https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k38pp1573o.amp

And happening allover the Country.
Reform to run the Country!!!

Will the new Reform controlled councils carry out Farage threats ?
Farage advised anyone working on climate change or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to be “seeking alternative careers very, very quickly”, in a speech in Newton Aycliffe on Friday.

Can't even fill in a form or tell the truth, one or the other.

Ironically, despite what peop!e believe a lot of councils dont have a DEI officer anyway. They think they can save money as well but it will be a tiny percentage of expenditure. If they manage to save serious money it will probably be mean a lowering of services sadly.

Thats about right for an MP actually.

I live in County Durham so my immediate concern is what sort of a fist Reform will make of running the local authority.

I reckon the Reform landslide reflected national issues far more than local ones, so my main hope is that they don't try to fix stuff that wasn't broken when it comes to running services in the county. I doubt most of the new councillors even know each other, so there's bound to be a load of jockeying for position and in-fighting. It's a safe bet that a bunch of them will be calling themselves Independents before the year is out.

didn,t the supermarket chain said every little helps. as for services being lowered how many are that bothered unless it affects them personally.

i,d guess they all come from different fields and have there own experiances and interests. it,s a case of using them where they have there previous experiance on the right committees and no round pegs in square holes. seen this before with a lad with 20 years experiance in public transport put on parks and gardens by his party with no interest and could not tell the difference from a bluebell to a daisy.

Reform councillors will be just as bent and/or incompetent as every other councillor.

Club committee men with a bigger budget and more fruit machines to plunder.

Pound shop Trumps.

Council workers being urged to join a Union, what would Farage and co do if they come up against council workers taking action ?

And tonight a Reform councillor was sacked by the Police last year. Sadly corruption is widespread across parties and Reforms vetting is pretty crap.

Are you saying we can’t t have new Councillors because they lack experience, taken to its logical conclusion we’d just hang onto the ones we have till they die.
Change is inevitable in all walks of life…but only when it doesn’t involve politics tut, tut.

Did he mention them idiots in charge of those labour-controlled councils that went bankrupt,jamie?

Labour ignored them hoping they’d go away, they aren’t ignoring them now.
The present ‘government’ were supposed to be socialists and aren’t…full stop.
If I’d wanted a middle class party of middle aged smug students with no socialist policies I ‘d have voted for the Lib Dims under Postman Pat..
Anyone who thinks they’re remotely socialist should look at them selves in the mirror.

does any councillor of any party have experiance in running a council before they get elected. same with a MP now and in the past who came from all different worlds.

Usually, with councils, the Party will have had a number of Councillors already for years before getting to the point where they have a majority, and then can take control, so there is plenty of knowledge and experience in the group on how the Council works before they take the reins. With both Councillors and MPs the large parties offer extensive training and there is a competitive interview process before someone is selected to stand in an election that they have any chance of winning.

The problem with Reform (which is similar to the problem that the SNP faced a few years ago) is that their popularity has increased too quickly for them to be able to keep pace with, and they are almost having to drag random supporters off the street to stand as candidates, long before they are ready, without doing proper vetting to get rid of the crazies, and often without the candidate having any idea of what they are letting themselves in for.

Course not. Change happens in every election, national and local - there are always new people coming through.

An entire intake of new councillors representing a new party taking over an authority is a different order of change. It happened once before, when UKIP took over Thanet council in 2015. That was a fiasco that ended with the UKIP group falling apart of its own volition.

As the new mob in Durham will be spending my money, I'm not exactly a disinterested party - unlike you.

Well it's keep doing things the way they've always been done, meanwhile bloat and waste thrive, or fresh ideas and approach.
Wether they're up to making a difference remains to be seen.

can understand this fear but then there could be a new broom approach as well as thinking we cannot do any worse than those who have been arround for years either doing nothing or supporting wild schemes that people in the area do not actually want or are interested in. like new managers at pools only time will tell if they actually do change things for the better. there are plenty about who will love them to fail but could not be arsed to vote.

Don't have to go back too far to remind ourselves of Cabinet Minister who was a convicted fraudster, or even a PM who lied almost every time his lips moved, including at the Dispatch Box.
You'll find the words liar and cheat linked to politicians in most people's opinions I reckon.
Will a rookie Reform Councillor be any worse than a rookie Labour, Tory, LibDem, Green, or Independent?

Councillors get advised by the respective employees of the Council Departments and base their decisions on their advice do they not ?

But it isn't your money any more. It ceased to be yours when you handed our beloved Durham council your payment for services rendered.

And they will spend their money however they wish, and that includes giving me a chunk of it - which they will simultaneously give back to themselves.

Reform will of course make some noise on our behalf, but ultimately they'll nuzzle the hand that feeds them rather than bite it.

Just like any other bunch of twats that you waste your vote on...

You do realise of course that Council Tax goes directly to central government, they then allocate a portion of it back to Local Authorities.
So DCC and Local Councils are spending a bit of your money but Central Government is spending a lot of it.

Well, that's an interesting assertion. There's a lot that's wrong with council tax - mainly that the bands that houses fall into haven't been updates since they were set by central government in 1992 and people living in houses worth millions are paying a pittance relative to the value of their property.

But a quick search online finds: "The claim that council tax goes to central government is inaccurate. Council tax is a local tax, meaning it's collected and retained by the local authority where it's paid. Central government does set the overall framework and provides some grants to local authorities, but council tax revenue directly funds local services."

So how come you believe differently?

Check your facts before posting, look at the paperwork that arrives with your Council Tax Bill, it shows how the money is spent in your area, nought goes to Central Government.
Governments allocate money to councils, year on year this has been reduced putting more monetary pressure on local councils which result in one reason bills go up.
A council tax is set by each individual authority and authorities are able to retain all of the funding raised from council tax in their area to support their budget.

My mistake, for some reason I had it in my mind that Council Tax and Business Rates were collected and distributed in the same way.