There have been some noisy headlines about chaos in councils where Reform won seats last month: resignations, council meetings in disarray, councillors disappearing on holiday en masse. Durham became a Reform-controlled council last year, and I finally managed to catch some Reform councillors in action. I had spent months trying to speak to, photograph or … Read more
Another summer and, once again, another riot. By now the pattern is becoming familiar. A tragedy occurs involving a white victim and a non-white perpetrator. The victim’s family appeals for calm and asks that their loss should not be used to fuel racial hatred. The appeal is ignored. “We want to use Henry’s heartbreaking story … Read more
As you may know County Durham has a Reform Council. Predictably their first acts in power were to cut funding for Lumiere, the City’s award win light art festival that brought hundreds of thousands to the City, and to stop funding for Pride. The money instead will be used for special political advisors to do … Read more
This is the second in a series looking at Britain’s post-war new towns and planned communities across the North East, in light of the Government’s decision to build more new towns. Last time I visited Peterlee and Newton Aycliffe, places that turned out to be rather better than their reputations suggest. This time the story … Read more
The UK government is pressing ahead with plans for a new generation of new towns to tackle the housing crisis. The details are still emerging, but the direction of travel is clear: large-scale planned settlements, focused on sustainability, “gentle density” and transport links. The reasons are straightforward. Labour wants to build 1.5 million homes and … Read more
The short answer to this question is no, don’t be daft. Reform are the party of the elite, the leadership dominated by public schoolboys and inherited wealth. They have inherited many of the establishment networks of power, money and influence which sustained the Conservatives for over a century. So why do I hear this so … Read more
Clearly this was a big night for Reform, a bad night for Labour, and a mixed night for everyone else. Labour lost seats to the Greens, to a lesser extent Reform, and to Plaid Cymru and the SNP. The Conservatives lost seats heavily to Reform. But for the Government to lose seats at this point … Read more
Over the last few weeks I’ve been travelling up and down the East Coast, visiting places that already have Reform MPs, and places they are targeting in the upcoming local elections. You can find the other pieces below. I’ve saved the most interesting for last: Sunderland. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a Sunderland … Read more
Kent is one of Reform’s flagship councils. With the local elections coming up I wanted to talk about areas where Refrom control the local authority and their track record. Kent County Council governs one of the largest populations of any local authority in England. It sits at the top of a two-tier system — county, … Read more
Skegness has always been a place people go to, rather than through. That matters more than it sounds. It sits at the edge of Lincolnshire, facing the North Sea, with no obvious reason for anyone to pass by unless they meant to be there in the first place. It is, in the literal sense, the … Read more