| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn 14:38 - Feb 16 with 2803 views | Pinewoodblue |
The government has abandoned their bid to delay the local elections to 30 councils in England.
Local Government Secretary Steve Reed has decided to "withdraw his decision" to postpone the elections, due to take place in May, "in the light of recent legal advice", according to a letter from the Government Legal Department shared by Nigel Farage.
It is a victory for Reform UK and Farage, who had taken the government to court in a bid to prevent the elections being delayed.
A two-day High Court hearing was due to start on Thursday, but the government will now "seek to agree an order" with Reform UK to end its case, and the government "will agree to pay the claimant's costs of these proceedings".
In a post on X, Farage wrote: "We took this Labour government to court and won.
"In collusion with the Tories, Keir Starmer tried to stop 4.6 million people voting on May 7th. Only Reform UK fights for democracy." |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:46 - Feb 16 with 661 views | DJR |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 15:23 - Feb 16 by Clapham_Junction |
A waste of public money IMO.
The only good thing is that if any of these 30 councils are won by Reform, those in charge won't have much opportunity to do too much damage before the councils in question cease to exist – they won't even get to set a normal budget as the 2026/27 budget will already have been set before they're elected and the 2027/28 year will be a transitional one prior to the new councils coming into being in April 2028.
It's sad that what has been standard practice for decades (cancelling elections to an authority that's about to cease to exist) has been politicised. Symptomatic of the times sadly. I guess we'll see the same nonsense next year when the councillors being elected will get to serve for less than a year before their councils disappear. |
What I don't understand is why they allowed councils to have the option whether or not to cancel elections.
Indeed, I wonder if this is the reason for the legal advice they received which we will presumably not see. [Post edited 16 Feb 16:50]
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:51 - Feb 16 with 626 views | Benters |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:45 - Feb 16 by GlasgowBlue |
You live in both. Tendring is your District Council and Essex is your County Council. Actually there is a third, Great Bentley Parish Council. |
I see thanks Glassers. |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:52 - Feb 16 with 642 views | DJR |
Yet another piece of secondary legislation that hasn't stood up to scrutiny.
In a post on Bluesky Heather Green, a legal academic, points out that the government has already laid the statutory instrument delaying these elections. That will have to be annulled.
"Government has already laid before Parliament the SI cancelling the 30 local elections. It takes effect from 27 Feb & will need to be annulled when Parliament comes back from recess next week. Was laid 5 Feb, after 20 Jan hearing in Reform’s JR." [Post edited 16 Feb 16:52]
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:53 - Feb 16 with 640 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 15:51 - Feb 16 by OldFart71 |
Why do we want Labour in. A Party that's supposed to be for the working classes. They don't even know what working class is. The PM is worth about £8 million, Blair has a handful of multi million pound houses in London. Rayner bought a £400,000 house.
In effect none of these people whether Tory or Labour are real working class. They may at some stage have been but certainly aren't now.
All these people like Cameron and people like Mandelson in the House of Lords get £350 a day tax free, hardly working class.
Gutter politics with heads in troughs and frankly although I want Labour gone I have no faith in any of them. |
What is the alternative? |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:54 - Feb 16 with 645 views | bsw72 |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:18 - Feb 16 by bartyg |
An unironic "excellent gambit, sir", incredible. |
Not quite, he tried to blunt Reform’s rise, which has been fuelled by sensational headlines and repeated inaccuracies, but that route was unlikely to succeed in court. I read this as a shift to a risk‑management strategy: accept short‑term local losses to expose a rival’s shortcomings and safeguard a stronger national case.
My concern is the relentless focus on the here and now. Many political decisions are strategic, multi‑year investments whose returns only materialise over time; judging everything by immediate headlines misses that horizon.
I’m not a hardcore Labour supporter, I’ve voted Conservative, Labour, Liberal and Green, but what I find most disturbing is the contrast between the criticism levelled at Starmer and that directed at Farage striking. Starmer’s long record of public service matters; Farage, by contrast, frequently pursues personal advantage and has shown a readiness to stretch the truth. |  | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:58 - Feb 16 with 629 views | homer_123 |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:54 - Feb 16 by bsw72 |
Not quite, he tried to blunt Reform’s rise, which has been fuelled by sensational headlines and repeated inaccuracies, but that route was unlikely to succeed in court. I read this as a shift to a risk‑management strategy: accept short‑term local losses to expose a rival’s shortcomings and safeguard a stronger national case.
My concern is the relentless focus on the here and now. Many political decisions are strategic, multi‑year investments whose returns only materialise over time; judging everything by immediate headlines misses that horizon.
I’m not a hardcore Labour supporter, I’ve voted Conservative, Labour, Liberal and Green, but what I find most disturbing is the contrast between the criticism levelled at Starmer and that directed at Farage striking. Starmer’s long record of public service matters; Farage, by contrast, frequently pursues personal advantage and has shown a readiness to stretch the truth. |
"Starmer’s long record of public service matters; Farage, by contrast, frequently pursues personal advantage and has shown a readiness to stretch the truth."
Yep, as much as Starmer is struggling (and we discuss the whys and wherefores) I make the above one of the singularly most accurate sentences I have seen posted in a long time. |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:02 - Feb 16 with 615 views | DJR |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:32 - Feb 16 by Benters |
I’m not in Essex I’m in Tendring. |
So you're Tendring man rather than Essex man. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ | | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:04 - Feb 16 with 611 views | DJR |
Richard Wright, the councillor who chairs the District Councils’ Network, has put out a statement on behalf of the DCN. He says people in local government will be “bewildered” by what’s going on, and he says it implies the government has not got a good grasp on the “huge legal complexity” of reorganisation.
He says:
"Council officers, councillors and local electorates will be bewildered by the unrelenting changes to the electoral timetable.
Councils were assured by the government that elections could be legally cancelled but now it seems ministers have come to the opposite conclusion. It’s the government, not councils that have acted in good faith, which should bear responsibility for this mess which impacts on people’s faith in our cherished local democracy.
The councils affected face an unnecessary race against time to ensure elections proceed smoothly and fairly, with polling stations booked and electoral staff available.
If election cancellations were deemed necessary to free up capacity for local government reorganisation to succeed, councils will now be asking where this leaves the reorganisation timetable.
We need to have faith in the government’s decision-making as we work on the biggest shake-up of councils in 50 years – but the government is doing little assure us that it has a strong grasp of the huge legal complexity involved." | | | |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:04 - Feb 16 with 606 views | homer_123 |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:32 - Feb 16 by Benters |
I’m not in Essex I’m in Tendring. |
I want to make some pithy remark about letting Essex'rs into Bentley, or some such Benters! | |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:13 - Feb 16 with 582 views | Benters |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:04 - Feb 16 by homer_123 |
I want to make some pithy remark about letting Essex'rs into Bentley, or some such Benters! |
Can I have a think about it please over my tea. | |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:48 - Feb 16 with 550 views | DJR |
The Institute for Government thinktank has also joined those saying Labour’s on-off-on again stance on local elections in 30 areas has been a mess. These are from Matthew Fright, an IfG researcher, on Bluesky.
"The government’s justification - that this would free up capacity for areas undergoing local government reorganisation - was critiqued by many at the time including the Electoral Commission who said it was not a strong enough justification to delay elections.
The manner and timing of government announcements - for instance announcing decisions on the last day before Christmas ‘take out the trash’ day - have also been poor and fallen short of the level of respect needed for decision making about elections.
There have also been some real implications from this - wasted time in Whitehall and in local government. Wasted legislative time. Officials pausing, cancelling and now restarting elections in their local areas.
The tone has also been poor - labelling outgoing councils as “zombie administrations” when these are crucial partners for delivering local government reorganisation and other government initiatives.
It should not have taken 2 months to arrive at this decision, and the optics around it look poor. Justifying the changes on the basis of “recent legal advice” only pushes focus back on the original legal advice and government decision. If it is a bad call now, it was a bad call before.
These criticisms aside, it is right to reverse the decision when wrong, and also right to recognise the challenges facing local leaders - bringing forward additional capacity funding to help with local government reorganisation.
But the government will also need to reflect on how this came about and prevent a repeat in future." | | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:53 - Feb 16 with 544 views | Dubtractor |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:48 - Feb 16 by DJR |
The Institute for Government thinktank has also joined those saying Labour’s on-off-on again stance on local elections in 30 areas has been a mess. These are from Matthew Fright, an IfG researcher, on Bluesky.
"The government’s justification - that this would free up capacity for areas undergoing local government reorganisation - was critiqued by many at the time including the Electoral Commission who said it was not a strong enough justification to delay elections.
The manner and timing of government announcements - for instance announcing decisions on the last day before Christmas ‘take out the trash’ day - have also been poor and fallen short of the level of respect needed for decision making about elections.
There have also been some real implications from this - wasted time in Whitehall and in local government. Wasted legislative time. Officials pausing, cancelling and now restarting elections in their local areas.
The tone has also been poor - labelling outgoing councils as “zombie administrations” when these are crucial partners for delivering local government reorganisation and other government initiatives.
It should not have taken 2 months to arrive at this decision, and the optics around it look poor. Justifying the changes on the basis of “recent legal advice” only pushes focus back on the original legal advice and government decision. If it is a bad call now, it was a bad call before.
These criticisms aside, it is right to reverse the decision when wrong, and also right to recognise the challenges facing local leaders - bringing forward additional capacity funding to help with local government reorganisation.
But the government will also need to reflect on how this came about and prevent a repeat in future." |
The government have given a hospital pass to the current administration (of whatever political colour) in the council areas affected. They took a lot of the blame for the cancellations, and that was probably fine (tomorrow's chip paper) if the elections were next year, but it will now still be in voters minds when the vote takes place.
That's before you get to the real implications on resource and planning for LGR etc. |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:54 - Feb 16 with 538 views | Tambu |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 14:51 - Feb 16 by DJR |
This is absolutely shocking and another nail in the government's coffin.
It certainly won't give parties much time to prepare, and is yet another example of rank incompetence within government. |
...and still people vote and participate in the farce. True anarcho understanding seems more logical by the day. | | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:57 - Feb 16 with 526 views | JackNorthStand |
A big win for form, this. Showing again the current Labour leaderships complete incompetence. | | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:58 - Feb 16 with 525 views | MattinLondon |
In collusion with the Tories, Keir Starmer tried to stop 4.6 million people voting on May 7th. Only Reform UK fights to line our pockets."
Fixed it. |  | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 18:16 - Feb 16 with 501 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 17:04 - Feb 16 by DJR |
Richard Wright, the councillor who chairs the District Councils’ Network, has put out a statement on behalf of the DCN. He says people in local government will be “bewildered” by what’s going on, and he says it implies the government has not got a good grasp on the “huge legal complexity” of reorganisation.
He says:
"Council officers, councillors and local electorates will be bewildered by the unrelenting changes to the electoral timetable.
Councils were assured by the government that elections could be legally cancelled but now it seems ministers have come to the opposite conclusion. It’s the government, not councils that have acted in good faith, which should bear responsibility for this mess which impacts on people’s faith in our cherished local democracy.
The councils affected face an unnecessary race against time to ensure elections proceed smoothly and fairly, with polling stations booked and electoral staff available.
If election cancellations were deemed necessary to free up capacity for local government reorganisation to succeed, councils will now be asking where this leaves the reorganisation timetable.
We need to have faith in the government’s decision-making as we work on the biggest shake-up of councils in 50 years – but the government is doing little assure us that it has a strong grasp of the huge legal complexity involved." |
He should never have moved to Arsenal |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 18:35 - Feb 16 with 480 views | jas0999 |
Starmer must be dizzy. | | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 18:41 - Feb 16 with 479 views | BlueBadger |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 15:38 - Feb 16 by OldFart71 |
Well they'd have to be pretty crap to be worse than Labour. The proof of the pudding as they say. |
I mean, we've seen how crap a lot of them are, given that several of them were in the previous Tory cabinet which managed to combine bigotry, corruption with a spectacular level of incompetence and ignorance..
So I'm betting that, yes they're almost certainly pretty crap. [Post edited 16 Feb 18:43]
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 18:55 - Feb 16 with 437 views | BlueForYou |
Good news. At least sanity has prevailed, but it leaves Labour in an awful position. Elections are the bedrock of democracy. What were they thinking? Defies belief. Won't be many Labour counsellors left in May. Starner & his cronies will do well to survive this. |  | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 19:41 - Feb 16 with 371 views | eireblue |
Onceablue is going to be fuming that you managed to get in first with that. |  | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 20:19 - Feb 16 with 337 views | Bigalhunter |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 16:51 - Feb 16 by Benters |
I see thanks Glassers. |
It’s a comfort that you’re probably daft enough to roll up at the wrong polling station, I guess.
Don’t forget to keep unrolling that big ball of string behind you or you’ll end up relying on your resident apologist to talk you through finding your way back home as well… |  |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:00 - Feb 16 with 285 views | ElderGrizzly |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 15:23 - Feb 16 by Clapham_Junction |
A waste of public money IMO.
The only good thing is that if any of these 30 councils are won by Reform, those in charge won't have much opportunity to do too much damage before the councils in question cease to exist – they won't even get to set a normal budget as the 2026/27 budget will already have been set before they're elected and the 2027/28 year will be a transitional one prior to the new councils coming into being in April 2028.
It's sad that what has been standard practice for decades (cancelling elections to an authority that's about to cease to exist) has been politicised. Symptomatic of the times sadly. I guess we'll see the same nonsense next year when the councillors being elected will get to serve for less than a year before their councils disappear. |
£64million is the cost.
And to the OP, Reform never won anything. Never were in court etc |  | | |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:03 - Feb 16 with 272 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:00 - Feb 16 by ElderGrizzly |
£64million is the cost.
And to the OP, Reform never won anything. Never were in court etc |
Agreed but the Government will no doubt pay Reforms costs. | |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:07 - Feb 16 with 264 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:00 - Feb 16 by ElderGrizzly |
£64million is the cost.
And to the OP, Reform never won anything. Never were in court etc |
Problem is the elections are far more expensive than that, and a mess given the reorganisations. Which is why the policy was suggested int he first place. | |
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| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:21 - Feb 16 with 235 views | Ewan_Oozami |
| Another Starmer ‘U’ turn on 22:07 - Feb 16 by redrickstuhaart |
Problem is the elections are far more expensive than that, and a mess given the reorganisations. Which is why the policy was suggested int he first place. |
So, don't have elections, save money, get lambasted by Reform for being anti-democratic - have the elections, spend money, get lambasted by Reform for wasting taxpayer's money.
Any competent, and confident govt would just choose one and say this is what we're doing, either emphasising money savings outweigh the democratic deficit or supporting democratic principles is worth spending money and that's it - in my view in the current climate it's better to justify spending money on having the elections - if Reform or the Tories accuse you of wasting taxpayer's money, you can then say we're doing it to let the voters have their say, whatever the outcome for Labour and paint the opposition as anti-democratic. By u-turning Labour have actually got the worst of both options..... [Post edited 16 Feb 22:21]
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