labour’s only idea is to make it worse by giving the asylum seekers guaranteed housing
If the offering is meagre, then its no longer 4 stars.
To be 4 star you need to offer 4 star facilities, if the facilities are axed, then its no longer 4 star, even if it used to be.
Asylum seekers in 4 star hotels is a mix of truth, exaggeration, spin and misdirection. I am not sure it is valueable to point out the exaggeration, spin and misdirection though.
Whatever one's views on asylum it is madness that we have been doing this for a decade now. I say it is down to the deliberate choices of the last few Conservative governments and that is the point that needs to be made. And Labour now have to fix that or be held accountable themselves as well.
Yes it's not valuable pointing out that @Leon is full of shit, anyone who hasn't already figured that out never will. I think people just do it for fun, though it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
There used to be a website keeping track of all the demonstrable lies Trump said. I think they gave up once they reached several thousand. I guess it would be quicker to list the times he says something that is true.
Anyway, I think most people would be happier if asylum claims were dealt with quickly, and people denied asylum quickly deported. That's probably what the government should concentrate on for a start.
Exactly. It would also have the visible benefit of emptying some asylum seekers’ hotels.
Alternatively, speedier processing and allowing them to work much quicker will be yet another Pull Factor and we get even more boat people. Well done
Of all people @foxy has confessed the truth. We need to withdraw from the ECHR and end all asylum obligations - for a few years, at least
Poland has already done this vis a vis Belarus IIRC
If the left start to believe that the problem is the public is in some kind of alternative fake GB News world then they've really had it. Or that the problem is an uninspiring leader. We've had nearly two decades of poor economic performance. Starmer promised to control the borders. So far he hasn't.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
The only obvious waste of council money is subsidising bus services. Everyone wants a bus service from nowhere to back of beyond, every hour every day. The parade of empty buses on Cumbria's roads is a spectacle to behold. But, to cut one route even in the middle of the night, Suicide is not painless.
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
I think not. They changed the rules so that a greater proportion of MPs have to send letters. Despite their catastrophic local elections I think she's safe for this year.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
The only obvious waste of council money is subsidising bus services. Everyone wants a bus service from nowhere to back of beyond, every hour every day. The parade of empty buses on Cumbria's roads is a spectacle to behold. But, to cut one route even in the middle of the night, Suicide is not painless.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
Votes at full council won't be a problem, and the dimmer members can be told what to do.
It will be all the responsibility stuff, audit, scrutiny and appeals panels, that will be the problem. Not glamorous, very time-consuming, but the bulk of what backbench councillors do these days.
As for policy... What normally happens when the members aren't up to it is that the officers run the show. We've seen that in here in Havering since the Residents' Association has taken control. The catch is that Reform's whole raison d'etre is to shake things up and not listen to the technocrats.
Buckle up, everyone, even those of you who think that is nanny state nonsense.
I very much agree. Cumbria was very officer run as were some of the old districts especially Eden. The old Cumbria prior to 2001 was just a shouting match where councillors just argued the toss about God knows what. So the officers just got on with it. The councillors were truly irrelevant. BUT the problem really was the knock on effect for The Lake District Special Planning Board where back before 1996 county councillors were the only elected members and 2/3 didn't represent a division within the park. It was like Eastern Europe - maybe that was Starmer's vision of the UK. Truely is was a catastrophe for the purposes of the National Park. And, Yorkshire Dales was little better.
Our local council has improved since FPTP elections were replaced by STV elections. Previously, at least 80% of the councillors were Labour party worthies who contributed little and spent their time in the Members Room drinking. The officers ran the council and the councillors merely rubber stamped their decisions. A combination of STV and improved vetting has greatly improved the quality of councillors. As the council has been minority run or a coalition, with Labour, SNP, Conservatives and Independents all involved, the officers, while still doing most of the work, have input and questions from the councillors. Democracy has been improved. Why aren’t all councils elected by STV?
Betfair has a market on "Year Kemi Badenoch replaced as Conservative leader" with a price of 3.00 for the year 2025.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
I think not. They changed the rules so that a greater proportion of MPs have to send letters. Despite their catastrophic local elections I think she's safe for this year.
But I am stupid so please DYOR
I'm not sure "the rules" are what matter for the party at this juncture. Are there any PB insiders who have insight into what support remains committed to her ?
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
Arguably, also why "stopping the boats" isn't actually going to be enough in of itself for Labour even if they achieve that somehow.
Yes, agreed. Stopping the boats is only seen as a first step, people want the illegals who are here to be deported.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
I think the only way to stop them is to withdraw from the international conventions on asylum entirely.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
The only obvious waste of council money is subsidising bus services. Everyone wants a bus service from nowhere to back of beyond, every hour every day. The parade of empty buses on Cumbria's roads is a spectacle to behold. But, to cut one route even in the middle of the night, Suicide is not painless.
Not sure anyone voted for fewer rural buses.
And that is my point. But it is a bit like God giving men breasts. Not because there was any need, but if perchance a man did have a baby he would be able to feed it. (Abrahm Lincoln)
Iranians arrested in terror plot. Worth mentioning the prominence of Iranians on the march against antisemitism. In fact there seemed to be more of them than there were native white Britons which was rather disheartening. On the whole they seem very glad to be here.
Possible links to the Ayatollah?
I wonder if we will ever really find out what the target was.
Iran arms various Middle East militias but is small-group terrorism its cup of bubble tea? My guess is these are Iranian dissidents and their target was the Iranian embassy.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
Not even tea or coffee?
Any workplace that doesn't put tea and coffee in its staffroom doesn't value its staff.
Fire stations pay for their own food and drink. They have mess clubs. It means when the SMT pop over to give a pep talk/ bollocking, they have to pay for their tea and toast before they get back in their Range Rover.
Personally, I think a 1978 election would have led to a hung parliament, and not another Labour victory.
By that time the country was changing fast and Labour was simply behind the times.
In 1978 both inflation and industrial relations had stabilised (albeit temporarilly) and the second oil crisis caused by the fall of the Shah not really started, so a Labour win was quite plausible.
The chickens would have come home to roost, with a post rather than pre election winter of discontent.
Talking of industrial relations weren't labour supporters crowing about sorting out the strikes such as junior doctors who I not are apparently coming back for another round and balloting on strike action less than a year later
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
Not even tea or coffee?
Any workplace that doesn't put tea and coffee in its staffroom doesn't value its staff.
Fire stations pay for their own food and drink. They have mess clubs. It means when the SMT pop over to give a pep talk/ bollocking, they have to pay for their tea and toast before they get back in their Range Rover.
Same in schools- certainly the ones I have worked in. And whilst providing tea and coffee and milk obviously pays back massively in goodwill and efficiency,
1 There really isn't any spare money 2 Plenty don't value public sector staff, as we see here on a regular basis.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
It's going to be interesting - Ref UK Councillors discovering that their projected straw men don't match the reality.
They will find the same with Access Officers and similar - they've nearly all been cut already. These are the type of people who advise businesses on how to make their premises useable by disabled people cost effectively, rather than spending money on expensive, unnecessary bodges, or advise people of their rights, or offer specialist expertise to other Council staff. Many have already retreated to reliance on less-skilled staff, or "we expect them all to know anyway".
Instead it will be expensive consultants, and/or waffle.
Only a tiny minority of local authorities now employ a member of staff dedicated to improving access for disabled people in their area, new research has found.
Disability Rights UK (DR UK) has found just 15 of 222 English councils that responded to a freedom of information request said they employed a dedicated access officer, or a staff member with a similar job.
Access officers have duties such as responding to complaints and questions about disability access; providing advice on access design issues, for example with road crossings, traffic calming and street furniture; supporting local access groups; and providing technical advice on planning applications.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Isn't DOGE currently a net deficit? Due to falling IRS receipts? Or is that fake news.
As a county councillor one of my more regular correspondents was always playing hell about roads. There was more than enough money in the roads budget, it was just being spent on the WRONG roads. When I queried which were the RIGHT roads he gave me a list. The road from his house to Kirkby Lonsdale, his house to Kendal, his house to the M6 and his house to Lancaster. Apparently he did now want money spending on the road from his house to Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen. That was ironic because he was subsequently knocked off his push bike between Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen and killed. Be careful what you wish for.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Isn't DOGE currently a net deficit? Due to falling IRS receipts? Or is that fake news.
As a county councillor one of my more regular correspondents was always playing hell about roads. There was more than enough money in the roads budget, it was just being spent on the WRONG roads. When I queried which were the RIGHT roads he gave me a list. The road from his house to Kirkby Lonsdale, his house to Kendal, his house to the M6 and his house to Lancaster. Apparently he did now want money spending on the road from his house to Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen. That was ironic because he was subsequently knocked off his push bike between Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen and killed. Be careful what you wish for.
That seems a rather drastic response to his whingeing.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Isn't DOGE currently a net deficit? Due to falling IRS receipts? Or is that fake news.
As a county councillor one of my more regular correspondents was always playing hell about roads. There was more than enough money in the roads budget, it was just being spent on the WRONG roads. When I queried which were the RIGHT roads he gave me a list. The road from his house to Kirkby Lonsdale, his house to Kendal, his house to the M6 and his house to Lancaster. Apparently he did now want money spending on the road from his house to Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen. That was ironic because he was subsequently knocked off his push bike between Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen and killed. Be careful what you wish for.
That seems a rather drastic response to his whingeing.
I'll be more polite to View from Cumbria in future.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
The only obvious waste of council money is subsidising bus services. Everyone wants a bus service from nowhere to back of beyond, every hour every day. The parade of empty buses on Cumbria's roads is a spectacle to behold. But, to cut one route even in the middle of the night, Suicide is not painless.
I think we shall find that quite a few Reform voters would quite like bus services to be both better and more subsidised; and once all the statutory duties are properly performed, would quite like their Reform councillors to lay on subsidised cage fighting on ice and bear baiting at the local leisure centre until the hare coursing season starts in August.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
And that's the problem. The Reform vision, like the DOGE bit of Trumpism, rests on the theory that there's lots of government spending that simply shouldn't happen and won't be missed. Hence it's possible to cut taxes and borrowing, improve the services that matter and make everything great (again). Badenoch has said much the same, albeit in pastel shades not primary colours.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Isn't DOGE currently a net deficit? Due to falling IRS receipts? Or is that fake news.
As a county councillor one of my more regular correspondents was always playing hell about roads. There was more than enough money in the roads budget, it was just being spent on the WRONG roads. When I queried which were the RIGHT roads he gave me a list. The road from his house to Kirkby Lonsdale, his house to Kendal, his house to the M6 and his house to Lancaster. Apparently he did now want money spending on the road from his house to Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen. That was ironic because he was subsequently knocked off his push bike between Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen and killed. Be careful what you wish for.
Did you at least gas up the white Fiat Uno before you put it in the garage and mailed the keys back to Phil the Greek?
Saw my first Darth Vader of the year while out for coffee. The dark side of the 4th.
Dangerous, because his attitude is in Sidious.
He was doing selfies with young kids. Make of that what you will.
Bet the fucker parked the Tie Fighter* in a disabled space. Probably claiming disability at the same time he was massacring his way though Revels in Rogue One…
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
I should think that a broadly based audit - one which looked more widely than the accounts - for almost any local authority would advise the authority that in order to perform their statutory duties properly (there are said to be about 1000 of these) they need to roughly double their income, but rather more than that if they were to realistically address the need for social housing and the backlog in capital and maintenance works.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
It's going to be interesting - Ref UK Councillors discovering that their projected straw men don't match the reality.
They will find the same with Access Officers and similar - they've nearly all been cut already. These are the type of people who advise businesses on how to make their premises useable by disabled people cost effectively, rather than spending money on expensive, unnecessary bodges, or advise people of their rights, or offer specialist expertise to other Council staff. Many have already retreated to reliance on less-skilled staff, or "we expect them all to know anyway".
Instead it will be expensive consultants, and/or waffle.
Only a tiny minority of local authorities now employ a member of staff dedicated to improving access for disabled people in their area, new research has found.
Disability Rights UK (DR UK) has found just 15 of 222 English councils that responded to a freedom of information request said they employed a dedicated access officer, or a staff member with a similar job.
Access officers have duties such as responding to complaints and questions about disability access; providing advice on access design issues, for example with road crossings, traffic calming and street furniture; supporting local access groups; and providing technical advice on planning applications.
If they try and do it in a Musky "Spreadsheet and Wax Crayon" style, they will take out the 99% that is worthwhile with the 1% that is wasteful.
I should think everyone in the country has got a mental list of things they would like local authorities to do better. Obvs there's the expensive ones like 3 million social housing units and social care, but the cycling lobby will have a long list, of which near kerb potholes will only be a starter.
My own would be for local authorities to ensure that all footpaths, including neglected ones, are fully guaranteed safe and accessible from both danger and obstacles and discreetly but properly signposted.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
I don't think people much care whether it's 4-star or a Travellodge with their crappy "party pack" breakfast.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
Arguably, also why "stopping the boats" isn't actually going to be enough in of itself for Labour even if they achieve that somehow.
Yes, agreed. Stopping the boats is only seen as a first step, people want the illegals who are here to be deported.
But as with ICE in the USA they want the number of obvious immigrants reduced without it impacting the ones they actually know and like
Hmm... I think this underestimates the changes that Thatcher made. She destroyed trade unions in the private sector, for example. A Callaghan government would never have done that and the statist nonsense that destroyed our indigenous car industry, for example, would have continued its destructive path.
The liberal freedom to make loads a money in financial services, which set up the Blair years, is unlikely to have taken root either. I don't think we would have been a bit poorer, I think we would have been a lot poorer. Blair would probably have done alright, he was and is a flexible beast that believes profoundly in whatever is convenient to believe at the time, but without the Thatcherite settlement which he barely touched there would have been a lot less money around.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
To the Tories, Boris was simply a mechanism to win an election.
Everyone knew he was totally unqualified to be Prime Minister.
In that all the problems of the 2019-2024 parliament were laid.
Didn't John Major try to blackball him as a Conservative candidate? After all, his unsuitability was pretty obvious long before 2019. And once he was an MP, of course he would seek to become PM, no matter what harm that caused to the non-people who were non-BoJo.
Now there's a counterfactual. He's sacked from The Times, and that's the end of the matter. What happens next?
I know some people are desperate for Labour to fail but I do think the idea Labour is just going to give up now until the next election is really silly.
I recall people predicting a decade of Johnson in 2021. Have these people ever admitted they got it wrong?
Jesus Christ, if I had a pound for every time you've said that about a decade of Johnson! Who said it anyway?
There were posters on here planning for Johnson's fourth term and who would replace him.
A pirate poster and Laffer curve enthusiast once called him Britain's greatest ever Prime Minister.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
We get free biscuits in the office every day. But you need to arrive early to nab the bourbon creams. We also get free fruit on Wednesday and Thursday.
Competition from other storage technologies When it comes to installed energy storage capacity in general, Spain is one of the leading countries within Europe (see figure 2). Currently, Spain has 6.3GW of hydroelectric and 1GW of thermal storage capacity installed. In fact, the non-BESS storage capacity in Spain is higher than in any other European country. As a result, the need for BESS to integrate renewable energy sources into the electricity system is less immediate than in the UK, for example...
Note that the majority of Spain's pumped storage capacity was shut down for maintenance on the day they had their nationwide blackout.
So those blaming the over reliance on renewables were largely wrong. It seems just to have been bad planning coupled with bad luck.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
We get free biscuits in the office every day. But you need to arrive early to nab the bourbon creams. We also get free fruit on Wednesday and Thursday.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
To the Tories, Boris was simply a mechanism to win an election.
Everyone knew he was totally unqualified to be Prime Minister.
In that all the problems of the 2019-2024 parliament were laid.
Didn't John Major try to blackball him as a Conservative candidate? After all, his unsuitability was pretty obvious long before 2019. And once he was an MP, of course he would seek to become PM, no matter what harm that caused to the non-people who were non-BoJo.
Now there's a counterfactual. He's sacked from The Times, and that's the end of the matter. What happens next?
Boris would have become a Latin teacher at his alma mater (that's Latin, you know).
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
To the Tories, Boris was simply a mechanism to win an election.
Everyone knew he was totally unqualified to be Prime Minister.
In that all the problems of the 2019-2024 parliament were laid.
Didn't John Major try to blackball him as a Conservative candidate? After all, his unsuitability was pretty obvious long before 2019. And once he was an MP, of course he would seek to become PM, no matter what harm that caused to the non-people who were non-BoJo.
Now there's a counterfactual. He's sacked from The Times, and that's the end of the matter. What happens next?
Comments
So Europe remains a hot issue, just that the party divided is the other one.
I can't remember it being this noticeable 10-20 years ago.
Why, in 2025, are young boys and men getting so overweight so young?
In these horrible days for truth, objective reporting should systematically go further than repeating party political lies and distortions. The BBC and others are far too reliant on the easy job of telling us what was said by a polemicist, not reliant enough on reporting what is actually the case. They are different sorts of truth, and they both matter. (Ie, It is true that X said Y. That does not make Y true in any sense at all.)
Though that in itself is discriminatory, as the corrollary of 'underrepresented groups' being targeted for job opportunities and being given favourable consideration is the 'overrepresented' groups being discriminated against - it is impossible to have one without the other.
I am talking about this (amongst many other examples):
(Ai summary from Telegraph stories and West Yorkshire Police website)
West Yorkshire Police (WYP) has implemented a recruitment system where jobs are made available to ethnic minority candidates before they are opened to white British applicants. This approach is part of the force's efforts to boost diversity within its ranks. According to a whistleblower, ethnic minority candidates are given months to register interest and complete applications, while white British candidates are often given as little as 48 hours to apply.
The force encourages black and Asian candidates to apply early to become police constables, before the positions are opened to other applicants. This process is intended to attract a more diverse pool of candidates that better reflects the communities served by the police force.
However, this practice has raised concerns about potential unfair treatment and positive discrimination. The force maintains that these measures are in line with equality laws and do not give ethnic minority candidates an unfair advantage in the application process.
So without telling anybody, West Yorkshire police implemented "two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against."
So that wasn't a 'lie' or even an exaggeration or spin, it was the truth.
As for the sentencing guidelines, again, the necessity to create a pre-sentencing report is *designed* to make a custodial sentence less likely or shorter. Hence its mandatory applicability in the case of pregnant women. To apply that in favour of all people from ethnic and religious minorities *is* actively to discriminate against people not from those minorities. There isn't an argument against this. Would you try to argue that if a sentencing report was mandatory in the case of white males that this wasn't disciminatory against non-white females? It's an absurd nonsense.
SKS needs to move a bit away from the second towards the first.
The chickens would have come home to roost, with a post rather than pre election winter of discontent.
Now ideally Labour would have come into the election with the plan contained in the manifesto but it wasn't there for "reasons" (some good, some bad). But it then started with no plan and it's quickly reverted to austerity on the quiet which definitely isn't doing them any favours.
I have to admit the spending review is starting to sound scarily bad for Labour's longer term prospects...
David Cameron. For the Record.
Would that be a value bet ? Is it likely she'll be forced out or quit this year ?
And also it must be hard for Badenoch to have those absolutely closest to her in CCHQ still be briefing the press every time she eats a pot noodle or looks below par. I mean she could have only had close contact with two or three people that day - she must know who these people are.
I am sure Reform want to hear this. They will soon discover that their voters in fact will expect services at that proper level and expect someone else will pay for it.
Thatcher's victory was down to more than simply good timing.
Bad tattoos as in smudged-looking? Dunno. Unlikely to be prison tats on teenagers.
She became leader on 2nd November so it's only from 2nd November that she is open to a vote of no confidence. Even if she loses that on November 3rd the leadership election will take weeks unless Jenrick is the only candidate and it doesn't go to a members vote.
Any membership vote and on 1st January 2026 Kemi would be the lame duck leader
Hello fellow mad PB commentators.
Not that I'll be re-subscribing at any price, the Telegraph's pro-Putin, pro-Tump direction does not appeal.
I think there is a lot to Haidt's theory about a screen-based childhood, and the rise both of Social Media and gaming culture. Screens are the crack cocaine of the modern world, addictive, over stimulating, destructive of attention and a cause of neglect of more positive aspects of life.
Time for this doctor to take his own prescription and log off. Lots to do today.
Her best chance of survival is fear of the alternative. Many MPs are (rightly) concerned that Robert Jenrick would win a new leadership contest. He is not well liked, with a level of ambition that is a bit much even for Conservatives. Plus, the fight has just gone out of a lot of them. They seem resigned rather than eager to plot yet another leadership change, which is perhaps the most worrying sign of all for them. Tories not wanting to plot is like a usually vivacious child lying listless on the sofa.
They don't think they should be here in the first place, and don't understand why the government can't just kick them out.
There used to be a website keeping track of all the demonstrable lies Trump said. I think they gave up once they reached several thousand. I guess it would be quicker to list the times he says something that is true.
Anyway, I think most people would be happier if asylum claims were dealt with quickly, and people denied asylum quickly deported. That's probably what the government should concentrate on for a start.
I did wonder for a minute if they were going to get the Freeman on the Land in, complete with "freedom drones" flying over Council Offices, and dot and tittle arguments with the security man.
The Rules for the market say that "we will settle this market on the date the Conservative Party officially announce their new Permanent Party Leader. Temporary/interim leaders do not count."
The bet does not look to be good value.
Possible links to the Ayatollah?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_three
The core issue is in reality there is the lefts reductive positon "but but but if we stop immigration no NHS" (every developed country allows high trained / highly skilled people like doctors in) and the opposite reductive of the right, "just stop all of it, all of it for 5 years"....while the main 3 legacy parties just dance around making empty slogans that at best will move the needle a tiny amount.
It might be true- we won't know until it is tried. But I personally will be surprised if it is the case, and am grimly fascinated as to what happens if it turns out not to be the case.
Due to falling IRS receipts?
Or is that fake news.
"Labour MP Jo White, chair of the Red Wall group, has said that Sir Keir Starmer needs to stop "pussyfooting around." Writing in the Telegraph, she has told the PM to "take a leaf" out of Donald Trump’s book and an announce an immigration crackdown."
https://x.com/CDP1882/status/1918579092070223982
Of all people @foxy has confessed the truth. We need to withdraw from the ECHR and end all asylum obligations - for a few years, at least
Poland has already done this vis a vis Belarus IIRC
The dark side of the 4th.
But I am stupid so please DYOR
It's quite possible they are anyway, but that would make it pretty well certain, I think.
Are there any PB insiders who have insight into what support remains committed to her ?
Everyone knew he was totally unqualified to be Prime Minister.
In that all the problems of the 2019-2024 parliament were laid.
1 There really isn't any spare money
2 Plenty don't value public sector staff, as we see here on a regular basis.
They will find the same with Access Officers and similar - they've nearly all been cut already. These are the type of people who advise businesses on how to make their premises useable by disabled people cost effectively, rather than spending money on expensive, unnecessary bodges, or advise people of their rights, or offer specialist expertise to other Council staff. Many have already retreated to reliance on less-skilled staff, or "we expect them all to know anyway".
Instead it will be expensive consultants, and/or waffle.
Only a tiny minority of local authorities now employ a member of staff dedicated to improving access for disabled people in their area, new research has found.
Disability Rights UK (DR UK) has found just 15 of 222 English councils that responded to a freedom of information request said they employed a dedicated access officer, or a staff member with a similar job.
Access officers have duties such as responding to complaints and questions about disability access; providing advice on access design issues, for example with road crossings, traffic calming and street furniture; supporting local access groups; and providing technical advice on planning applications.
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/almost-no-councils-now-employ-access-officers-new-research-shows/
If they try and do it in a Musky "Spreadsheet and Wax Crayon" style, they will take out the 99% that is worthwhile with the 1% that is wasteful.
Make of that what you will.
Because you campaign in poetry and given in Prowse.
*EV model, on the taxpayer.
My own would be for local authorities to ensure that all footpaths, including neglected ones, are fully guaranteed safe and accessible from both danger and obstacles and discreetly but properly signposted.
The liberal freedom to make loads a money in financial services, which set up the Blair years, is unlikely to have taken root either. I don't think we would have been a bit poorer, I think we would have been a lot poorer. Blair would probably have done alright, he was and is a flexible beast that believes profoundly in whatever is convenient to believe at the time, but without the Thatcherite settlement which he barely touched there would have been a lot less money around.
Now there's a counterfactual. He's sacked from The Times, and that's the end of the matter. What happens next?
Is it true ?
https://x.com/Vernon3Austin/status/1917029658144739433
Fun fact: 1 megawatt of batteries provides the same amount of frequency regulation as 10 megawatts of spinning generation.
Another fun fact: Spain has been slow to change the rules that allow batteries to participate in frequency regulation markets.
Don't be like Spain!
A pirate poster and Laffer curve enthusiast once called him Britain's greatest ever Prime Minister.
https://www.rabobank.com/knowledge/d011476239-backup-power-for-europe-part-4-spain-s-bess-market-is-heating-up
...Why the Spanish BESS market has yet to take off
Competition from other storage technologies
When it comes to installed energy storage capacity in general, Spain is one of the leading countries within Europe (see figure 2). Currently, Spain has 6.3GW of hydroelectric and 1GW of thermal storage capacity installed. In fact, the non-BESS storage capacity in Spain is higher than in any other European country. As a result, the need for BESS to integrate renewable energy sources into the electricity system is less immediate than in the UK, for example...
Note that the majority of Spain's pumped storage capacity was shut down for maintenance on the day they had their nationwide blackout.
So those blaming the over reliance on renewables were largely wrong.
It seems just to have been bad planning coupled with bad luck.
Should be fairly easy to avoid a repeat of this.