Council Elections

[OneTealShaker]

The first declared seats going to Reform.

Reform +2
Labour -1

Buckle up people.

Exactly.

Labour may be nasty in many ways. But cutting the runaway welfare bill doesn’t make them nasty - not that they have cut it.

Benefits bill is out of control, why we borrow so much as a country and why the markets are so unhappy and charging us such high interest.

What we need a serious reduction in welfare and public spending. There really is no magic money tree. It’s all borrowed cash.

So what happens when there is no overall control in a council?

The BBC - Labour have held control of Wigan Council!

The truth - There were only 25 seats on Wigan up for grabs and they lost every single one of them, with a collapse in their vote. (Their majority was more than 25)

My point exactly.

Results so far

The unions/socialism has got us weekends, maternity leave, sick pay, annual leave paid. I liked all those things and can’t understand why people would vote far right as the extreme to socialism and risk losing those rights.

I live in a council with a 19 year old running it, not difficult to work out where I am. It’s been a series of broken promises, £75k spent on flags ffs, pot holes not fixed and 4% council tax rise

Hate filled? A picture of a slug in response to receiving unwanted racist post? Hardly.

It is not me that has “highjacked” anything. I posted an amusing anecdote and your little acolytes have accused me of lying. I have proof I am not not and have told them repeatedly to report my posts to Mumsnet if they believe I am then I will provide them with the proof that this did happen. If they don’t want to do that then they should shut up and stop accusing people of lying, in breach of the Talk Guidelines.

Almost every council has been NOC at some point, some are perpetually NOC.

It just means votes on issues like council expenditure are always up for grabs and not guaranteed by whoever is the main party

One of the factors that contributes to this disconnect is that on average the more economically well of you are, the more your politics is influenced by economic factors.

Obviously that seems backwards because in theory the more you are struggling financially, the more financial matters should impact your vote... but it just doesn't generally work like that.

Instead, those with assets and wealth make a great effort to preserve them (hence logically opposing reform/Brexit etc.)

While those with less are more likely to disregard financial matters as they feel like they have little to loose, and are already suffering, so what is a bit more suffering? Instead they are statistically more likely to take bigger risks or vote more emotionally to try and secure some degree of radical change, because anything less than a major radical change isn't viewed as being a enough to fix the problems that they see.

Obviously this is not true for all, but it is an observable trend that goes someway to explaining why it sometimes seems hard to explain why people would vote for politicians and policies that seem to harm themselves economically.

Widespread “No overall control” is still pretty shit news though, if that’s where we end up. Councils will be in chaos and that will lead to more spend/waste, not less.

You really do need to learn a little bit about economics.

Think of the poor sods living in Labour areas that spend £50k on rainbow crossings that have to be repainted every year!

Sadly it seems lost.

I’m so tired with the insults and the accusations of anything from far right to frowning kittens for fun.

Jesus wept! 😅
The op has asked that the thread is kept on topic and that you stop hijacking it. It’s a thread about the local elections not your 6 year old fgs!!!

@Hallowedturf I was just hoping that more people would have critical thinking skills.
Austerity, the Tories and Brexit would always take more than 2 years to turnaround.
I don't agree with everything Labour have done but Keir is the most credible of all the leaders.
Reform are just liars and some are out and out racists. They care more about rich people getting richer than helping the poor.

Yeah I agree it does sound like chaos

Labour has lost control of seven councils so far, while Reform has gained more than 300 seats.

Reform has gained its first council of the election, taking Newcastle-under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

It has won 27 of the 44 seats available.

The Conservatives dropped 10 seats, while Labour lost 17.

Which bit would you cut?

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/12133/economics/uk-social-security-budget/

Triple lock? Were you against Labour cutting the winter fuel payment? Maybe we should cut corporate welfare and get employers to pay a wage people can live on?

It’s not ideal but not the end of the world. I’ve worked at councils with NOC previously and things still run and tick along. If you actually look at the map showing changes to control some of the NOC have been so far a while. Lib Dem’s have gained a couple, Tories have even gained one. Just trying to point out you need to look beyond the headline of the seats won and lost to the bigger picture.

At least they’d get all the benefits, do people really want to see annual leave, sick pay, maternity leave slashed?

Why would you be arsed to post it back? You could see it was a flyer that every other house would have received.
In the bin.

@ProudAmberTurtle thanks, it’s not something i’ve experienced with my councils.

Can we stop bickering about the bloody slug flyer!

Great idea, wages should not be subsidized. Everyone should pay the going rate. Why should the taxpayer subsidize low wages. That a Bliar invention which has led to wage stagnation in this country.