Reform UK's chronicles

[papa smurf]

Starmer abandons plans to cancel 30 local council elections in May in another U-turn
Ministers have abandoned plans to delay elections to 30 councils across the country following a legal challenge from Reform UK. The government will pay the party's legal bill, which Sky News understands runs into "six figures". Follow the latest below.


https://news.sky.com/story/politics-...eader-12593360

[Sephiroth]

Farage stole a march on Kemi. She should have vetoed the Tory councils who voted to delay and then joined forces with the Reform legal action. Now she's laid herself open being torn apart.

[OLD BOY]

Starmer, our legal champion, should be ashamed of himself. Most of these councils will be changing to Reform. More of them now, I suspect.

[Sephiroth]

Reform taking these councils could be a poison chalice. If they screw up at local level, which is quite possible, come the GE, Reform would be toast.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Starmer, our legal champion, should be ashamed of himself. Most of these councils will be changing to Reform. More of them now, I suspect.

i doubt people will vote for those who didn't want them to have a vote

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Reform taking these councils could be a poison chalice. If they screw up at local level, which is quite possible, come the GE, Reform would be toast.

Why would they screw up? Farage has been very careful with his selection process this time around, and they are pledged to make local authorities more efficient wherever possible. This should be easier in councils previously run by Labour.

Financial savings will not be the priority until they are forming a Reform UK government, because something like 75% of the budget is spent on social care and most of the remainder is on other statutory services, which have to be performed as dictated by central government. All Reform can deliver until they are forming GE is these same services, delivered as efficiently as possible.

[jem]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Snip...the government will pay the party's legal bill, which Sky News understands runs into "six figures". ....Snip

Actually that should have read ‘the taxpayer will pay the party’s legal bill.....'

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jem

Actually that should have read ‘the taxpayer will pay the party’s legal bill.....'

Yes, money that wouldn’t have been spent if Starmer hadn’t embarked on this unlawful path in his vain effort to remain in power.

[jem]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Why would they screw up? Farage has been very careful with his selection process this time around, and they are pledged to make local authorities more efficient wherever possible. This should be easier in councils previously run by Labour.

Financial savings will not be the priority until they are forming a Reform UK government, because something like 75% of the budget is spent on social care and most of the remainder is on other statutory services, which have to be performed as dictated by central government. All Reform can deliver until they are forming GE is these same services, delivered as efficiently as possible.

Yes but you can pledge whatever you want - the problem is in the execution. Say Reform go in to these elections promising to ‘cut waste’, ‘improve efficiency’, ‘save money’, ‘reduce costs for Council tax payers’, basically offer the usual easy answers for complex problems? And then they fail totally? There are no savings, Council tax goes up, libraries close, etc.

It is easy to simply search for ‘Reform run Council failures’ and find similar examples. Yes you can argue that the sources are biased, but is there a nugget of truth in them?

Now it won’t matter that Reform will argue that ‘it’s not our fault - if only we were in Government.....’, people will rightly question why they made promises that their either couldn’t fulfil or simply were too incompetent to do so.

No Seph is quite right, doing well in the local elections could actually prove to be disastrous for Reform in the long term.

Be careful with your quoting please, just had to fix up two posts.