To address Labour switchers to Reform UK, Keir Starmer has taken to The Times, as if that were what they read. What does Morgan McSweeney have to do to get sacked? But when George Galloway won the Rochdale by-election, then Rishi Sunak gave a Prime Ministerial statement on the steps of Downing Street, and it was just as hysterical as that sounds. Reform's capture of Runcorn and Helsby has brought out none of that, even though it took control of 10 councils at the same time. Anyone would think that it were part of the club.
Ah, yes, 10 councils. The crisis in local government is because funding from central government has been cut by well over half. Almost all councils have had to put up Council Tax to plug the gap, because most of what they do, it would be unlawful for them not to do, since those services are statutory. Moreover, the Dedicated Schools Grant has four Blocks that are strictly ring-fenced, and the High Needs Block protects such SEND spending as there is, meaning that a council simply could not reallocate the money that was being spent on conditions that councillors thought were being overdiagnosed or did not exist.
Nor can even the Leader of the Council sack staff, who answer to more senior Officers. In turn, those would be positively obliged to act if councillors threatened to do anything unlawful. The Council sets policy; it is for Officers to implement it. For example, that would apply to working from home. All in one of the most unionised sectors in existence, and facing Scrutiny Chairs drawn from the Opposition no matter how small. Some people are about to get the shock of their lives.
You'd have been a great scrutiny chair.
ReplyDeleteYou would be very surprised, or perhaps not, if I told you some of the people who had said that to me over the years. But I am never contesting another election. I am simply not well enough.
DeleteReform is about to expose how much allegedly “cash-strapped” councils are wasting on woke bureaucracy. The NHS, always allegedly short of money, spends circa £40 million a year on “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
ReplyDeleteWe badly need a DOGE over here. Bring on Reform UK.
£40 million per year is peanuts to the NHS. And according to the TaxPayers' Alliance (so, if anything, an overestimate or an exaggeration), annual spending on all EDI roles across all local authorities in the entire country is £23 million, the crumbs of peanuts, 35p per person.
DeleteReform has today exposed Labour’s disgusting dismissal of grooming gangs as a “dog whistle.” It has form on this- Starmer dismisses calls for an enquiry as “Far Right.”
ReplyDeleteThey have exposed nothing. She said it on Any Questions?.
DeleteThe notion of using the public sector to create jobs for Labour voters was an invention of Tony Blair’s. He added 700,000 people to the payroll in quangos like the “Equality and Human Rights Commission” that form the vanguard of the woke Blairite bureaucracy. Or “the blob” as the Americans would say.
ReplyDeleteJust as Reform exposed Lucy Powell’s view of grooming gangs (multiculturalism and the Muslim vote is more important to her than protecting young white girls from racially motivated exploitation) Robert Jenrick recently helped expose the judicial pro immigration establishment including judges who do part time work for immigration charities.
We’ve had enough. No wonder the British people are turning to Reform.
Not for the first time, Jenrick has indicated that he did not understand the cab rank rule. He should be struck off as a solicitor.
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