The row about postponing 31% of 2026 local council elections. – politicalbetting.com
The row about postponing 31% of 2026 local council elections. – politicalbetting.com
There’s argument this row is political smokescreen, make fuss of postponements to obscure more important issues voters are upset about. Let’s explore what’s really going on.
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Israel and Hamas finally agree on Gaza death toll
Israeli Defence Forces reports on number of Palestinians killed for first time
Israel has signalled is ready to acknowledge that 70,000 people have been killed in its war on Gaza.
Officials from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reported the estimated death toll for the first time to multiple Israeli news outlets.
The figure is almost identical to the 71,667 reported by the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Throughout the war, the Israeli military and government has accused the health ministry of publishing “exaggerated” figures, cautioning the media and NGOs not to trust the data.
Until now, Israel has refused to offer alternative figures.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/01/29/israel-and-hamas-finally-agree-on-gaza-death-toll/
https://x.com/kshevchenkoreal/status/2016907186749002198
It appears that, as with their oil, China is the buyer at a significant discount to market price.
Russia is slowly being hollowed-out as a country, they’re trying to fight a ground war and have run out of tanks. The entire Soviet stockpile of more than ten thousand tanks, all gone to give the Ukranians some scrap metal for recycling.
Meanwhile millions of taxpayer money will be spent on holding said elections. At a time when council reorganisation is supposed to be saving money and reducing the need for said councils to further cut services and raising council tax. Though it will be ensuring democracy for an extra year
"Donald Trump says 'very dangerous' for UK to do business with China as Starmer lands in Shanghai - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0keyyeyr41o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeJ0dX34nug
Local government seems to me in England to be entirely performative, which is why I've never stood as a councillor.
Voting is effectively cosmetic because they have no real power to change anything other than trying to square the impossible.
Starmer, and the British Establishment generally, still believe in international order and free trade as taught in GCSE economics and PPE 101. We got ripped off by the Americans and we will get ripped off by the Chinese. Heck, we even got ripped off by the French. They think China will play by the rules because they think everyone plays by the rules.
And in doing so they'll piss off the Americans because they want to piss off Trump but have not thought about what happens after Trump pisses off when his term ends in three years or less. They've forgotten about not burning your bridges on the way out.
As a purely paper candidate, same as the previous time I stood.
Fingers crossed for a resounding defeat.
Democracy has to include the freedom to make mistakes, if it's what the people vote for. Thatcher reduced that freedom with rates caps and abolition of disagreeable councils like the GLC. Major made it worse by changing the balance of local to central funding to make the Community Charge less painful.
Osborne did a lot of austerity by passing the buck to.local councils, then Eric Pickles made it all but impossible to increase Council Tax to meet changing needs, let alone political wants.
So now councils do social care, almost nothing else, and nobody can make the Sims add up. And the more prudent your council has been in the past, the worse the problem since there's less residual muscle to cut.
God knows why anyone would bother being a local councillor now.
Meanwhile things will continue to fall apart and workers get made redundant as social care costs continue to eat all the none social care budgets..
A point I would add though is that as far as I know no one is being asked - directly - about these local government re-orgs.
My area certainly is not having any kind of referendum, which is what I would expect. We are to lose our well functioning district council. No one I speak to is in favour of this.
I also wonder if such a large majority on a pretty low vote share means that MPs feel more entitled to pull their own way rather than follow the party line (and indeed, feel less obliged to be loyal to the party leader in general).
Good morning, everyone.
Firstly in any notionally democratic hierarchy a general rule applies, arising out of human nature: the higher level of the democratic hierarchy will always want to maximise its power and minimise its responsibility.
The conceptual problem in local democracy is that it is rational to want two incompatible things: local decision and accountability but also an absence of 'postcode lottery' about any local service we happen to want at any particular moment.
In respect of Westminster v local government this is fairly obvious. But because total state managed expenditure is a vast proportion of all activity from building nuclear submarines to park benches and playground swings it goes right down to the level of the village primary school and beyond.
Result: blame transference is one of the great creative industries of the democratic world. It is a social blight. Result: good well intentioned school governors (volunteers) and management etc spend long winter evenings exercising responsibility without power, while a thousand miles away well paid politicians exercise power without responsibility.
I'm actually not familiar with Jenrick & co having been involved in this; I need to read some 2010 to 2023 history, perhaps.
IMO the stuff about "hiking Council tax" (which I lost count of how many times Rabbit mentioned it) is very strange and highly political, because according to my numbers Band D Council tax (the basic number from which others are defined) has risen between 2005 and 2025 by 95%, whilst CPI inflation has risen by 91%, which is as near as dammit identical.
To take the numbers on a UK wide average per household (rather than Band D) the increase is still marginal. England is flat over 20 years, Wales is up, Scotland is down. Source ONS via Dan Neidle.
Councils have not "hiked" Council Tax; that is an urban myth.
We need to compare that to changes in centralised support and service responsibilities to get a proper handle on that. I suggest that poor services is related to level of responsibilities being increased or reduced left that resources from the centre have been cut. That is a function of Central Government not giving a damn.
A very useful article where I sourced the above graph:
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/11/24/council-tax-has-it-gone-up/#:~:text=Showing first 20 rows of,council tax is largely unchanged.
For everything else there’s Mastercard
https://youtu.be/Y5YW4qKOAVM?si=hWbiYgzpST-CFSwb
https://sosviolenceconjugale.ca/en/articles/8-tactics-of-psychological-violence-used-by-abusers-in-intimate-relationships
On top of which, the move to Leader + Cabinet (Blair's idea?) renders most backbench councillors pretty decorative.
They have to represent their nimbies and residents, and attempts at manipulation are inevitable. So it is always political at local level.
The only non-political body by law is the Planning Inspectorate.
Clear up quotes were of the order of £10m.
If I have it right, the maximum sentence for the waste dumping is 5 years, with a potential extra 14 years for assessed proceeds of crime, which can be reduced by paying it back.
I'm reminded that prison really scares white collar criminals, and given that one is 73 and the other 54, a 10 or 12 year sentence should encourager les autres.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7m3ezr80yo
Local government autonomy has arguably been in decline since WWII, a process considerably accelerated by the Thatcher governments. While it's true that most spending LA responsibilities (education and social care) are mandated by and largely funded by central government, there is still space for both good and bad local government to make a significant change to outcomes.
But since you mention Boris, Starmer is falling into the same trap for different reasons – sending out ministers on the morning media rounds to defend government positions that will be abandoned before lunchtime.
ETA and since you mention WFA, the government has just extended the entirely different warm home discount:-
Energy bill support extended for millions of families
Warm Home Discount has been extended so millions of families will receive the £150 energy bill discount for the rest of the decade.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bill-support-extended-for-millions-of-families
Interesting semi-final going on at Australian Open.
"Alcaraz 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 6-7 (3-7) 6-7 (4-7) 4-5 Zverev*"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/live/c3dnjg02mn8t
Nevertheless, as a humble parish councillor, I bumped into a fellow dog owner on Wednesday who pointed out something that needed attention, and I've just had an email from the county council's contractor confirming that they inspected it yesterday and will hopefully get it sorted today. Happiness is a series of small victories...
12 years would be longer than the average rapist.
In most other democracies, the fundamentals of its local governance are set out in its constitution. For sure, constitutions can change - but that's normally an extended process with a series of hurdles to jump, and not something governments do lightly.
The absence of any formalised constitution in the UK means that local government exists and operates entirely at the whim of national government - it can be re-organised, abolished, have its election dates changed, have its funding cut or capped, all according to the political decisions of a majority party at Westminster, elected on 35-40% of the vote, and has next to no reliable funding sources of its own (other than, perhaps, parking charges - which in itself explains a lot).
So if someone wants to build a home, that can get rejected and good look getting that through on appeal. Someone wants to build an estate of 100 homes, then rejections just delay but don't prevent that, for which everyone loses (opponents don't see it defeated, those who need the homes just see them delayed).
Sensible zonal planning reform and removing the role of Councillors entirely from individual decisions, would enable small competitors to compete with the oligopoly.
So you can't then compare against CPI, as CPI has already been taken into account.
So your graph does not show that Council Taxes are flat against CPI, they have basically doubled in real terms even having taken into account CPI.
First, it's arguable (and I would so argue) that her "reforms" are a large part of why local government is in so dismal a condition.
It's extraordinary that someone who banged on about "freedom" quite so much made us one if the most centralised states in Europe.
Second, a primary reason this reorganisation is a more drawn out process than Mrs T's, is the introduction of statutory consultation for local government reorganisation, introduced by the Local Government Act 1992, and further consolidated by The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.
The '92 Act probably owes its genesis to Thatcher's disastrous attempt to fix local government funding by bringing in a poll tax a couple of years earlier...
I think the severity of offence is perhaps comparable, a personal impact on many thousands of people, rather than a really serious impact on one person and family.
Dumping approximately 21,000 tonnes of unsorted waste illegally next to the River Cherwell, including dangerous waste. That represents 2000+ 10 tonne loads, which cost £150 to £1000+ each, avoidance of 2000 lorries worth of landfill tax, and environmental damage, plus an attack on the entire system.
Just on a cost of £500 each and assuming full lorries, you are north of £1 million in equivalent costs.
Consider how many thousands or tens of thousands of people have had their lives disturbed.
Why is this less serious than drug smuggling, where we have maximum sentences of either 14 years or life?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/live/c3dnjg02mn8t
https://x.com/RudyGiuliani/status/2017040341090914680?s=20
If you've enough funding and patience then yes you can, but very many don't too.
And very many could-be developers don't even bother putting in the applications in the first place, because they won't be able to work with the rejection and appeal process.
It is worth noting that countries without convoluted years-long planning and appeal process tend to have many small developers building things rather than an oligopoly of large developers.
Barratt etc that form our oligopoly are creatures formed and enabled by our planning system.
It is around 90%.
If you are of the view that all these services are unaffordable, then perhaps a particular party will show the way by cutting services they deem to be unnecessary. So far can't see which party are demonstrating this, though some make promises to do it.
The interesting thing about the graph is why Scotland is so different, post 2006?
And it ought to be acknowledged that the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is causing the controversy discussed in the header, does significantly increase powers devolved to the higher tier of local government.
My first comparator is Band D vs CPI from 2005 to 2025, which is flat in real terms (91% vs 95% increase in cash terms).
My cross check is average household expenditure on Council Tax vs CPI, which is the graph, which is also flat in 2024 money (ie real) terms.
ie It has not been hiked in real terms.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6808d5534dd7e0f8897a6227/Annex_A_Word_Planning_Inspectorate_Statistical_Release_April_2025.pdf
Thank you.
Whether a developer wins on appeal or not depends on the strength of their legal case
The proportion allowed is based on those submitted, those submitted are self-selected as those who essentially think they can get through and it is worth submitting. That's why those percentages are as flawed as a voodoo poll.
It does not consider any of those who could have built a home under a different system but don't bother as they don't want to get through this broken process.
And if you weed out those, and leave behind an oligopoly with lawyers who are used to playing the system then that will increase the percentage approved since they know how to tick every box.
Go to zonal planning, enable anyone to build without seeking consent first if they are in a zone approved for habitation, then small developers won't be weeded out.
As for overshadowing, its entirely simple to put in regulations of building standards without needing a planning system. Eg say "this land is zoned for houses of no more than 2/3/5 (as appropriate) stories and there must be a minimum gap of (0/[insert here]) between the home and the edge of the plot" which prevents the overshadowing issues.
So long as houses are built to code, there should be no problem.
Gove, the education system and free schools for starters, Jenrick would be hard pushed to point to anything he hasn't fucked up.
Putting that to one side. What is the problem the reorganization is trying to solve?
If it is the current financial crisis then limited council budgets only buy so much tarmac, refuse services and people regardless of the size of the council purchasing it.
Reorganization might create efficiencies in future but immediately it will only take money out of a budget that is already too small to deliver basic services. The councils that are in the worst debt are those that tried risky money making schemes so they could afford to provide basic services, made possible by removal of the oversight of the audit commission (brilliant Conservative cost-saving measure).
I'm not against reorganization, but at this point any penny Councils have needs to be spent on services, re-organization can wait until councils are on a surer financial footing. If it's a choice between filling potholes or rebranding council leaflets the priority of residents is clear.
Panama’s Supreme Court ruled late Thursday that the concession held by a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings to operate ports at either end of the Panama Canal is unconstitutional, an outcome that advances a U.S. aim to block any influence by China over the strategic waterway.
It’s so effing wearying because it always lets the Tories back in and they remain consistently awful (most anyway) at actually growing the economy.
Bit dispiriting really. As for Reform? Don’t be absurd.
As it's over $5,000 today....
300k Planning Applications per annum.
18k Planning Appeals. 30-35% success rate.
300k Permitted Development notifications.
And a larger number that require no notification.
There exists a process called Building Notice, where you just serve notice that you are starting, and you are confident enough that it will be correct.
There's been quite a big hike in Planning Applications under the new Government, but not in London (which we have discussed).
Note that Planning Applications are also about risk management, and other things.
Luuuxary!
I grew up on a dirt track
Local government would IMHO be improved by letting councils raise more of their own money, relying less on central grants to fulfil central obligations.
I'd go for more significant local autonomy, and given relative success of regional mayors in some places that seems to be the best chance we will get.
Where Hamas failed is that the Israelis don't see this as a colonial war. They see it as an existential war. People will willingly inflict all manner of cruelties on the enemy, if they believe that they are fighting for their existence.
What tends to get overlooked, because of the romanticisation of guerilla movements, is that irregular warfare is very much the second best option, to regular warfare. Most insurgencies fail, and where they do succeed, it is only with the backing of foreign governments, and/or where they are fighting in conjunction with regular forces.
The header was suggesting that Lady Thatcher's approach was somehow better. It wasn't any such thing, IMO.
And today's snail pace for getting any reform through is arguably attributable to the (largely performative) consultation processes introduced as a response to her intemperate mucking around with local government.
This in turn triggered a sharp rise in the price of gold, from around US$260 per ounce to around $330 per ounce in two weeks.
So no, it required no hindsight to see that flooding the market would mean a shite price was going to be obtained at the time. The change in price since is just a brutal reminder of how badly he was advised. If he took any advice...
Four B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers have left the US bound for the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean.
Lady Thatcher was right, actually, get in administrators to manage this short transition period at fraction of the cost to budgets and tax payers. The Conservatives were right to cancel elections in 2019 and 2022 too.