I have just spent a lot of time researching and editing contributions because they were inaccurate. I do not normally have time or inclination to do this, and will delete serious lies . I allow people to use some lies to develop their antagonistic views as long as they are not libels about people.
The first type were submissions alleging fraud or crime in Councils without evidence or based on a mis reading of a news story. You should not make allegations of criminal conduct without evidence, and if you have good evidence you should send it to the prosecuting authorities. I do not have any evidence of crimes, but if I did I would refer the evidence in private and not publish it here.
The second type were spin, hype or lies about Reform Councils cutting spending. I will be delighted by any Council under any political management that does cut spending and taxes without damaging services, which is quite possible. There are no current examples to share. As soon as there are I will write about them, and will be happy to publish comments about them. Conservative Councils have in recent years delivered the lowest average tax rises and I look forward to seeing how Reform does.
May 9, 2026
Thanks JR for all your hard work.
Conservative Councils have in recent years delivered the lowest average tax rises. Alas Central Government tax rises and the vast government waste for the 14 years of Cameron/Osborne, May/Hammond, Boris/Sunak and Sunak/Hunt was appalling and gave Starmer his huge majority
Starmer seems to think going harder faster is what the voter want (no it is huge 180 degree U turns mate). That and tackling the high cost of living. Starmer mate the main causes of the high cost of living are:-
Your high taxes and NI, the increases in the minimum wages, over regulation of everything, a bloated inefficient government, vat on school fees, increase in council taxes, the wars on motorists, net zero, the wars on Landlords, long term interest rate increase due to Reeves doom loop economic agenda and lack of confidence in the UK!
Sadiq Kahn – “It is incredibly important for the Government to recognise why we have done so badly in London”. An abysmal Mayor is perhaps the main reason Sir Sadiq this follow by an abysmal PM with abysmal anti-growth and two tier policies.
May 9, 2026
So Starmer is calling back the economic disaster of sell the gold at rock bottom, bride voters with £250 or £500 baby bonds, destroy pensions, wreck the economy and “save the World” Gordon Brown and also Baroness Harriet Harperson as his new Adviser on Women and Girls. Her equality Act was as appalling disaster especially good at bankrupting Birmingham and many others (good for lawyers though like herself) and she even voted against a national inquiry into the “Asian” rape gangs so much concerned for women and girls did she have!
May 9, 2026
Gordon Brown also destroyed private workers pensions schemes, aided by the silence of the political classes and the media. Public sector pesions though were unaffected, and still go on and on with little criticism from the media. The politicians don’t care because their snouts are all in the same trough.
May 9, 2026
His tax credit system was insane too and his “accountable” Bank of England. He got virtually nothing right – rather like Blair with his botched devolution, the Supreme Court, idiotic wars on lies…
May 9, 2026
A thought for poor old Jacob Rees-Mogg whose cost of living must be up about £120K just for Bridgett Phillipson’s spiteful VAT on school fees luancy for his six children. Really he should be getting about a £40K tax rebate for saving the state about £80 and a thank you letter and certainly not be paying VAT on top.
This evil plan might get money of J R Mogg types but on balance it will cost net and do huge harm to education too. Well done politics of envy Brigett, Starmer and Reeves.
May 9, 2026
Keir Starmer proclaimed four times in a short reply that he would not walk away from a challenge. He should go by Uber or a fast motorbike to get out of our way without further delay.
May 9, 2026
Private Jet is more his style so long as tax payers are paying!
May 9, 2026
A specific approach I have in the past advocated towards Council spending is finding out which of the hundreds of Councils is spending least on some service (such as education) and then getting every other Council to reduce their spending on that service to the per person cost of the lowest spending Council. Often such comparisons are publicly available (it was decades ago when I checked education spending per child – then Dudley was the lowest and much lower than most Councils). The range in per person spending on specific services is enormous and the lowest spending Council is usually far from the worst in the quality of the service it provides. However if pushed I don’t object to some ‘damage to services’ if it resulted in more money in residents’ pockets to spend as they rather than their Council wishes – as there can legitimately be some trade off between services and money in people’s pockets. Furthermore what is generally a high spending Council may be low spending in specific spheres and vice versa. Such an approach (locating and emulating the lowest spending Council in that sphere) is a good place to start for a Council (or for that matter a health trust) that genuinely wanted to save money or indeed for a government that really wants to keep public spending down.
So I say to Reform or Conservative Councillors who genuinely want to cut Council Tax is ignore the special pleading of Council Officers and make them reduce their spending to that of the lowest spending Council.
Reply Comparisons can help, and best practice can be adopted by others.
May 9, 2026
I live in Ashfield and Lee Anderson is getting the potholes fixed
That’s good enough for me
May 9, 2026
Potholes are a “stitch in time” thing they only get larger and more expensive to fix, damage vehicles and can kill cyclists etc. Other things are “why do today what you can do tomorrow, next year or not at all’ sensibly deferring the cost.
May 9, 2026
Starmer says “people are constantly held back by the (high and increasing I assume he means) cost of living”. But Sir Kier your policies are the main causes of these increases:- high taxes, the NI grabs, the minimum wage increases, endless red tape, lack of housing, net zero and Ed’s mad energy policies, the vast and bloated government, the wars on motorists, landlords, farmers, small businesses, energy users, Non Doms the QE money printing giving us 6% long term government borrowing interest rates due to the lack of any confidence in this government and Reeves’s doom loop lunacy…
Surely even Sir Kier is bright enough to see this reality? And so surely for him to pretend he/Labour are fighting against this and not the actual cause of it is just yet another of his very many lies.
May 9, 2026
Perhaps, then, you might like to add a citation reference space so that comments can be evidenced? Also whether newspaper articles, AI programs etc. will act as sufficient evidence? Ball, court, yours. If we can’t add citations, we can’t prove validity. Thanks.
Reply Just dont lie
May 9, 2026
reply to reply…Have you written to Sir Keir, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy and Angela Rayner reminding them not to lie?