On this, the other thing to remember is the starting point. The last time these councils were contested, the Tories were on a high and Labour did so badly that (as a few Conservative talking heads I've seen keep mentioning) Starmer considered resigning as leader. The Tories will no doubt get hammered but if Labour end up losing council seats overall (no idea if they will) that would be a real disaster for them.
A hung parliament with any coalition dependant on PR being on the agenda would suit me. Italy and other countries have managed fine without an overall majority.
It will only be a disaster if Reform run councils are a success. If I remember correctly, UKIP once took control of a council and they were so bad they were investigated for fraudulent practices.
This round of elections is unrepresentative being as most wards are tory brexit supporting and the majority of councils not in the vote due to reorganisation. Below part of the explanation. "he government has said that in in nine areas elections will be delayed for a year. This is to allow for major changes to be made to the current "two tier" system of local authorities, with Surrey County Council and 11 borough and district, plus larger county councils, running different services."
Italy is not a good example. Since 1945 the average Italian government has only lasted just over a year. I hate PR because it tends to hand more power to political parties rather than voters and means politicians can't really be held to account because after elections they all disappear behind closed doors to cook up coalition deals. Knowing this will happen, they'll inevitably make promises that they have no interest in keeping and include things in their manifestos that are only there as points to be conceded in coalition negotiations.
I'm purely talking about the results of this election. The last time these places voted Labour did very badly. If they do even worse this time that will be a disastrous result for them.
I'm well aware many places that are due to have elections aren't having them. You can still compare the results from last time to the results this time. For example, in 2021 Labour won 21 council seats on Northumberland County Council. They now have 8. Obviously that's only one council but there's no doubt it's a bad result.
Labours lesson needs to be that first past the post needs to go. I was happy enough with the result of the last election, but 33% of the vote for a massive majority is not really acceptable. Reform could end up with a majority with a vote in the high 20s and with Lab and Con both above 20%, the Lib Dem’s probably pushing into that area as well. The idea that one party gets to run the country with unfettered control for 5 years in that scenario is just mental, our democracy is falling from flawed to collapsed at this point.
Yeah I was in Brighton when the Greens won, the council was ‘run’ by the appropriately named Jason Kitcat, and it was an unmitigated disaster.
Of course you can't stop that happening in our system but as we saw last year, when it does happen voters can easily hold a government to account when they don't do what they say they will. That's much harder when parties have the freedom to promise whatever like but then go into coalition negotiations and have the obvious excuse of "We wanted to do it but the other parties wouldn't support it so we couldn't".
I agree with this 100%. If Reform overtake the Conservatives and don't get taken seriously enough to be elected to power , Labour will remain in government for a very long time. The election is Labour's to lose. They just beed to keep their house in order. I am not sure the Conservatives will ever bounce back. They have lost argument to rge Lunatic Fringe.
Well Labour have 4 years to make tangible improvements to working people’s lives. If they fail, we’re ****ed. So let’s hope they succeed in solving the housing crisis, reviving the NHS, and getting people into decent well paid jobs. Won’t be easy, but there’s no reason to write off the only party with a realistic program to get the country back on its feet, and improve things not just for the rich, but for everyone.
We're poles apart on PR and the distorted, unrepresentative FPTP system. A qualifying percentage of vote to gain seats should be part of any PR system. The ousted supplementary vote that applied in mayoral elections worked well before tory gerrymandering attempts with the Electoral Reform Act 2022.
I wonder if this will act as a wake up call - sadly I doubt it. The point you missed from your list of "to-dos" is addressing immigration. It doesn't matter if you don't think it as big an issue as is made out, a huge portion of people do and, as we have seen with brexit, it most certainly can be THE deciding factor in the way someone votes.
I’m pretty relaxed about immigration myself, maybe because I’m a Londoner, but I recognise it is an issue for a lot of people. Not sure what the answer is tbh, but I don’t think Labour are going to beat Reform by fighting on their terms. Much better to make the next election about jobs, housing, the NHS, education, reducing crime etc. All areas where Reform have nothing to offer as far as I can see.
I am not sure how you do ‘deal with immigration’. Has anybody ever actually come up with a method for doing this other than just airy words? We are disadvantaged in having no land border - we cannot sink boats and when they arrive we cannot ignore the law.
Reform's plan is net zero immigration isn't it? Only things I can imagine will deliver that - Immediate cessation of all visas. - Remove all paths to British citizenship for those born abroad. - Send the Royal Navy to blockade the Channel. I don't think Reform care about whether it is illegal or not, so it will just become sanction o clock for the UK and we will just be told to get over it while the standard of living collapses even further. My personal concern is that my wife is an immigrant. She will be a British citizen by the time Reform would be able to win a GE, but if the trend continues will there be a push for stripping citizenship for anyone who came here from abroad? We are a long way from that at the moment but if we got that far down the road it would be time to **** this country off and go somewhere we are actually wanted, although that pool does appear to be shrinking.
I think Reform would reject asylum requests for anyone arriving from a safe country, which would cover the large majority. Is that illegal? Not even sure myself. I don't think it is the only issue facing this country, but it is a big one and, depending on where you live, it is very easy to see the negatives first hand. Other, much larger problems, such as the declining birth rate and the ageing population with spiralling cost of care for the elderly just aren't as easy to campaign on because they aren't as obviously visible.
