Dailly: 'Out with the useless, in with the hopeless'
For the last 100 years or so, the two-party state at Westminster has been a tussle between the Tories and Labour; before then it was between the Tories and the Liberals – with the Liberals having grown out the Whigs in the 1850s.
The term "hegemony" comes from Ancient Greece.
It means to lead and represents the ascendancy of one group or elite within a society over everyone else.
It's arguable that until the 1920s, the UK's hegemony operated principally for the royalists, aristocracy, landed gentry, and wealthy.
The rise of the Labour Party marked a sea change shift with a political party representing the working class and trade unions.
However, last week's local council elections in England witnessed working class voters reject both Labour and the Conservatives.
One might suggest that Labour in 2025 has more in common with 1920's conservatism than Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party.
Nigel Farage's Reform UK gained 677 councillors and control of 10 councils.
The Tories lost 674 councillors; while Labour lost 187.
The Lib Dems gained 163.
Some commentators have tried to play down the complete wipe-out of Tory and Labour councillors, pointing to the fact there are 317 councils in England – comprising county, district, unitary, and metropolitan councils among others.
But English local government elections operate in yearly cycles.
What was up for grabs last week was mostly county and a few unitary and metro councils, with six directly elected mayors.
Many of these elections were in traditional Labour heartlands and Reform took 41.5 per cent of the 1,631 council seats available, along with 2 mayoral contests and a MP in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
If that wasn't seismic, I'm not sure what would be.
Here's the thing.
We will have another cycle of council elections in England next year – including all 32 London borough councils – and another cycle in 2027 too.
Never has a governing party that won a landslide victory at Westminster – just 10 months ago – lost support so quickly amongst the electorate.
The message from the voters is simple.
We've had enough of the two mainstream parties.
The Tories literally ran a clown show for the last few years.
Labour come into office with grand promises of improving people's lives and the first thing they do is cut the winter fuel payment and hike up employer's national insurance contributions.
No taxes for the uber rich but plenty of money for weapons of war.
To balance the books, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have proposed a raid on welfare spending with £5bn of cuts to disability and sickness benefits.
There's a Westminster Hall debate on the planned cuts this Wednesday afternoon.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of all of this is that Reform UK offer little.
No hope.
Just more division.
For sure, they are good at calling out Labour's duplicity and uselessness.
Just like Labour did with the Conservative Party – and how did that end?
And yet people are voting for Reform UK in England in their droves to express their frustration and disdain for the two traditional parties.
How will Reform play out in Scotland?
We have the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election for Holyrood on 5 June.
And then the Holyrood elections in May – so we shall soon find out.
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