Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Government abandons plans to delay 30 local council elections in May

£63m extra costs for this. For a load of areas about to be scrapped anyway. Seemed perfectly reasonable to me, seeing it's what happened with the GLC back in the day.

Coming next from Ed Davey and Nigel Farage- why isn't the government spending more money on <insert issue>?

I know parties are going to have a pop, but FFS.

They haven't "scrapped jury trials", you dishonest moron.

"Caretaker Prime Minister". This is Kipper bollocks.

Zack Polanski welcomes news 30 local elections now going ahead, saying cancelling them was part of 'disturbing authoritarian trend'
The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has welcomed the news that local elections are going ahead in the 30 areas where they were going to be postponed. He says:

I am pleased the Government has done another u turn.
Attempting to cancel elections, on top of scrapping jury trials, mandatory ID cards, criminalising peaceful protest and harassment of journalists is part of a disturbing authoritarian trend of this caretaker Prime Minister.

U-turn?
Isn't it the case that some interested parties requested that the elections be delayed, the government has decided not to?

Yeah, I think councils put in the request. Arguably out of electoral self interest, arguably because they think that £2m (on average) for their area could be better spent.

It's a U-turn, and it's better not to do those, but the reorganizations are mostly sensible. Why are there 11 district councils in Surrey alone? Doubtless the government would have got an easier time if it just let that absurdly expensive situation continue. Doubtless every teething problem will get ample coverage as well. All bias against this government in particular being able to do anything.

From Sam Freedman, who co-writes the Comment is Freed Substack

OK so on the one hand this is good for democracy but on the other means I have do loads more work for my local elections predictions post.
Yet another example of this government pointlessly using up political capital for something they had to u-turn on anyway. A real speciality.

He's one of the better commentators, but "uses up political capital" is unimportant compared to whether the big change (rationalizing local government) will go ahead. It will, and so will these (in my view pointless) elections.

The way people carry on it's like this, the WFA or whatever are epoch-making errors, like Brexit and Osborne-Davey cuts. Or indeed leaving NATO and scrapping nuclear power, as another gentleman wants us to do. They may be political errors, but that's not the same thing. Aren't these commentators supposed to want good policy above all?

Meanwhile, here's some "cutting-edge" satire.