Good on Kemi!

[MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack]

I'm no fan of Kemi Badenoch, but I'm even less of a fan of Robert Jenrick, and I'm rather delighted to see that she has sacked him and withdrawn the whip before he could jump to Reform.

She has definitely had the last laugh here. He must be spitting bullets!!

Because some councils are being merged into larger unitary authorities. It’s those councils that have been allowed to apply for a postponement since they wont exist in a year’s time.

That’s the theory. My worry is they won’t be ready next year either.

Ah, somehow that had passed me by! But I would think that they would surely time the change so the elections for the new authorities will fall in line with the usual election timetable? That would make the most sense?

In any event, elections should just go ahead as planned in case of delays.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media-centre/electoral-commission-responds-potential-election-postponements

It’s becoming clear that the councils are taking longer to restructure than anticipated. Some mayoral elections have already been postponed.

Sir John Curtice was being interviewed and said it’s ‘interesting’ that the majority of councils requesting the postponement are Labour.

Hmmm that is "interesting". I wonder if there is also a correlation with places where Reform are polling well that would be "interesting" too.

I think only 9 of the 67 councils involved are Tory and three of those are possibly postponing.

Not sure exactly how many of rest of the 67 are Labour, but it is not surprising if the majority asking for postponements are Labour if the majority of the 67 are Labour?

Can’t tell is this is sarcasm? The word ‘interesting’ was in inverted commas because I was quoting Sir John Curtice.

Reform is polling well in some of the councils which have applied to postpone so this move benefits other parties more than it does them.

I think his point was that setting aside absolute numbers, a greater percentage of councils asking to postpone are Labour vs other political parties. In the interview I saw, he was pondering why this is.

OK, thanks. I'll try to find his interview.

The main beneficiaries are obviously the councillors, that are about to loss their seats, they are the ones making the decision to delay following the established Reeves strategy of delay and hope for a miracle.

Reform were set to do better and Labour do worse in those elections, so yes Labour have more to gain by not having them.

Big bloody deal!
It was a complete no-brainer, wasn't it, I don't understand why she is being lauded.
And I don't think it makes Reform any more attractive - their line-up of ex Tories makes me want to vomit

Quite agree. Load of recycled refuse from the Tories. Perhaps they could balance it out by having some old Labour flops defect as well. Peter Mandelson has a free diary I think.

ENI has led my DS's relatively small employer to make 5 redundancies. I'm sure they're not the only ones.

Unemployment is rising

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms

Do you think this might be partly to do with the rise of AI as well?

I see that there’s been another Tory MP defection to Reform, this pm - Andrew Rosindell. Reading about him, he seems like a perfect fit for Reform…

It’s apparently hitting entry level graduate jobs hard.

If anyone’s interested, there’s a petition to call automatic by elections when sitting MP’s defect

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/737660

That’s a bit pointless when Jenrick and Rosindell would probably get reelected anyway. Kruger might be in a bit more trouble.

Yeah, maybe. If they get re elected then so be it but it should be for the constituents to decide. I know I’d be mightily pissed off if I’d voted for an MP from a certain party and he suddenly defected to a party that didn’t align with what the electorate in that area wants.

Construction employment is at a 24 year low. Construction isn't affected by AI.

Please could you link the source of this graph? I’ve just gone to the ONS website construction output dated 15th January 2026 and all that I can see there are mile long spreadsheets? It’s so long I can’t make head nor tail of it.

I found it.

Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at BCIS, said self-employment was almost 18% down on 2019 levels, reflecting retirements, Brexit and pandemic effects

Not denying there are other factors, but I think it’s quite unfair to lay all the blame at Rachel Reeves’ door here.

I think the employer NICS was so damaging to certain sectors eg retail, because not only did the rate rise but the threshold fell. This increased the likelihood of more of your staff being included, especially part time.

So if you’re a small business employing mainly part time staff, probably women, you’ll have been badly hit.

The difference between this and the introduction of the minimum wage is that our economy is in a different place with higher running costs all round (energy for example) and low growth. So it’s understandable why some will choose not to hire another member of staff or let one go to balance the books.