Well done to Reform for forcing the issue. I wonder if swings will be higher in councils that try to avoid facing the voters.
More than likely...
What a victory Starmer just handed Farage
Ironic, that he uses a speech at an international conference to draw in domestic politics by naming the Greens and Reform as an ever present danger than within 24 hours hands Farage a humiliating victory
It does not need much imagination as to Reform's election leaflets in those councils
The original decision was just so dumb. Yes, some would complain about wasteful spending, but that’s far easier to defend than cancelling democracy!
LOL, after the Electoral Commission said the cancellations were unjustified.
It’s almost as if No.10 believes in nothing, and just reacts to what’s happening around them.
SPOT ON. it’s like they believe in nothing and just react.
Compare and contrast u-turn on postponing council elections with Lady Thatchers government in the Eighties, who did postpone elections, even sacked all the councillors to bring contractors in, as what does impinge on democracy and tax payers is where local government reorganisation just drags on, not implemented on time, so creating and owning the unholy mess Labour are making of this. Lady Thatcher’s Government knew its mind, never U-turned on anything, just focussed on delivering strong consistent government. And if Labour want to tell us the last Conservative government was rubbish, under Boris, Truss and Sunak - that government did manage to cancel local elections and deliver reorganisation in time.
As a betting post, the date of the next General Election, I don’t think it is going to be Thursday 3rd May 2029 now. Labour are in for a complete Blood Bath at next GE - the voters will never put up with a government that is U Turning and flip flopping every five minutes. It’s a government that doesn’t know its mind, or have the strength to back up its own mind and stay the course. That is definition of the worst possible government to have. I suspect now they will cling on till the last possible moment to avoid their shellacking.
That’s a 2030 election?
When the economy is going gang busters the NHS is much improved voters won't give a shit about 2026 local elections.
You are beginning to sound desperate, but then any decent labour supporter would see this cannot go on
The economy already performing best in G7 will be performing at 2% better mid 2% and 2.5% better early 28...historically not great but will be best by a distance in g7
“One in 15 cars are wearing illegal number plates that can’t be read by ANPR cameras”.
Who’d have thought it?
Hopefully soon they’ll invent a camera that can operate at optical wavelengths, like the human eye.
Alternatively, use a closed and stamped numberplate system as seen in most of the rest of the world.
Would that help against coatings that could be applied to whatever? If the cameras see what a persons see, modified plates would stick out like a sore thumb.
Not sure this is the kind of language an old school shires Tory would have employed. What colour have Rupe and his mob adopted so shit can be appended to it?
Hell of a battle looming between Nigel and Rupert for the racist vote. Nigel is the incumbent here, and he's a wily old fox, but Rupert has the advantage of not having to worry about anything but the racist vote. He doesn't need to dogwhistle, he can get straight to it.
I now see that a bunch of students are going after their universities over the impacts of covid on their expectations, including my workplace. Now I do have some sympathy - many courses migrated to remote teaching and many have not reverted in full to this day. But I think my place worked bloody hard in difficult circumstances to deliver a course that relies on face to face contact during a pandemic where face to face contact was banned by the government.
And anecdotally I know that an awful lot of covid breaching went on on campus during lockdown... Hard to blame them really.
I think the biggest problem with the delays is the fact the timetable for some of these councils to be reformed (Baddum tish) may well be years into the future (And some of them will be delayed for well, reasons (Court objections etc)) further still - it's not like the reorgs are going in the next few months after the elections to be put off.
In Lancashire they haven't EVEN decided how many Unitaries there should be so it is self-evident there won't be elections for the new Authorities until 2028 with a year running in parallel
When they did Cumbria very late in the day they noticed there were more outside appointments for Westmorland and Furness to supply than there were going to be councillors so they arbitarily increased the councillors to the point where the wards were unequal to the extent that a Labour ward which elected two councillors was larger than another which could be relied upon to elect three Lib Dem councillors.
Only now are they sorting that out and the 2027 elections to WFC will be on equal votes.
It really was a shambles, I was apparently the only one who thought calling the new council Westmorland And Furness Unitary Council was not a good idea.
Westmorland, Torver And Furness?
Was thinking City University of Newcastle upon Tyne (which was Northumbria’s first choice of university name).
LOL, after the Electoral Commission said the cancellations were unjustified.
It’s almost as if No.10 believes in nothing, and just reacts to what’s happening around them.
SPOT ON. it’s like they believe in nothing and just react.
Compare and contrast u-turn on postponing council elections with Lady Thatchers government in the Eighties, who did postpone elections, even sacked all the councillors to bring contractors in, as what does impinge on democracy and tax payers is where local government reorganisation just drags on, not implemented on time, so creating and owning the unholy mess Labour are making of this. Lady Thatcher’s Government knew its mind, never U-turned on anything, just focussed on delivering strong consistent government. And if Labour want to tell us the last Conservative government was rubbish, under Boris, Truss and Sunak - that government did manage to cancel local elections and deliver reorganisation in time.
As a betting post, the date of the next General Election, I don’t think it is going to be Thursday 3rd May 2029 now. Labour are in for a complete Blood Bath at next GE - the voters will never put up with a government that is U Turning and flip flopping every five minutes. It’s a government that doesn’t know its mind, or have the strength to back up its own mind and stay the course. That is definition of the worst possible government to have. I suspect now they will cling on till the last possible moment to avoid their shellacking.
That’s a 2030 election?
When the economy is going gang busters the NHS is much improved voters won't give a shit about 2026 local elections.
You are beginning to sound desperate, but then any decent labour supporter would see this cannot go on
The economy already performing best in G7 will be performing at 2% better mid 2% and 2.5% better early 28...historically not great but will be best by a distance in g7
I sincerely hope we're all around to see it...
Not if Starmer and Reeves are around
It is utterly remarkable that the architect of the big rise in the minimum wage for young workers, one Angela Rayner, accepted last weekend it was a mistake
LOL, after the Electoral Commission said the cancellations were unjustified.
It’s almost as if No.10 believes in nothing, and just reacts to what’s happening around them.
SPOT ON. it’s like they believe in nothing and just react.
Compare and contrast u-turn on postponing council elections with Lady Thatchers government in the Eighties, who did postpone elections, even sacked all the councillors to bring contractors in, as what does impinge on democracy and tax payers is where local government reorganisation just drags on, not implemented on time, so creating and owning the unholy mess Labour are making of this. Lady Thatcher’s Government knew its mind, never U-turned on anything, just focussed on delivering strong consistent government. And if Labour want to tell us the last Conservative government was rubbish, under Boris, Truss and Sunak - that government did manage to cancel local elections and deliver reorganisation in time.
As a betting post, the date of the next General Election, I don’t think it is going to be Thursday 3rd May 2029 now. Labour are in for a complete Blood Bath at next GE - the voters will never put up with a government that is U Turning and flip flopping every five minutes. It’s a government that doesn’t know its mind, or have the strength to back up its own mind and stay the course. That is definition of the worst possible government to have. I suspect now they will cling on till the last possible moment to avoid their shellacking.
That’s a 2030 election?
When the economy is going gang busters the NHS is much improved voters won't give a shit about 2026 local elections.
Yeah, that 1.5% growth is really going to make our lives better.
Dragged down by non-productive pensioners and their triple lock. 13mn pensioners and 2 mn unemployed.
I think the biggest problem with the delays is the fact the timetable for some of these councils to be reformed (Baddum tish) may well be years into the future (And some of them will be delayed for well, reasons (Court objections etc)) further still - it's not like the reorgs are going in the next few months after the elections to be put off.
In Lancashire they haven't EVEN decided how many Unitaries there should be so it is self-evident there won't be elections for the new Authorities until 2028 with a year running in parallel
When they did Cumbria very late in the day they noticed there were more outside appointments for Westmorland and Furness to supply than there were going to be councillors so they arbitarily increased the councillors to the point where the wards were unequal to the extent that a Labour ward which elected two councillors was larger than another which could be relied upon to elect three Lib Dem councillors.
Only now are they sorting that out and the 2027 elections to WFC will be on equal votes.
It really was a shambles, I was apparently the only one who thought calling the new council Westmorland And Furness Unitary Council was not a good idea.
Westmorland, Torver And Furness?
Was thinking City University of Newcastle upon Tyne (which was Northumbria’s first choice of university name).
Or the Department of Productivity, ENergy and IndustrieS.
I've long thought that. We'd probably still be using Fahrenheit too.
The 'Save the Sixpence' campaign would have won out, perchance?
I think however one factor you are overlooking is that Heath was in favour as well. He was a 'moderniser' in several fields (local government, anyone?) and he wasn't interested in playing politics to prevent a change he approved of, or forestall it, especially when he found it more profitable to attack Labour for their mismanagement of the macroeconomic situation.
If Home or even Maudling had been in charge of the Conservatives they might have taken a different view and it would have been much harder.
Now today, we'd have a load of politicians jumping on the bandwagon, Blair style, in the hope of some easy popularity.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, Ted Heath's last speech to the HoC from 2001 turned up on my Youtube feed the other day. I thought it was quite interesting; he mentions Europe of course!
“One in 15 cars are wearing illegal number plates that can’t be read by ANPR cameras”.
Who’d have thought it?
Hopefully soon they’ll invent a camera that can operate at optical wavelengths, like the human eye.
Alternatively, use a closed and stamped numberplate system as seen in most of the rest of the world.
Would that help against coatings that could be applied to whatever? If the cameras see what a persons see, modified plates would stick out like a sore thumb.
Stamped plates are very difficult to coat in a way that makes them invisible to cameras, and with a centrally controlled supply are pretty much impossible to clone.
Some of us have pointed this out for years now, that if you’re going to make extensive use of ANPR cameras then you need to fix the plates first.
I had a friend at school who was born on decimalisation day, so I know how old he is now!
I'm surprised decimalisation, being all European and stuff, isn't the thing that the right-wing culture warriors describe as "woke".
There was a guy I went to school with, not the brightest I'll admit. His birthday was the day before mine. When we met again about five years ago he was genuinely astonished that I knew exactly how old he was. As I said, not the brightest.
I had a friend at school who was born on decimalisation day, so I know how old he is now!
I'm surprised decimalisation, being all European and stuff, isn't the thing that the right-wing culture warriors describe as "woke".
Mrs Thatcher thought it was woke. She abolished the Metrication Board on 30 April 1980. The result is the peculiar hybrid mixture we still have today, 46 years later.
Miles per gallon but bought in litres. Pints of beer but litres of milk. Height of a person 5' 10". Height of a door 2.2 metres. Part of Thatcher's legacy
So Rupert is talking about deporting LEGAL residents who live in social housing or claim any benefits. That's my housemate (a chemical engineering graduate), back to Lithuania where she doesn't speak the language, know anybody and hasn't been since the age of six. F him and the horse he rode in on.
Its weird. This article seems to have been written by some clown who spends his winters overseas, so has no first hand knowledge. Yet its hard to disagree when the rain has not stopped for 40 days and 40 nights, its dark, its soggy and everything feels a bit shit.
But I took my three year old to a circus extravaganza on saturday and the little feller happily marched onto the stage as a volunteer and loved every minute of it, so its not all bad.
So Rupert is talking about deporting LEGAL residents who live in social housing or claim any benefits. That's my housemate (a chemical engineering graduate), back to Lithuania where she doesn't speak the language, know anybody and hasn't been since the age of six. F him and the horse he rode in on.
Policies he'll never be able to enact - sounds almost like a LibDem.
LOL, after the Electoral Commission said the cancellations were unjustified.
It’s almost as if No.10 believes in nothing, and just reacts to what’s happening around them.
SPOT ON. it’s like they believe in nothing and just react.
Compare and contrast u-turn on postponing council elections with Lady Thatchers government in the Eighties, who did postpone elections, even sacked all the councillors to bring contractors in, as what does impinge on democracy and tax payers is where local government reorganisation just drags on, not implemented on time, so creating and owning the unholy mess Labour are making of this. Lady Thatcher’s Government knew its mind, never U-turned on anything, just focussed on delivering strong consistent government. And if Labour want to tell us the last Conservative government was rubbish, under Boris, Truss and Sunak - that government did manage to cancel local elections and deliver reorganisation in time.
As a betting post, the date of the next General Election, I don’t think it is going to be Thursday 3rd May 2029 now. Labour are in for a complete Blood Bath at next GE - the voters will never put up with a government that is U Turning and flip flopping every five minutes. It’s a government that doesn’t know its mind, or have the strength to back up its own mind and stay the course. That is definition of the worst possible government to have. I suspect now they will cling on till the last possible moment to avoid their shellacking.
That’s a 2030 election?
When the economy is going gang busters the NHS is much improved voters won't give a shit about 2026 local elections.
Yeah, that 1.5% growth is really going to make our lives better.
Dragged down by non-productive pensioners and their triple lock. 13mn pensioners and 2 mn unemployed.
The 2m unemployed is the tip of the iceberg - there are around 10m working age adults on benefits, including about 4.5m on health-related benefits, up by 2m since the pandemic.
So basically the 34m workers have to support 23m adult parasites (though it won't be quite that simple as some of the workers will also receive some benefits), as well as 12.7 million children.
Given the amount of freeloading adults in this country, it's no wonder that taxes keep spiralling upwards and its actually amazing that the employed bother at all.
So Rupert is talking about deporting LEGAL residents who live in social housing or claim any benefits. That's my housemate (a chemical engineering graduate), back to Lithuania where she doesn't speak the language, know anybody and hasn't been since the age of six. F him and the horse he rode in on.
Hes going to end up attracting a Griffin 2009 level of support
I think the biggest problem with the delays is the fact the timetable for some of these councils to be reformed (Baddum tish) may well be years into the future (And some of them will be delayed for well, reasons (Court objections etc)) further still - it's not like the reorgs are going in the next few months after the elections to be put off.
In Lancashire they haven't EVEN decided how many Unitaries there should be so it is self-evident there won't be elections for the new Authorities until 2028 with a year running in parallel
When they did Cumbria very late in the day they noticed there were more outside appointments for Westmorland and Furness to supply than there were going to be councillors so they arbitarily increased the councillors to the point where the wards were unequal to the extent that a Labour ward which elected two councillors was larger than another which could be relied upon to elect three Lib Dem councillors.
Only now are they sorting that out and the 2027 elections to WFC will be on equal votes.
It really was a shambles, I was apparently the only one who thought calling the new council Westmorland And Furness Unitary Council was not a good idea.
Westmorland, Torver And Furness?
Was thinking City University of Newcastle upon Tyne (which was Northumbria’s first choice of university name).
You’ve got to be kidding 😱
So it was said. I did my HR qualification there 30 years ago, when it had only recently become a university, and that was the story then.
What's the odds on Labour in Gorton and Denton following this latest humiliation
Farage on Sky looking like the cat has got the cream
Lib dems join the attack on Starmer cancelations
Turnout in local elections is about a third. I'd guess less than 10% (i.e. 3%) of those have even noticed the story about cancelling and now not cancelling them.
It looks bad for the Government... to the tiny proportion of people paying attention. Has this ever registered on YouGov's issues polling?
Comments
If he can unite the various factions in the party, then fantastic.
I sincerely hope we're all around to see it...
Happy days.
And anecdotally I know that an awful lot of covid breaching went on on campus during lockdown... Hard to blame them really.
It is utterly remarkable that the architect of the big rise in the minimum wage for young workers, one Angela Rayner, accepted last weekend it was a mistake
Which was actually the acronym suggested...
https://youtu.be/h-Vv1e2Kwt8?si=luX5czPIFKmDRRfq
Some of us have pointed this out for years now, that if you’re going to make extensive use of ANPR cameras then you need to fix the plates first.
Discuss
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/02/16/britain-starting-feel-like-a-drizzly-gulag-run-hi-de-hi/
She abolished the Metrication Board on 30 April 1980.
The result is the peculiar hybrid mixture we still have today, 46 years later.
Miles per gallon but bought in litres.
Pints of beer but litres of milk.
Height of a person 5' 10". Height of a door 2.2 metres.
Part of Thatcher's legacy
That's my housemate (a chemical engineering graduate), back to Lithuania where she doesn't speak the language, know anybody and hasn't been since the age of six.
F him and the horse he rode in on.
But I took my three year old to a circus extravaganza on saturday and the little feller happily marched onto the stage as a volunteer and loved every minute of it, so its not all bad.
NEW THREAD
So basically the 34m workers have to support 23m adult parasites (though it won't be quite that simple as some of the workers will also receive some benefits), as well as 12.7 million children.
Given the amount of freeloading adults in this country, it's no wonder that taxes keep spiralling upwards and its actually amazing that the employed bother at all.
Farage on Sky looking like the cat has got the cream
Lib dems join the attack on Starmer cancelations
I remember the three heads of sea thrift.
Ee by gum. Them wert days!
It looks bad for the Government... to the tiny proportion of people paying attention. Has this ever registered on YouGov's issues polling?
(Not particularly having a go bit it was another essential update that the last 5 Tory PMs sat on their arses over.)