Worth bearimg in mind if youre expecting Reform to take dozens of councils, 23 of the 30 are only a third up, 2 are half and only Thurrock and the Tory counties are all up
Ah, the lesser spotted elections by half councils, the degenerates.
But it is a sensible decision, with the delays in reorganisations it was silly to delay elections.
Reorganisations are DONE, NADA, OVER.
This clueless inept government by holding local elections in EVERY county council and district council it had prioritised to move to unitaries and Mayors has ensured it is dead once Reform sweep the board in May. Reform will vote down any further moves to local government reform and reorganisation. Local government reorginisation RIPd today for the rest of this parliament. The Essex Mayoral election is also likely now never happening
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
You wonder why they didn't get that advice *before* trying to postpone elections.
Good question. I thought Starmer was meant to be in thrall to legal niceties. This seems to have been more a case of JFDI. But now not as it turns out. Odd one.
Is that u turn #19 or 20?
Sure someone must be keeping a list!
I'm not sure the public cares much. It is Mrs Thatcher who convinced the media U-turns are a bad thing. Before then we would quote Maynard Keynes on "when the facts change". Probably most voters welcome the government coming into line with public opinion.
He u-turns too quickly for the facts to have changed
Indeed but I still doubt the voter on the Clapham omnibus cares about U-turns the way the pundit class does. (See also tax-and-spend.)
It’s a balance.
A few smart U-turns can be sensible politics.
The key is avoiding getting a reputation for them, because it kills your credibility and annoys more people than it reassures.
The Starmer government has crossed that line. Indeed I think it threatens that government’s “bounce-back-ability” because any policy announcement is now treated with a dose of skepticism.
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
Exactly. Judicial interference = applying the law. Like the outcome in any particular instance or not, it's an essential protection.
Where it becomes interference - and it’s not really the judges’ fault - is where they fill in the blanks where parliament has not done its job properly
It tends to be interference if you don't like the outcome. If you do it's upholding the law.
Try reading what I read instead of regurgitating your prior post
Judges uphold the law.
Sometimes parliament doesn’t cover all cases and the judges need to do things that are properly done by parliament.
Really? Gosh.
The quality of legislation has been piss poor for 20+ years (and that’s not the objectives it’s the actual quality of the legislation)
Poor show in that case. I wonder why standards have slipped.
I suspect it’s related to the Campbell / post Campbell era - when politicians started legislating for headlines rather than to actually care about good law.
Although the posterboy for this, the legendary Dangerous Dogs Act, was in 1991.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
This will likely end the move to unitaries.
Those 5 councils plus Essex were all the priority areas for devolution, Mayors and unitaries. Reform oppose all that, want to keep county and district councils and will refuse to co operate with any local government reorganisation if as is likely they win control of those 6 councils or most seats in May.
So the government today has likely killed off local government reform for the rest of this parliament unless it is willing to go into battle with Reform led county councils which given its gutless u turns is unlikely
Hampshire is a phase 1 unitary council although I am not sure if they have decided on 3 or 4 unitaries yet. Personally I think it was a missed opportunity for a cross-Blackwater council (Sandhurst, Surrey Heath, Rushmoor, bits of Guildford, the urban bit of Hart, Farnham).
However Hampshire despite the County elections being postponed last year, actually requested elections this year, as it is now likely to be at least two years away.
The radical in me wants to sweep it all away and replace it with provinces based on an urban area with a rural hinterland. Maybe use postcode areas, I'd be in Guildford province and neighbouring ones would be Reading, Southampton and Twickenham. Big cities (and maybe some funky smaller ones) can be Imperial Free Cities.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench playing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
Yet another response spinning desperately on a pinhead to show the Conservatives in a good light.
Nice try but you and I both know it's incoherent - the argument about postponing elections for authorities that won't exist has some validity but for those Norfolk and Suffolk County Councillors elected in 2021, their term didn't end in 2025 and won't end in 2026 - it will end on March 31st 2028. Now, you can blame Labour (as you probably should and doubtless will) but it makes a mockery of democracy to allow these terms to continue in perpetuity.
The other side of this is IF Norfolk and Suffolk for example move from Conservative to Reform or NOC, it's likely the policy of the Council will change and the proposals for re-structuring and re-organisation will change so, as @HYUFD states, the whole edifice comes crashing down.
As an example, had Surrey County Council held elections in 2025 and had those elections resulted in a LD administration taking over, it's possible the County Council would have backed proposals for three unitaries rather than two.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
Exactly. Judicial interference = applying the law. Like the outcome in any particular instance or not, it's an essential protection.
Where it becomes interference - and it’s not really the judges’ fault - is where they fill in the blanks where parliament has not done its job properly
It tends to be interference if you don't like the outcome. If you do it's upholding the law.
Try reading what I read instead of regurgitating your prior post
Judges uphold the law.
Sometimes parliament doesn’t cover all cases and the judges need to do things that are properly done by parliament.
I'm currently going thru Jonathan Sumption's first two non-history books, "Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics" and "Law in a Time of Crisis". He makes the point quite forcefully that the courts have expanded out of their natural scope into actively creating law, contradicting Parliament, interfering in peoples lives when unpermitted, and taking control of things that should be down to individual responsibility. The idea that courts just "fill in the blanks" is decades out of date.
This is an attractive thesis - of course. However, all these elements need examples, and also an account of how instead courts should answer questions when they are asked...
Quick examples from "Trials of the State" include the following. This isn't AI btw.
Strasbourg/ECtHR
Prisoner votes (Hirst vs UK 2005, also Scoppola vs Italy 2012)
UK Supreme Court
Abortion in NI (NIHRC application for judicial review 2019)
Assisted suicide (R v MOJ 2015)
Permanence of the sex offenders register (R v Home Secretary 2011)
Publication of Prince of Wales correspondence (R v Attorney General 2015)
Court fees (R v Lord Chancellor 2017)
Also
Responsibility of the individual to prevent harm from own stupidity (Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council 2004). It's included in this list not because of the decision but that it was litigated at all.
Terminally-ill babies (GOSH v Yates). Included in this list because the doctors refused to impose their own judgement but instead referred to the court
If you're interested, Trials of the State is based on a 2019 Reith Lecture series which you can find online
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
Worth bearimg in mind if youre expecting Reform to take dozens of councils, 23 of the 30 are only a third up, 2 are half and only Thurrock and the Tory counties are all up
Ah, the lesser spotted elections by half councils, the degenerates.
But it is a sensible decision, with the delays in reorganisations it was silly to delay elections.
Reorganisations are DONE, NADA, OVER.
This clueless inept government by holding local elections in EVERY county council and district council it had prioritised to move to unitaries and Mayors has ensured it is dead once Reform sweep the board in May. Reform will vote down any further moves to local government reform and reorganisation. Local government reorginisation RIPd today for the rest of this parliament. The Essex Mayoral election is also likely now never happening
It's a shame as I think the plans had a lot of potential.
Surely even Starmer would realise Parliament is sovereign and if he really wanted he could use the Local Government Acts to make clear via statute law the election delays were needed for councils moving to unitaries to reorganise for that? As it is Reform are opposed to unitaries and want to keep county and district councils, so if they take control of most county and district councils up this year as they won most county councils up last year they could try and block the move to unitaries and Mayors completely, setting up a clash with the govenment on that,
Kemi now facing potential Tory losses of Norfolk, Suffolk and East and West Sussex county councils as well as Essex and Hampshire county councils and failing to win the new Surrey unitaries and facing the Tories coming 4th in the Holyrood and Senedd elections could well be under severe pressure in May. As TSE suggests if the Tories are 3rd on NEV in May behind Labour a VONC by Tory MPs in Kemi's leadership could be asked for and she could be gone, replaced by Cleverly
In 1993 the Tories amongst County Councils were left with just Buckinghamshire. Looks like they will be in the same boat in 2026. Remaining largest party in some is needed for them The Districts and London will be much more mixed
Given all county councils will have held local elections by the end of the first week of May and the Tories won zero county councils last year, the Tories may do even worse than 1993 and control not a single county council by majority by the Spring.
Even Bucks unitary council is now NOC after elections last year, even if the Tories won most seats
Bucks is Majority Con aftrr a defection from Reform
Well something but again that was because of defection not election.
It is possible of the English councils up in May the Tories could not win majority control of a single one outside London, indeed it may be that the Tories only win Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Barnet councils in this year's local elections.
Which would say something about how relatively posh the Tories now are relative to 2019, most of those who voted for Boris then are now voting Reform
Broxbourne will remain Con majority They have a reasonable chance of holding Fareham. We will see with the rest
The Tories have already seen 2 Broxbourne cllrs defect to Reform, if 1 more goes then if the Tories lost all their seats up in May in Broxbourne that would also go NOC.
Braverman will be hoping her defection enables Reform to win most Fareham seats up in May and if the Tories lose 8 or more out of their 13 seats up they would lose control
Both Reform defectors are facing reelection so Broxbourne is a Tory Hold
They will likely hold their seats as Reform
Yes but there are only 7 Tories facing reelection and 25/30 on the council. If they lose every ward (very unlikely) they have 18/30
Not if 1 of the 30 not facing election defected to Reform too
3 would need to defect to reduce 18 to 15 And we deal with reality not 'stuff that might happen if we wish hard enough'
It doesn't make sense to want to replace Kemi with Cleverly unless you see Kemi as a problem for Reform
He has litlle englander right wing sympathies and playing the Trojan horse would suits this agenda
Where is the evidence Kemi is a problem for Reform? Under Rishi the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform, now the Tories are 5 to 10% at least behind Reform.
Cleverly also polls better with 2024 Tory voters than Kemi, ironically Kemi and Jenrick polled better with 2024 Reform voters than Cleverly.
Labour and LD voters who might tactically vote Tory to beat Reform also preferred Cleverly to Kemi in polling in the leadership election
Do you think that Sunak would still be polling 10% more than Reform if he were still Tory leader?
A MiC poll after last year's local elections had a Sunak led Tories unchanged on 2024 on 24%, tied with Reform also on 24% and ahead of Labour on 22%.
The Kemi led Tories though were on only 21%, 3% down on 2024 and behind Reform on 29% and Labour on 22%
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
I am wondering if the issue is that the Government asked councils to request postponement and, er, asking a legislative body to extend itself is a bit suspect.
If England needs local government reorganisation it needs to start from scratch and cover the whole country.
But of course England is not allowed to govern itself. We are a strange place, a federal country where the only territory directly administered by the federal government is the most populous part of the country.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
In the sense of monetary value of said lawyers maybe but even someone working for a legal aid firm above a fish and chip shop in Southend with a 2.2 in law from Thames Valley would know that Parliament and statute law is sovereign I would have thought! It is one of the first things any UK law course teaches you!
The words PR and disaster as synonymous when it comes to Starmer. If he backed a horse race where all the horses bar one withdrew, he would still lose money
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
Exactly. Judicial interference = applying the law. Like the outcome in any particular instance or not, it's an essential protection.
Where it becomes interference - and it’s not really the judges’ fault - is where they fill in the blanks where parliament has not done its job properly
It tends to be interference if you don't like the outcome. If you do it's upholding the law.
Try reading what I read instead of regurgitating your prior post
Judges uphold the law.
Sometimes parliament doesn’t cover all cases and the judges need to do things that are properly done by parliament.
I'm currently going thru Jonathan Sumption's first two non-history books, "Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics" and "Law in a Time of Crisis". He makes the point quite forcefully that the courts have expanded out of their natural scope into actively creating law, contradicting Parliament, interfering in peoples lives when unpermitted, and taking control of things that should be down to individual responsibility. The idea that courts just "fill in the blanks" is decades out of date.
This is an attractive thesis - of course. However, all these elements need examples, and also an account of how instead courts should answer questions when they are asked.
For example, when the courts, finally the Supreme Court, were asked what 'woman' means in a particular act of parliament, everyone knowing that whatever they said would be divisive and would create both law and consequences, should the courts have said 'Go away we are not bothered, answer it yourself'?
Worth bearimg in mind if youre expecting Reform to take dozens of councils, 23 of the 30 are only a third up, 2 are half and only Thurrock and the Tory counties are all up
Ah, the lesser spotted elections by half councils, the degenerates.
But it is a sensible decision, with the delays in reorganisations it was silly to delay elections.
Reorganisations are DONE, NADA, OVER.
This clueless inept government by holding local elections in EVERY county council and district council it had prioritised to move to unitaries and Mayors has ensured it is dead once Reform sweep the board in May. Reform will vote down any further moves to local government reform and reorganisation. Local government reorginisation RIPd today for the rest of this parliament. The Essex Mayoral election is also likely now never happening
It's a shame as I think the plans had a lot of potential.
I don't think they did - my response to one of the five options in Staffordshire actually contains the words, 'it is the patriotic duty of this council to sell twelve ounces of whatever they were smoking when they came up with this in the Far East to clear the national debt.' But I also don't see how Reform will stop them unless they control Westminster. Ultimately, the organisation of local government in this country is decided by statute and by the central government. That was seen in 1996, 1986, 1973, 1965, 1885 and 1833, when wholesale reform was carried out in the teeth of fearsome opposition.
I don't think it will solve the problems they're trying to solve (indeed, because it will lead to a period of muddle and instability it will probably make them worse) but it won't be stopped just because the Fukkers have a good night.
Indeed, given the Fukkers couldn't manage an orgy in a cathouse and seem to be causing the councils they are running to implode with embarrassing regularity, it might actually accelerate the process.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
In the sense of monetary value of said lawyers maybe but even someone working for a legal aid firm above a fish and chip shop in Southend with a 2.2 in law from Thames Valley would know that Parliament and statute law is sovereign I would have thought! It is one of the first things any UK law course teaches you!
Clearly you have never had dealings with Davidsons Law or Womble Bond Dickinson. These are people who cannot even write their names or read calendars.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
Maybe these lawyers have a sense of public duty, a good conscience... errr
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I am not sure how far they'd get with the 'Government can suspend elections whenever it wants to' bill, given the febrile nature of the Lahour backbenches.
Worth bearimg in mind if youre expecting Reform to take dozens of councils, 23 of the 30 are only a third up, 2 are half and only Thurrock and the Tory counties are all up
Ah, the lesser spotted elections by half councils, the degenerates.
But it is a sensible decision, with the delays in reorganisations it was silly to delay elections.
Reorganisations are DONE, NADA, OVER.
This clueless inept government by holding local elections in EVERY county council and district council it had prioritised to move to unitaries and Mayors has ensured it is dead once Reform sweep the board in May. Reform will vote down any further moves to local government reform and reorganisation. Local government reorginisation RIPd today for the rest of this parliament. The Essex Mayoral election is also likely now never happening
That wording is quite unlike you. Are you feeling well?
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
In the sense of monetary value of said lawyers maybe but even someone working for a legal aid firm above a fish and chip shop in Southend with a 2.2 in law from Thames Valley would know that Parliament and statute law is sovereign I would have thought! It is one of the first things any UK law course teaches you!
Clearly you have never had dealings with Davidsons Law or Womble Bond Dickinson. These are people who cannot even write their names or read calendars.
Oh I suspect that is intentional.
I deal with a lot of lawyers who have been asked to try it on
I think it's Helmut Norpoth whose prediction method looks at primary votes. If Vance continues to hoover up Rep votes, and the Dems keep floundering, we have to start thinking about Vance as Prez
We are also 2 years before primary season begins - that's an awful long time during which things could change..
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I am not sure how far they'd get with the 'Government can suspend elections whenever it wants to' bill, given the febrile nature of the Lahour backbenches.
These days, they just might.
McSweeney: "Oi, Labour backbenchers! I want to abolish democracy for a bit. U OK with that?"
Back benchers, after asking Grok: "Yeah, OK (goes back to doomscrolling)"
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I see a pattern.
1) the comic bat tunnel. Not the idea of protecting bats, but the apparent fact that the requirement was expressed as an impossible “no bat must be harmed”. It’s impossible to guarantee such things - even at vast cost. All such requirements should be expressed as a probability and, ideally, given a “cost per event avoided” in the spec. 2) in the contract for Rolls Royce to build SMRs, a requirement was added to have a number of asylum seekers employed by the project. It’s illegal for asylum seekers to work.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
Given the House of Commons literally makes the law you'd have thought they'd put the postponements and reorganisations in an act to make said law as without it was bound to be challenged in court...
I think it's Helmut Norpoth whose prediction method looks at primary votes. If Vance continues to hoover up Rep votes, and the Dems keep floundering, we have to start thinking about Vance as Prez
We are also 2 years before primary season begins - that's an awful long time during which things could change..
Spoof advert doing the rounds on FB
The Circle Line isn't circular anymore.
But you knew that, didn't you?
It hasn't been since 2009!
The Central line doesn't only serve Central London.
The Northern line has the Underground's most southerly stations.
Surely even Starmer would realise Parliament is sovereign and if he really wanted he could use the Local Government Acts to make clear via statute law the election delays were needed for councils moving to unitaries to reorganise for that? As it is Reform are opposed to unitaries and want to keep county and district councils, so if they take control of most county and district councils up this year as they won most county councils up last year they could try and block the move to unitaries and Mayors completely, setting up a clash with the govenment on that,
Kemi now facing potential Tory losses of Norfolk, Suffolk and East and West Sussex county councils as well as Essex and Hampshire county councils and failing to win the new Surrey unitaries and facing the Tories coming 4th in the Holyrood and Senedd elections could well be under severe pressure in May. As TSE suggests if the Tories are 3rd on NEV in May behind Labour a VONC by Tory MPs in Kemi's leadership could be asked for and she could be gone, replaced by Cleverly
In 1993 the Tories amongst County Councils were left with just Buckinghamshire. Looks like they will be in the same boat in 2026. Remaining largest party in some is needed for them The Districts and London will be much more mixed
Given all county councils will have held local elections by the end of the first week of May and the Tories won zero county councils last year, the Tories may do even worse than 1993 and control not a single county council by majority by the Spring.
Even Bucks unitary council is now NOC after elections last year, even if the Tories won most seats
Bucks is Majority Con aftrr a defection from Reform
Well something but again that was because of defection not election.
It is possible of the English councils up in May the Tories could not win majority control of a single one outside London, indeed it may be that the Tories only win Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Barnet councils in this year's local elections.
Which would say something about how relatively posh the Tories now are relative to 2019, most of those who voted for Boris then are now voting Reform
Broxbourne will remain Con majority They have a reasonable chance of holding Fareham. We will see with the rest
So Cruella will not be taking her voters with her to Reform?
Some probably.
Semi-relevantly, none of Romford's Conservative councillors have joined Andrew Rosindell in crossing over to the turquoise side.
Dammit...
Mr Rosindell joined Mr Farage, the two councillors and six other defectors from the Conservatives, who Reform say were due to stand as candidates for the Tories in the borough's May council elections, outside Havering Town Hall.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Government lawyers clearly don't know the law!!! Had they advised the government to make a minor amendment to local government statute law to implement the postponed elections as part of the local government legislation no court in the land could stop them
Of course not. If they knew the law they'd be making zillions at the bar helping dodgy corporations evade it, not messing about as minor civil servants.
In the sense of monetary value of said lawyers maybe but even someone working for a legal aid firm above a fish and chip shop in Southend with a 2.2 in law from Thames Valley would know that Parliament and statute law is sovereign I would have thought! It is one of the first things any UK law course teaches you!
Clearly you have never had dealings with Davidsons Law or Womble Bond Dickinson. These are people who cannot even write their names or read calendars.
Oh I suspect that is intentional.
I deal with a lot of lawyers who have been asked to try it on
That wouldn't explain how they can't spell their own names or remember they don't open Sundays.
(Actually, to an extent it does because they use ChatGPT to write letters, on the grounds that it is brighter than they are, and most of them don't realise that's a data breach. But yes, most junior employees in large chains really are that thick.)
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Has anyone seen detail of the legal advice that meant the Gov backed down on changing date of local elections and are now paying costs to Reform??
This from Constitution Society seems to argue that ministers have the authority to do just that.
I'm not a lawyer so maybe I am missing some subtle issue???
The process Local government councillors are ordinarily elected every four years, though dates for local elections vary. Section 85 of Local Government Act 2000 (LCA) sets out three basic schemes governing the frequency of local elections, in addition to the proportion of councillors who are elected on different occasions or subject to retirement. The Secretary of State does not necessarily determine the scheme followed by different authorities, but she has the power to change the year of elections in relation to any local government authority. Section 87(1) of the LCA empowers the Secretary to use delegated legislation – in the form of an order – to make provisions varying the year on which councillors are ordinarily elected. Although this delegated power can only be used to change the year of local elections, Parliament does not provide any details on the circumstances in which an election may be postponed but delegates this task to the Executive despite its democratic importance. This is a substantial discretionary power to a give to a minister.
Have to admit, through slightly gritted teeth, that Jenrick was pretty good on PM today. He adds a considerable bit of polish to a party who frankly struggle every time the main man is not out and about. Not a fan of Jenrick's views but as I acknowledged at the time of his departure, he is a good political operator.
The Starmer comment to Vine was, shall we say, slightly unfortunate. Does no one tell him anything?
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
It's worth pointing out today's news is probably good for Badenoch as the more Conservative areas now included in the May elections will boost the party's overall vote at the expense of Labour, Greens and the LDs.
Whether it means , in terms of NEV, the Conservatives will end up second to Reform, remains to be seen but that seems to be a benchmark for Badenoch's continued leadership rather than seats won and lost or Councils won and lost.
Clearly, the NEV number may also be helpful to mask what look certain to be more disappointing Conservative numbers in Scotland and Wales.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
The coalition in my eyes was actually a very good time in my opinion. I’m sure there are many on here that will and did decry it from one wing or another, so that’s why I thought it a controversial thing to say. In retrospect however - it shouldn’t be.
It's worth pointing out today's news is probably good for Badenoch as the more Conservative areas now included in the May elections will boost the party's overall vote at the expense of Labour, Greens and the LDs.
Whether it means , in terms of NEV, the Conservatives will end up second to Reform, remains to be seen but that seems to be a benchmark for Badenoch's continued leadership rather than seats won and lost or Councils won and lost.
Clearly, the NEV number may also be helpful to mask what look certain to be more disappointing Conservative numbers in Scotland and Wales.
As a non-Conservative I would love to see Badenoch lead the Tories into the next GE. As someone who really doesn't want the Tories to get a second bite of their austerity, Brexit, corruption cherry. For me she is a far better bet than say Cleverly.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
The coalition in my eyes was actually a very good time in my opinion. I’m sure there are many on here that will and did decry it from one wing or another, so that’s why I thought it a controversial thing to say. In retrospect however - it shouldn’t be.
I think they made some big errors which have had longer term consequences, but we know it could have been worse and at least the damn thing was stable.
I think she might beat Vance, but would lose to Rubio.
Maybe. But from the betting pov I think she's overpriced. Lost last time, yes, but it was a decent effort from a badly handicapped start position. It raised her profile massively and she relished being the candidate. There's little doubt in my mind she'll be going for it.
She probably takes inspiration from Trump's comeback win.
"I get knocked down ..."
Given her wine-mom reputation, that's either a genius idea as an anthem or a terrible one.
Wasn’t she trailing a count down to something a few days ago? What was it?
Relaunching some social media thing from her presidential campaign.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
The coalition in my eyes was actually a very good time in my opinion. I’m sure there are many on here that will and did decry it from one wing or another, so that’s why I thought it a controversial thing to say. In retrospect however - it shouldn’t be.
The U.K. would have been a better place after 2015 if another Tory and Lib Dem coalition had been in power. No referendum, no Brexit, Tory harshness ameliorated by Lib Dem compassion…
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
Exactly. Judicial interference = applying the law. Like the outcome in any particular instance or not, it's an essential protection.
Where it becomes interference - and it’s not really the judges’ fault - is where they fill in the blanks where parliament has not done its job properly
It tends to be interference if you don't like the outcome. If you do it's upholding the law.
Try reading what I read instead of regurgitating your prior post
Judges uphold the law.
Sometimes parliament doesn’t cover all cases and the judges need to do things that are properly done by parliament.
Really? Gosh.
The quality of legislation has been piss poor for 20+ years (and that’s not the objectives it’s the actual quality of the legislation)
Poor show in that case. I wonder why standards have slipped.
I suspect it’s related to the Campbell / post Campbell era - when politicians started legislating for headlines rather than to actually care about good law.
Although the posterboy for this, the legendary Dangerous Dogs Act, was in 1991.
I forget why that was bad but IIRC it was illogical and inconsistent.
These days it’s more that they legislate in broad sweeps and just leave blanks because they don’t care. So it’s more systematic than the DDA which was one bad piece of legislation
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
Exactly. Judicial interference = applying the law. Like the outcome in any particular instance or not, it's an essential protection.
Where it becomes interference - and it’s not really the judges’ fault - is where they fill in the blanks where parliament has not done its job properly
It tends to be interference if you don't like the outcome. If you do it's upholding the law.
Try reading what I read instead of regurgitating your prior post
Judges uphold the law.
Sometimes parliament doesn’t cover all cases and the judges need to do things that are properly done by parliament.
Really? Gosh.
The quality of legislation has been piss poor for 20+ years (and that’s not the objectives it’s the actual quality of the legislation)
Poor show in that case. I wonder why standards have slipped.
I suspect it’s related to the Campbell / post Campbell era - when politicians started legislating for headlines rather than to actually care about good law.
Although the posterboy for this, the legendary Dangerous Dogs Act, was in 1991.
I forget why that was bad but IIRC it was illogical and inconsistent.
These days it’s more that they legislate in broad sweeps and just leave blanks because they don’t care. So it’s more systematic than the DDA which was one bad piece of legislation
I do enjoy sometimes with legislation where it allows for, and perhaps even envisages, the Secretary of State creating regulations for some additional details, and for one reason or another they just never do so, so you have theoretical powers that are just never enacted, perhaps because it is just so trivial.
Farage is apparently announcing his frontbench opposition spokespeople tomorrow. Media are calling it his shadow cabinet which it isn't.
The LDs used to attempt to call their team a shadow Cabinet, I don't think the media ever really bought into it and I think they've stopped that. With Reform I would expect GB News to use their preferred terminology for sure, others may be less consistent about it.
It's worth pointing out today's news is probably good for Badenoch as the more Conservative areas now included in the May elections will boost the party's overall vote at the expense of Labour, Greens and the LDs.
Whether it means , in terms of NEV, the Conservatives will end up second to Reform, remains to be seen but that seems to be a benchmark for Badenoch's continued leadership rather than seats won and lost or Councils won and lost.
Clearly, the NEV number may also be helpful to mask what look certain to be more disappointing Conservative numbers in Scotland and Wales.
NEV are estimates of how the whole UK would vote based on seats up voteshares, so it doesn't matter what seats actually are up as it is not actual voteshares from the results given but how political statisticans calculate the national swing would look based on them.
If the Tories lose Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk and E Sussex to Reform and Hampshire and W Sussex to NOC and a surging LDs and Reform that is also not a good look for Kemi so she is now under more pressure to try and hold them in May
Trouble is, if you build your politics on hatred, that's what ends up happening.
All politics is built on hatred.
Labour hate their boogey people; as much as reform hate theirs.
I don't think that true. My politics is not.
It's not true all politics is built on hate, but there's a lot of it about in our own political fiefdoms even if we would like to think we personally don't feel or engage in it, so it is important to understand where it exists.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
The coalition in my eyes was actually a very good time in my opinion. I’m sure there are many on here that will and did decry it from one wing or another, so that’s why I thought it a controversial thing to say. In retrospect however - it shouldn’t be.
That wasn't what the Conservatives wanted nor probably the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives ramped up campaigning in LD constituencies as they could see the party's unpopularity offering them the chance to win the 20 seats they needed for an overall majority.
The LDs could see what damage the coalition was doing electorally just as being with the Tories in the past had killed off the National Liberals and Liberal Nationals.
I'm convinced Cameron thought or believed winning a majority in 2015 would allow him to re-negotiate with the EU with a fresh mandate and he would get an amended membership deal which would be ratified with a referendum and the UKIP fox would be shot and buried six feet under. He probably didn't expect intransigence from the EU which forced him into an in-out referendum.
I suspect, rather like Clegg with AV, he hoped he could win the argument via his own popularity just as he had in 2015 and could hold his party together but the forces who wanted us out of the EU completely were stronger and cleverer and those wanting us to remain were simply unwilling or unable to come up with a positive counter to the siren calls of those who wanted us out.
Trouble is, if you build your politics on hatred, that's what ends up happening.
All politics is built on hatred.
Labour hate their boogey people; as much as reform hate theirs.
I don't think that true. My politics is not.
It's not true all politics is built on hate, but there's a lot of it about in our own political fiefdoms even if we would like to think we personally don't feel or engage in it, so it is important to understand where it exists.
I am not denying that some politics is built on hate. That is pretty obvious, but I think that it is wrong to say that of all politics.
Some people in all mainstream parties are motivated altruistically to improve the country, just disagree about what that involves.
I think it's Helmut Norpoth whose prediction method looks at primary votes. If Vance continues to hoover up Rep votes, and the Dems keep floundering, we have to start thinking about Vance as Prez
We are also 2 years before primary season begins - that's an awful long time during which things could change..
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
I think it's Helmut Norpoth whose prediction method looks at primary votes. If Vance continues to hoover up Rep votes, and the Dems keep floundering, we have to start thinking about Vance as Prez
We are also 2 years before primary season begins - that's an awful long time during which things could change..
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Why do you say that’s controversial? I think it’s simply true. You may have disagreed with the coalitions policies but I believe they were competent.
The coalition in my eyes was actually a very good time in my opinion. I’m sure there are many on here that will and did decry it from one wing or another, so that’s why I thought it a controversial thing to say. In retrospect however - it shouldn’t be.
The U.K. would have been a better place after 2015 if another Tory and Lib Dem coalition had been in power. No referendum, no Brexit, Tory harshness ameliorated by Lib Dem compassion…
The Lib Dems would have happily agreed to a referendum, they were the first "major" party to make it policy.
"The Liberal Democrats 2010 election manifesto expanded on the party’s position, saying “The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU.” It also reiterated similar sentiments in its 2015 election manifesto."
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
I think it's Helmut Norpoth whose prediction method looks at primary votes. If Vance continues to hoover up Rep votes, and the Dems keep floundering, we have to start thinking about Vance as Prez
We are also 2 years before primary season begins - that's an awful long time during which things could change..
Has anyone seen detail of the legal advice that meant the Gov backed down on changing date of local elections and are now paying costs to Reform??
This from Constitution Society seems to argue that ministers have the authority to do just that.
I'm not a lawyer so maybe I am missing some subtle issue???
The process Local government councillors are ordinarily elected every four years, though dates for local elections vary. Section 85 of Local Government Act 2000 (LCA) sets out three basic schemes governing the frequency of local elections, in addition to the proportion of councillors who are elected on different occasions or subject to retirement. The Secretary of State does not necessarily determine the scheme followed by different authorities, but she has the power to change the year of elections in relation to any local government authority. Section 87(1) of the LCA empowers the Secretary to use delegated legislation – in the form of an order – to make provisions varying the year on which councillors are ordinarily elected. Although this delegated power can only be used to change the year of local elections, Parliament does not provide any details on the circumstances in which an election may be postponed but delegates this task to the Executive despite its democratic importance. This is a substantial discretionary power to a give to a minister.
The U-Turn - crazy ad it first sounds - was actually a political decision to help the Labour Party’s popularity in coming elections, party first country second politics hiding behind fig leaf of “new legal advice”.
And as HY has explained, it puts the whole local government reorganisation carefully designed, nurtured and piloted by Conservative Government and Conservative Councils working together, into the hands of the Dumb Populist Wrecking Ball.
And basically down to a Labour creature, that wouldn’t recognise a spine if you ripped one out of a creature that had one and slapped the spineless Labour Party around the face with it.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I don't think it's possible to go fast and bend the rules all the time, but there must be some happy medium between what we can do in a crisis and the lethargic and costly way we normally do things.
It occurs to me that the War in Ukraine showed some similar urgency and willingness to get stuff done, and that does seem to have kept going as there seem to be a lot of rapidly moving projects to provide Ukraine with weapons they need. Probably quite a bit more than is even public.
Of course if the institutions refuse to learn any lessons, as you say, we revert to process being favoured over outcomes. At which point in many cases we might as well have not bothered in the first place.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
Trouble is, if you build your politics on hatred, that's what ends up happening.
I don't think these personal animosities in politics are unique to the far right.
That's true. The animosity between the Labour left and right is intense. If you could somehow connect it to the national grid our energy problems would be over.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I don't think it's possible to go fast and bend the rules all the time, but there must be some happy medium between what we can do in a crisis and the lethargic and costly way we normally do things.
It occurs to me that the War in Ukraine showed some similar urgency and willingness to get stuff done, and that does seem to have kept going as there seem to be a lot of rapidly moving projects to provide Ukraine with weapons they need. Probably quite a bit more than is even public.
Of course if the institutions refuse to learn any lessons, as you say, we revert to process being favoured over outcomes. At which point in many cases we might as well have not bothered in the first place.
She didn’t even bend the rules. But someone had said it was impossible to get that part of the job done in the time. So she made someone look bad. By doing her job well.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
And also by not actually trying to get any sort of deal. If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Which is a fair and well made point.
The handling of the Scottish referendum stood in stark contrast to the behaviour of the Spanish government over Catalonia.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
That's a good description. In addition we were all locked up, so what else was there to do?
It was an odd mixture of efficiency (removing red tape) and inefficiency (thow in extra effort instead of thought).
Farage is apparently announcing his frontbench opposition spokespeople tomorrow. Media are calling it his shadow cabinet which it isn't.
Why isn't it a shadow cabinet? Is that something only the official opposition is allowed to have? In which case it's something of a technicality.
Many things are technicalities, they can still be important.
This one may or may not be, depending on whether the Official Opposition is defined, and what additional privileges they get - salaries, funding, question time and more opposition days etc.
If we take Erskine May the term and status seems to have some actual utility in parliamentary terms, it isn't just because it sounds cool (though it does), so whilst other parties have tried using the term too, I don't think it is a generic term that media should bandy about.
The Leader of the Opposition and some of the Leader's principal colleagues in both Houses form a group, known as ‘the Shadow Cabinet’, each member of which is given a particular range of activities on which it is their task to direct criticism of the Government's policy and administration and to outline alternative policies. Since 1975, the Official Opposition has been entitled to financial assistance (known as ‘Short Money’) to help meet, among other expenses, the running costs of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition is also provided with a suite of offices at Westminster. https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/5986/the-official-opposition?highlight=shadow cabinet
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
That's a good description. In addition we were all locked up, so what else was there to do?
It was an odd mixture of efficiency (removing red tape) and inefficiency (thow in extra effort instead of thought).
The keys features seem to be -
1) Warlike National Emergency 2) A task that can be described in a sentence i) “Build B24 bombers like cars” ii) “Turn this car factory into the largest Merlin engine plant on the planet” iii) “Make me all the cargo ships” iv) “Get all the amateur astronomers in the US to make millions of optical components in a distributed cottage industry” 3) A willingness to tell the Usual Suspects to fuck off for a bit.
Worth bearimg in mind if youre expecting Reform to take dozens of councils, 23 of the 30 are only a third up, 2 are half and only Thurrock and the Tory counties are all up
Ah, the lesser spotted elections by half councils, the degenerates.
But it is a sensible decision, with the delays in reorganisations it was silly to delay elections.
Reorganisations are DONE, NADA, OVER.
This clueless inept government by holding local elections in EVERY county council and district council it had prioritised to move to unitaries and Mayors has ensured it is dead once Reform sweep the board in May. Reform will vote down any further moves to local government reform and reorganisation. Local government reorginisation RIPd today for the rest of this parliament. The Essex Mayoral election is also likely now never happening
That wording is quite unlike you. Are you feeling well?
It’s also patent nonsense, since local councils can’t do anything to avoid being reorganised if the government remains determined to push it through.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I see a pattern.
1) the comic bat tunnel. Not the idea of protecting bats, but the apparent fact that the requirement was expressed as an impossible “no bat must be harmed”. It’s impossible to guarantee such things - even at vast cost. All such requirements should be expressed as a probability and, ideally, given a “cost per event avoided” in the spec. 2) in the contract for Rolls Royce to build SMRs, a requirement was added to have a number of asylum seekers employed by the project. It’s illegal for asylum seekers to work.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
Comments
But not a 'wartime consigliere'.
A few smart U-turns can be sensible politics.
The key is avoiding getting a reputation for them, because it kills your credibility and annoys more people than it reassures.
The Starmer government has crossed that line. Indeed I think it threatens that government’s “bounce-back-ability” because any policy announcement is now treated with a dose of skepticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation
He didn't even get a credit. But I still remember him as a central performance.
However Hampshire despite the County elections being postponed last year, actually requested elections this year, as it is now likely to be at least two years away.
The radical in me wants to sweep it all away and replace it with provinces based on an urban area with a rural hinterland. Maybe use postcode areas, I'd be in Guildford province and neighbouring ones would be Reading, Southampton and Twickenham. Big cities (and maybe some funky smaller ones) can be Imperial Free Cities.
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
Nice try but you and I both know it's incoherent - the argument about postponing elections for authorities that won't exist has some validity but for those Norfolk and Suffolk County Councillors elected in 2021, their term didn't end in 2025 and won't end in 2026 - it will end on March 31st 2028. Now, you can blame Labour (as you probably should and doubtless will) but it makes a mockery of democracy to allow these terms to continue in perpetuity.
The other side of this is IF Norfolk and Suffolk for example move from Conservative to Reform or NOC, it's likely the policy of the Council will change and the proposals for re-structuring and re-organisation will change so, as @HYUFD states, the whole edifice comes crashing down.
As an example, had Surrey County Council held elections in 2025 and had those elections resulted in a LD administration taking over, it's possible the County Council would have backed proposals for three unitaries rather than two.
He had a brilliant gift for making a small part in a poor film better - creating a whole character in the way he said a couple of lines.
Strasbourg/ECtHR
- Prisoner votes (Hirst vs UK 2005, also Scoppola vs Italy 2012)
UK Supreme Court- Abortion in NI (NIHRC application for judicial review 2019)
- Assisted suicide (R v MOJ 2015)
- Permanence of the sex offenders register (R v Home Secretary 2011)
- Publication of Prince of Wales correspondence (R v Attorney General 2015)
- Court fees (R v Lord Chancellor 2017)
Also- Responsibility of the individual to prevent harm from own stupidity (Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council 2004). It's included in this list not because of the decision but that it was litigated at all.
- Terminally-ill babies (GOSH v Yates). Included in this list because the doctors refused to impose their own judgement but instead referred to the court
If you're interested, Trials of the State is based on a 2019 Reith Lecture series which you can find onlineIf England needs local government reorganisation it needs to start from scratch and cover the whole country.
But of course England is not allowed to govern itself. We are a strange place, a federal country where the only territory directly administered by the federal government is the most populous part of the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhCmCARiXoo&list=PL40E63PqZdyPPVZyBGzlSmg1cadAK94LF
I don't think it will solve the problems they're trying to solve (indeed, because it will lead to a period of muddle and instability it will probably make them worse) but it won't be stopped just because the Fukkers have a good night.
Indeed, given the Fukkers couldn't manage an orgy in a cathouse and seem to be causing the councils they are running to implode with embarrassing regularity, it might actually accelerate the process.
I deal with a lot of lawyers who have been asked to try it on
But you knew that, didn't you?
1) the comic bat tunnel. Not the idea of protecting bats, but the apparent fact that the requirement was expressed as an impossible “no bat must be harmed”. It’s impossible to guarantee such things - even at vast cost. All such requirements should be expressed as a probability and, ideally, given a “cost per event avoided” in the spec.
2) in the contract for Rolls Royce to build SMRs, a requirement was added to have a number of asylum seekers employed by the project. It’s illegal for asylum seekers to work.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
The Central line doesn't only serve Central London.
The Northern line has the Underground's most southerly stations.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/16/nothing-says-special-relationship-over-like-picture-donald-trump-liz-truss?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
@RupertLowe10
Restore Britain now has more members than the Liberal Democrats.
A simply incredible start.
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/2023484008081092756
Mr Rosindell joined Mr Farage, the two councillors and six other defectors from the Conservatives, who Reform say were due to stand as candidates for the Tories in the borough's May council elections, outside Havering Town Hall.
https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/25860279.reform-leader-nigel-farage-visits-romford-defections/
(Actually, to an extent it does because they use ChatGPT to write letters, on the grounds that it is brighter than they are, and most of them don't realise that's a data breach. But yes, most junior employees in large chains really are that thick.)
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
Restore Britain now has more members than the Liberal Democrats.
A simply incredible start.'
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/2023484008081092756?s=20
The situation with Reform, Restore and Advance:
Nigel hates Ben.
Ben hates Nigel.
Nigel hates Rupert.
Rupert hates Nigel.
Ben loves Rupert.
Rupert's fans would deport Ben.'
https://x.com/davidkurten/status/2023299441088676052?s=20
This from Constitution Society seems to argue that ministers have the authority to do just that.
I'm not a lawyer so maybe I am missing some subtle issue???
The process
Local government councillors are ordinarily elected every four years, though dates for local elections vary. Section 85 of Local Government Act 2000 (LCA) sets out three basic schemes governing the frequency of local elections, in addition to the proportion of councillors who are elected on different occasions or subject to retirement. The Secretary of State does not necessarily determine the scheme followed by different authorities, but she has the power to change the year of elections in relation to any local government authority. Section 87(1) of the LCA empowers the Secretary to use delegated legislation – in the form of an order – to make provisions varying the year on which councillors are ordinarily elected. Although this delegated power can only be used to change the year of local elections, Parliament does not provide any details on the circumstances in which an election may be postponed but delegates this task to the Executive despite its democratic importance. This is a substantial discretionary power to a give to a minister.
https://consoc.org.uk/delaying-local-government-elections/
My bold
The Starmer comment to Vine was, shall we say, slightly unfortunate. Does no one tell him anything?
Asking for a fash friend.
Labour hate their boogey people; as much as reform hate theirs.
Maybe Starmer's genie is not yet done?
Whether it means , in terms of NEV, the Conservatives will end up second to Reform, remains to be seen but that seems to be a benchmark for Badenoch's continued leadership rather than seats won and lost or Councils won and lost.
Clearly, the NEV number may also be helpful to mask what look certain to be more disappointing Conservative numbers in Scotland and Wales.
Anything that helps split the racist vote is fine by me !
Plague on all their houses
PB Tories like her, so a win, win.
I wish people wouldn’t do the whole count down thing unless it is meaningful
These days it’s more that they legislate in broad sweeps and just leave blanks because they don’t care. So it’s more systematic than the DDA which was one bad piece of legislation
Eric Cartman
https://bsky.app/profile/sundersays.bsky.social/post/3meycwn4j4c2n
Only ethnically British to be allowed in Parliament sounds particularly odious.
If the Tories lose Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk and E Sussex to Reform and Hampshire and W Sussex to NOC and a surging LDs and Reform that is also not a good look for Kemi so she is now under more pressure to try and hold them in May
The LDs could see what damage the coalition was doing electorally just as being with the Tories in the past had killed off the National Liberals and Liberal Nationals.
I'm convinced Cameron thought or believed winning a majority in 2015 would allow him to re-negotiate with the EU with a fresh mandate and he would get an amended membership deal which would be ratified with a referendum and the UKIP fox would be shot and buried six feet under. He probably didn't expect intransigence from the EU which forced him into an in-out referendum.
I suspect, rather like Clegg with AV, he hoped he could win the argument via his own popularity just as he had in 2015 and could hold his party together but the forces who wanted us out of the EU completely were stronger and cleverer and those wanting us to remain were simply unwilling or unable to come up with a positive counter to the siren calls of those who wanted us out.
Some people in all mainstream parties are motivated altruistically to improve the country, just disagree about what that involves.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
😬Not the best look for Reform’s Gorton & Denton candidate Matt Goodwin
White supremacist far right activist says
“you've appeared on our podcasts, had dinner with us, had us write for your Substack, and sought our advice on how to write your social media posts”
Tad awkward😬
https://bsky.app/profile/zoejardiniere.bsky.social/post/3mez24h64rs2u
https://fullfact.org/europe/lib-dems-first-call-eu-referendum/
"The Liberal Democrats 2010 election manifesto expanded on the party’s position, saying “The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU.” It also reiterated similar sentiments in its 2015 election manifesto."
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
And as HY has explained, it puts the whole local government reorganisation carefully designed, nurtured and piloted by Conservative Government and Conservative Councils working together, into the hands of the Dumb Populist Wrecking Ball.
And basically down to a Labour creature, that wouldn’t recognise a spine if you ripped one out of a creature that had one and slapped the spineless Labour Party around the face with it.
Abysmal day for the UK.
1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place
2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and
3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
It occurs to me that the War in Ukraine showed some similar urgency and willingness to get stuff done, and that does seem to have kept going as there seem to be a lot of rapidly moving projects to provide Ukraine with weapons they need. Probably quite a bit more than is even public.
Of course if the institutions refuse to learn any lessons, as you say, we revert to process being favoured over outcomes. At which point in many cases we might as well have not bothered in the first place.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
It was an odd mixture of efficiency (removing red tape) and inefficiency (thow in extra effort instead of thought).
This one may or may not be, depending on whether the Official Opposition is defined, and what additional privileges they get - salaries, funding, question time and more opposition days etc.
If we take Erskine May the term and status seems to have some actual utility in parliamentary terms, it isn't just because it sounds cool (though it does), so whilst other parties have tried using the term too, I don't think it is a generic term that media should bandy about.
The Leader of the Opposition and some of the Leader's principal colleagues in both Houses form a group, known as ‘the Shadow Cabinet’, each member of which is given a particular range of activities on which it is their task to direct criticism of the Government's policy and administration and to outline alternative policies. Since 1975, the Official Opposition has been entitled to financial assistance (known as ‘Short Money’) to help meet, among other expenses, the running costs of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition is also provided with a suite of offices at Westminster.
https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/5986/the-official-opposition?highlight=shadow cabinet
1) Warlike National Emergency
2) A task that can be described in a sentence
i) “Build B24 bombers like cars”
ii) “Turn this car factory into the largest Merlin engine plant on the planet”
iii) “Make me all the cargo ships”
iv) “Get all the amateur astronomers in the US to make millions of optical components in a distributed cottage industry”
3) A willingness to tell the Usual Suspects to fuck off for a bit.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.