And so it begins, Reform’s Britain

Grandmotherto8 thank you for adding more detail, he is the Hull and Humberside Mayor that I posted about just 4 posts above. Yes, definitely an example of youngish male attracted by Reform rhetoric with nil suitability for the job and inability to do it - look at the-people who have got there the long hard way like Andy Burnham to see what it really involves!

My area has just elected a gold medal Olympic boxer as Reform mayor. I doubt he has a GCSE to his name, as he will have devoted himself to boxing from an early age. I doubt he was involved or even interested in politics until he got groomed into Reform. We live in an area where the wealthy and the poor live cheeky by jowl and the poor are seduced by tales of immigrants taking our jobs, houses & hospital beds. They are easy meat to unscrupulous politicians like Farage, who was rejected 7 times by different constituencies before he finally found a seat to take him. The voters in the areas of popularity for Reform are seduced by the offer of closing our borders, but fail to ask how this will be done when we have a coastline impossible to secure. My concern for our new mayor, who was an excellent boxer, is what is his acumen for the job? Has he even had an administrative post before? He won as he's a local man with a gold medal and an anti migrant platform. How will he carry out his job effectively & efficiently for his constituency? Many Reform candidates are totally unprepared for their role. They get elected on the back of a groundswell of angst, possibly misguided information & grooming. In the months to come we will find out the truth about many of the Reform councillors and mayors as they struggle to carry out their work appropriately, meanwhile Farage will continue to cosy up to Trump while ignoring his constituency.

Ferry23 said, "The most astonishing thing to me is that a large swathe of the electorate haven't a clue what they were voting for."

The most astonishing thing to me is that a large swathe of the electorate don't vote. Only a third of those able to vote this week could be bothered to do so.

Oreo

I’m not dismayed by any cutting of ‘diversity’ or ‘net zero’ jobs from Councils when there are pot holes to be mended and rubbish to be collected and gulleys to be cleared and all the many practical and useful jobs to be done.Councils have wasted money in lots of places on arty farty stuff.Look at the mess Birmingham are in.
It remains to be seen if Remain Councillors will be any better but at long as they try that’s something.

That's basically my own take on this.

I see this as, to a large extent, our way of saying "It's OUR country/OUR way of life and just stop with all the 'multicultural' stuff for goodness sake. Also stop these darn illegals coming across our Channel in boats".

It feels like so many haven't been listening to us on this - and we've seen our chance to say "Hoy mate....just stop with all this and remember this is Britain...this is our country....this is our way of life and we are fed-up to the back teeth at the way we might get in trouble just for exercising our British right to freedom of speech".

I know I personally "got in trouble" for exercising our right to freedom of speech all the way back in the 1980s a couple of times over - eg an employer of mine complaining about me writing a letter to a paper expressing my own personal views - and not mentioning my job - but he still "told me off" about what I was doing in my own time as my own person!!!!!!!!! So we've never had our "freedom of speech" imo - but things are a sight worse these days and yep many of us have been "clocked one" by someone or other for just expressing our personal opinion and we have to be aware there are people like it and who will "have a go" at us in any context they can find and we don't have to look any further than this forum to know they exist and there are one or two we can absolutely rely on to "have a go at us" any chance she sees.

It is about time we "woke up" and fought back...and that is precisely why so many of us used these elections to do precisely that.

Obviously, only the Tories can sort the Tories out but I hope this result galvanises them to do so.

As a natural Tory centrist, I was really excited by the SDP but, since it was subsumed, by the Liberals I am homeless.

Let's take a look at Hull's first Reform Mayor. (Special interest as that was my childhood town.) Luke Campbell.

He has no political experience whatsoever.

Known as a "good guy" because he is a former boxer and Olympic gold medallist. No management experience either.

The 37 year old will serve a four-year term and will make decisions on housing, public transport, infrastructure, economic development, business, skills and regeneration".

But its complicated by the fact that all the MP's are Labour and that both Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council will retain their independence and continue their work as normal.

If you look at a lost of his aims and objectives its interesting because although he goes on about value for money, all his suggestions are about spending more money: here they are

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v9kegekeko

The Labour MP's have pledged to "work with" but I dont see many ideologically driven pledges - wouldnt surprise me, as its a new role, he'll be a sort of presentable figurehead but not a driver of policy as he knows nothing of the "how to's.

JaneJudge

why doesn't road tax pay for roads and potholes?

Because there has been no such thing as 'road tax' since the 1930s.

Upkeep of roads has always been the responsibility of the local authorities, either the local regional council or the County council, depending on the status of the road (there were 'parish roads' or 'county roads'). It's really unclear why the early 20th C government took it on themselves to allocate a national tax to road maintenance when LAs already had these obligations. But apparently the tax was never fully spent on roads and only existed for a short while.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

kittylester

I think it is dangerous to think Reform is a flash in the pan. I hope this result makes the main parties sort themselves out.

It’ll do both Tories & Labour good to reflect this weekend on what anger is being projected at the ballot box.

Really. Why? Conservatives already know they are in a desperate state and need to sort themselves out. Whether they can or not depends on them, not Reform. If they stop trying to be a watered-down version of Reform, find true Conservative policies that appeal the middle ground, where elections are won or lost, they will survive.

For those who think we live in an on-screen world where change happens the instant they vote in a government Labour are probably at their least popular. Because we have so many of the credulous on social media it appears that not being able to do things instantly is a vote loser. It is - temporarily. With so much of the government's major and really popular legislation not yet passed into law but going through Parliament now, views will change. We will also be completing agreements with the EU and trade agreements elsewhere. People are already beginning to talk about changes and improvements to the NHS and that too will grow.

Patience - which has never existed at the extremes - is still a virtue.

why doesn't road tax pay for roads and potholes?

kittylester

I think it is dangerous to think Reform is a flash in the pan. I hope this result makes the main parties sort themselves out.

It’ll do both Tories & Labour good to reflect this weekend on what anger is being projected at the ballot box.

Anniebach

Quote Oreo Fri 02-May-25 17:50:24
I’m not dismayed by any cutting of ‘diversity’ or ‘net zero’ jobs from Councils when there are pot holes to be mended and rubbish to be collected and gulleys to be cleared and all the many practical and useful jobs to be done.Councils have wasted money in lots of places on arty farty stuff.Look at the mess Birmingham are in.
It remains to be seen if Remain Councillors will be any better but at long as they try that’s something.

Surely success is something, you will settle for less ?

Sadly Anniebach, if Reform follows Trump, who Farage and the extreme Reformists seem to revere, any money saved, which will inevitably be little or none, will go to the already rich.

However, I'm not sure why I or anyone else bothers to say this as the Dunning-Kruger effect clearly tells us that we will yet again end up with all the confidence in the hard-right shattered and sad voices saying "nobody told us".

Reforms appears to have had a great deal of money from as yet unknown sources. The results are good for Reform - today. They wanted to show they are a growing party. They need this to get people to believe that that they can go from 5 seats in Parliament to over 320 in the next election so they can form a Goverment. This is incredibly unlikely but some belive that wanting it to happen will make it happen - they want a Trumpian government. They dont see any need to understand, just the need to believe.

There is an upside to this however. For the first time Farage has the actual power he has so far avoided. I won't list his general non-attendance to his tax-payer funded jobs as his ducking-out in these areas is well known. Reform now has, in a few areas, administrative political power. They will have it for long enough to be judged on actions not cultist rhetoric.

Some of the new councillors are old Tory councillors and some have no working knowledge at all. Where else have we seen the leader assume that incompetent loud-mouths could do the job? Who is benefiting under such extremists? Like Trump, Farage appears determined to retain overall control of his party and then wish upon the nearest shooting star that all goes well. And who have been on the receiving end of Trumps thuggery? Often those who voted for him and needed what they believed (not knew) he was promising. Farage is cut from exactly the same cloth.

Reform policy on tackling child abuse indicates an increase in Social Services work in the field. Of course all the parties are saying that, but if Reform councils cut Social Services they are directly going against their own (very loudly shouted) policies in this field. Except none of them attended January debates in Parliament on violence against women and girls.

As regards paying for social care if you are elderly or disabled, Reform cant trim budgets without hitting the poorest, which is another self defeating prospect.

Durham has 4 small womens' refuges. Are these going to be kept?

growstuff

David About half of your council tax goes towards social care - maybe you'll need it one day - and another huge chunk goes towards education and children's services (think of it as paying back the education you had as a child). A much smaller percentage pays for police and fire services - you might need them too.

I’m aware of what it’s spent on of course, most of us have to pay for any social care we receive, out of property value if needed. Only those with very low savings get free care, I certainly had good value out of ecucation, I’m not so sure I would today.

Richard Tice was on Laura Kuenssberg’s programme covering the election results yesterday afternoon. She asked him how Reform are going to bring down council tax as they have promised and he waffled on about doing in depth studies on spending, no ideas with any substance. As for Farage’s claim that Reform are now the opposition they still only have 5 MPs. People will soon find out that reality is very different from Reform’s propaganda.

I'm hoping that with this result we'll be able to actually start to understand what Reform's actual plans are, rather than headlines that they think people want to see.

The other main parties all have histories of bad decisions that get voters angry, whilst Reform have no real history at the moment.

Farage will need to pick some intelligent, strong performers from his party, and allow them to speak, rather than loving the limelight and saying what folk want to hear without needing to come up with the goods. He'll have to now, particularly as he reckons he'll be the next Prime Minister. I'll accept that he's certainly the most charismatic of the party leaders by far.

I also agree that folk need to understand the difference between Local and General Elections. I'm pleased to see that our hardworking longstanding Tory councillor has retained his seat despite the Council now being Reform.

David About half of your council tax goes towards social care - maybe you'll need it one day - and another huge chunk goes towards education and children's services (think of it as paying back the education you had as a child). A much smaller percentage pays for police and fire services - you might need them too.

You could have a 20% pass mark and some wouldn’t pass, but we all know polititians don’t actually carry out promises so it’s all irrelevant anyway.
Council Tax, for my modest 3 bed I pay around £250 a month, if I was on a budget I would be asking “what do I get for that today”. In my case I live out of town all I get is the bins collected, ( not Birmingham) every other service I have used I have to pay for, there must be a lot of families struggling to pay the rent that feel the same way

That's a bit harsh ferry. I think you could lower the pass mark and some still wouldn't qualify.

Blooming heck. Farage can’t even do his job in Clacton and the sight of his grinning, triumphant face sickens me. He is all mouth and nothing else.

The most astonishing thing to me is that a large swathe of the electorate haven't a clue what they were voting for.

I live in Kent so illegal immigration is a hot topic. Reform will now control Kent County Council which has been Tory run since 1997.

Kent groups on Fb today are full of people celebrating the Reform whitewash in the County and these people are apparently eagerly awaiting for Reform to "stop the boats" as well as putting a stop to concreting over the county with expensive new builds.

Good luck with all that then. Not knowing the difference between Local and General Elections has never been so pronounced.

Perhaps we should introduce a "Do You Know What You're Voting For" quiz on the door of polling stations. Score below 100% and you're refused entry!

Galaxy

To be fair the other parties may in some way have lucked out, the system in relation to SEND is unsustainable, councils are already making significant cuts (I mentioned elsewhere that cuts to SEND transport have been happening in my authority for months - nothing to do with Reform) it may benefit the other parties to push the problem and the blame on to Reform.

That's why I think if Labour is canny, it will spin it so that Reform takes the flak . Farage has been talking about more than cutting school transport.

Currently, they can't make cuts to actual provision because it's statutory, which is why they're going into debt and central government has bailed a few of them out. The only cuts councils can legally make is to post-16 transport.

To be fair the other parties may in some way have lucked out, the system in relation to SEND is unsustainable, councils are already making significant cuts (I mentioned elsewhere that cuts to SEND transport have been happening in my authority for months - nothing to do with Reform) it may benefit the other parties to push the problem and the blame on to Reform.

Do you think anybody thinks they only have potential to be a flash in the pan? I think it’s more that we just don’t know, because there are so many variables at play.

If I were a Reform supporter, one of my biggest fears would be that I think the party is totally Farage-centric. People put too much emphasis on charismatic leadership, and gloss over the things that really matter, that effect change. If his personal balloon bursts, Reform could easily end up rudderless, like the post-Boris Tories.

Galaxy

Well if he ignores the Equality Act he probably had 15 years before anyone notices.

It's not just about ignoring the Equality Act, but cuts to disability support programmes and SEND will have an immediate impact on families who can least afford to support themselves - I think they'll notice very quickly.

kittylester

I think it is dangerous to think Reform is a flash in the pan. I hope this result makes the main parties sort themselves out.

That is exactly my thought.