Local Council Elections

Well, well, well – Reform UK is garnering a lot of support ahead of the upcoming council elections. And rather than wailing in despair, we should be cracking open the popcorn, because this is the political equivalent of handing the village idiot the keys to the town hall and waiting for the inevitable catastrophe.

Now, let’s be clear: this is exactly what needs to happen. For years, Reform (or whatever Farage’s latest grift is calling itself this week) has skulked about on the sidelines, pointing at problems with all the nuance of a drunk at closing time. "Everything’s rubbish! The elites are out to get you! We’ll make it all better!" And some people – bless them – are falling for it. But here’s the thing: governing isn’t about shouting slogans on GB News. It’s about making actual decisions with actual consequences. And that’s where it’s all about to go belly up.

Local councils are where the rubber meets the road. They run schools, social care, rubbish collection, road maintenance – the stuff that actually impacts daily life. And they do this while being systematically starved of funding by successive Tory governments. So when Reform councillors start slashing services, either because they’re ideologically opposed to public spending or simply because they haven’t got a clue what they’re doing, people are going to notice – fast.

Bin collections missed? Pensioners left stranded without social care? Roads looking like the surface of the Moon? That’s on them now. And unlike Westminster, where political failures can be buried under layers of spin and bureaucracy, local governance is brutally direct. The minute the potholes multiply and the bins overflow, the excuses will dry up. "It’s all the fault of woke lefty Remoaner elites!" won’t cut it when the library’s shut and the care home’s closed.

Then there's the ironically delicious one - their duty to find accommodation for refugees seeking asylum under the dispersal scheme, which they can't refuse, especially if they're granted asylum. I'd love to see how that played out. If Reform UK councils tried to block refugees, they'd be bogged down in legal battles, public outrage, and government pressure. The cost of their policies would spiral, making them the very ‘incompetent bureaucrats’ they rail against.

And that’s the beauty of it – if Reform gains power, they’re going to do the hard work of proving their own incompetence well before the next general election. But here’s the crucial part: unlike a general election, where their failures could be spread across the whole country, this mess will be concentrated in the areas that actually voted for them. The cuts, the incompetence, the broken promises – all hitting their own supporters hardest. And there’ll be no escaping the consequences.

Because here’s the fundamental truth: populism thrives in opposition. It’s easy to sell a fantasy when you’re not the one who has to deliver. But when the fantasy collides with reality – when all the slogans, dog whistles, and bluster meet the cold, hard world of governance – that’s when the illusion shatters. And with Reform potentially holding the scalpel over local services, we’re about to see just how quickly that happens.

So let them gain support. Let them win councils - in fact, vote for them if you're in a Reform area. Let them make the cuts, bungle the budgets, and alienate their own voters. It’ll be a lesson – a painful one, granted – but a necessary one. And when their supporters finally realise that "sticking it to the establishment" just means their town starts looking like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the backlash will be swift. A shot over the bows, indeed – and one that might just steer the electorate back towards reality before it’s too late.