Reform councillor in Nottinghamshire quits one week after election
In a post on Facebook, Reform UK Newark said: "Significant recent changes to Desmond's personal circumstances have led him to conclude that he is not in a position to deliver the level of service to the people of Newark West that they deserve and require."
Lee Smith, the chairman for the party's branch in Newark, said: "We all wish Desmond well in the future and thank him for his contribution to the success of Reform UK in the local elections."A by-election will now be triggered for the Newark West division, but a date has not been set.In a video uploaded to YouTube before the election, Clarke said if elected he would "ensure Newark's voice is heard loud and clear" and "fight for our fair share of resources".His resignation has been criticised by Conservative group leader and former council leader Sam Smith."Seven days after fighting an election on a promise to cut spending and waste, the Reform County Councillor for Newark West has resigned which will result in the triggering of a by-election that will cost taxpayers thousands of pounds," he said.Reform won 40 of the 66 seats which make up the county council last week.The party has declined to comment other than to say it will contest the by-election.Clarke won the seat with 35.9% of the vote and a majority of 153, beating the Conservatives' Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Keith Girling.The Reform UK group on the county council are due to choose a leader from among their ranks on Monday.
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Sky News
9 minutes ago
- Sky News
One year of Starmer: Nine charts that tell us whether Labour's first year has been a success or failure
It might feel like it's been even longer for the prime minister at the moment, but it's been a whole year since Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party won a historic landslide, emphatically defeating Rishi Sunak's Conservatives and securing a 174-seat majority. Over that time, Sir Keir and his party have regularly reset or restated their list of milestones, missions, targets and pledges - things they say they will achieve while in power (so long as they can get all their policies past their own MPs). We've had a look at the ones they have repeated most consistently, and how they are going so far. Overall, it amounts to what appears to be some success on economic metrics, but limited progress at best towards many of their key policy objectives. From healthcare to housebuilding, from crime to clean power, and from small boats to squeezed budgets, here are nine charts that show the country's performance before and after Labour came to power, and how close the government are to achieving their goals. Cost of living On paper, the target that Labour have set themselves on improving living standards is by quite a distance the easiest to achieve of anything they have spoken about. They have not set a specific number to aim for, and every previous parliament on record has overseen an increase in real terms disposable income. The closest it got to not happening was the last parliament, though. From December 2019 to June 2024, disposable income per quarter rose by just £24, thanks in part to the energy crisis that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By way of comparison, there was a rise of almost £600 per quarter during the five years following Thatcher's final election victory in 1987, and over £500 between Blair's 1997 victory and his 2001 re-election. After the first six months of the latest government, it had risen by £144, the fastest start of any government going back to at least 1954. As of March, it had fallen to £81, but that still leaves them second at this stage, behind only Thatcher's third term. VERDICT: Going well, but should have been more ambitious with their target Get inflation back to 2% So, we have got more money to play with. But it might not always feel like that, as average prices are still rising at a historically high rate. Inflation fell consistently during the last year and a half of Rishi Sunak's premiership, dropping from a peak of 11.1% in October 2022 to exactly 2% - the Bank of England target - in June 2024. It continued to fall in Labour's first couple of months, but has steadily climbed back up since then and reached 3.4% in May. When we include housing costs as well, prices are up by 4% in the last year. Average wages are currently rising by just over 5%, so that explains the overall improvement in living standards that we mentioned earlier. But there are signs that the labour market is beginning to slow following the introduction of higher national insurance rates for employers in April. If inflation remains high and wages begin to stagnate, we will see a quick reversal to the good start the government have made on disposable income. VERDICT: Something to keep an eye on - there could be a bigger price to pay in years to come 'Smash the gangs' One of Starmer's most memorable promises during the election campaign was that he would 'smash the gangs', and drastically reduce the number of people crossing the Channel to illegally enter the country. More than 40,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the 12 months since Labour came to power, a rise of over 12,000 (40%) compared with the previous year. Labour have said that better weather in the first half of this year has contributed to more favourable conditions for smugglers, but our research shows crossings have also risen on days when the weather is not so good. VERDICT: As it stands, it looks like 'the gangs' are smashing the government Reduce NHS waits One of Labour's more ambitious targets, and one in which they will be relying on big improvements in years to come to achieve. Starmer says that no more than 8% of people will wait longer than 18 weeks for NHS treatment by the time of the next election. When they took over, it was more than five times higher than that. And it still is now, falling very slightly from 41.1% to 40.3% over the 10 months that we have data for. So not much movement yet. Independent modelling by the Health Foundation suggests that reaching the target is "still feasible", though they say it will demand "focus, resource, productivity improvements and a bit of luck". VERDICT: Early days, but current treatment isn't curing the ailment fast enough Halve violent crime It's a similar story with policing. Labour aim to achieve their goal of halving serious violent crime within 10 years by recruiting an extra 13,000 officers, PCSOs and special constables. Recruitment is still very much ongoing, but workforce numbers have only been published up until the end of September, so we can't tell what progress has been made on that as yet. We do have numbers, however, on the number of violent crimes recorded by the police in the first six months of Labour's premiership. There were a total of 1.1m, down by 14,665 on the same period last year, a decrease of just over 1%. That's not nearly enough to reach a halving within the decade, but Labour will hope that the reduction will accelerate once their new officers are in place. VERDICT: Not time for flashing lights just yet, but progress is more 'foot patrol' than 'high-speed chase' so far Build 1.5m new homes One of Labour's most ambitious policies was the pledge that they would build a total of 1.5m new homes in England during this parliament. There has not yet been any new official data published on new houses since Labour came to power, but we can use alternative figures to give us a sense of how it's going so far. A new Energy Performance Certificate is granted each time a new home is built - so tends to closely match the official house-building figures - and we have data up to March for those. Those numbers suggest that there have actually been fewer new properties added recently than in any year since 2015-16. Labour still have four years to deliver on this pledge, but each year they are behind means they need to up the rate more in future years. If the 200,000 new EPCs in the year to March 2025 matches the number of new homes they have delivered in their first year, Labour will need to add an average of 325,000 per year for the rest of their time in power to achieve their goal. VERDICT: Struggling to lay solid foundations Clean power by 2030 Another of the more ambitious pledges, Labour's aim is for the UK to produce 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. They started strong. The ban on new onshore wind turbines was lifted within their first few days of government, and they delivered support for 131 new renewable energy projects in the most recent funding round in September. But - understandably - it takes time for those new wind farms, solar farms and tidal plants to be built and start contributing to the grid. In the year leading up to Starmer's election as leader, 54% of the energy on the UK grid had been produced by renewable sources in the UK. That has risen very slightly in the year since then, to 55%, with a rise in solar and biomass offsetting a slight fall in wind generation. The start of this year has been unusually lacking in wind, and this analysis does not take variations in weather into account. The government target will adjust for that, but they are yet to define exactly how. VERDICT: Not all up in smoke, but consistent effort is required before it's all sunshine and windmills Fastest economic growth in the G7 Labour's plan to pay for the improvements they want to make in all the public services we have talked about above can be summarised in one word: "growth". The aim is for the UK's GDP - the financial value of all the goods and services produced in the country - to grow faster than any other in the G7 group of advanced economies. Since Labour have been in power, the economy has grown faster than European rivals Italy, France and Germany, as well as Japan, but has lagged behind the US and Canada. The UK did grow fastest in the most recent quarter we have data for, however, from the start of the year to the end of March. VERDICT: Good to be ahead of other similar European economies, but still a way to go to overtake the North Americans No tax rises Without economic growth, it will be difficult to keep to one of Chancellor Rachel Reeves' biggest promises - that there will be no more tax rises or borrowing for the duration of her government's term. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said last month that she is a 'gnat's whisker' away from being forced to do that at the autumn budget, looking at the state of the economy at the moment. That whisker will have been shaved even closer by the cost implications of the government's failure to get its full welfare reform bill through parliament earlier this week. And income tax thresholds are currently frozen until April 2028, meaning there is already a "stealth" hike scheduled for all of us every year. 5:03 But the news from the last financial year was slightly better than expected. Total tax receipts for the year ending March 2025 were 35% of GDP. That's lower than the previous four years, and what was projected after Jeremy Hunt's final Conservative budget, but higher than any of the 50 years before that. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) still projects it to rise in future years though, to a higher level than the post-WWII peak of 37.2%. The OBR - a non-departmental public body that provides independent analysis of the public finances - has also said in the past few days that it is re-examining its methodology, because it has been too optimistic with its forecasts in the past. If the OBR's review leads to a more negative view of where the economy is going, Rachel Reeves could be forced to break her promise to keep the budget deficit from spiralling out of control. OVERALL VERDICT: Investment and attention towards things like violent crime, the NHS and clean energy are yet to start bearing fruit, with only minuscule shifts in the right direction for each, but the government is confident that what's happened so far is part of its plans. Labour always said that the house-building target would be achieved with a big surge towards the back end of their term, but they won't be encouraged by the numbers actually dropping in their first few months. Where they are failing most dramatically, however, appears to be in reducing the number of migrants making the dangerous Channel crossing on small boats. The economic news, particularly that rise in disposable income, looks more healthy at the moment. But with inflation still high and growth lagging behind some of our G7 rivals, that could soon start to turn. The Data and Forensics
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
'Just ignore Farage': Boris Johnson tells Tories how to counter the rise of Reform - as calls grow for former PM to lead the Conservatives once again
Boris Johnson has suggested that the best way for the Conservative Party to tackle the rise of Reform is to simply ignore them. The former prime minister, who led the Tories when the Brexit Party, now known as Reform, was polling at 'zero per cent,' believes that attacking them head-on is a waste of energy. Speaking about his time leading the Conservative Party, Mr Johnson pointed out that Reform's popularity in the polls was practically non-existent when he was in charge. He said that his approach was clear: 'My strategy with the individuals that you mention is don't talk about them.' He added: 'I think Conservatives need to focus on the economy and making life better for people and giving people opportunity. 'I think if we concentrate on the economy we mount full spectrum warfare on all the things that Starmer is doing wrong, we will win.' His advice comes after Reform's rise in the polls, with the party making a significant impact in the May local elections. Meanwhile, some Tory MPs have been calling for the former prime minister to make a dramatic return to the Commons, hoping he can evive the ailing Conservative Party. The former prime minister, who led the Tories when the Brexit Party, now known as Reform, was polling at 'zero per cent,' believes that attacking them head-on is a waste of energy Meanwhile, some Tory MPs have been calling for the former prime minister to make a dramatic return to the Commons, hoping he can evive the ailing Conservative Party Reform gained control of seven local authorities and became the largest party in three more, a stunning sweep that left Conservative strongholds in tatters. His remarks come amid growing concern in Conservative ranks about the threat from Reform, which has seen increasing support, particularly since the last general election. While the Tories lost a staggering 252 seats and only managed a 23.2 per cent vote share, Reform surged to secure five seats with 14.3 per cent of the vote. In recent months, both Sir Keir Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch have come under fire for spending too much time attacking Reform. Mrs. Badenoch, in a March interview with The Telegraph, dismissed Nigel Farage as a 'reality TV star,' suggesting that government should not be about drama. But Farage fired back, saying it was a good thing people knew who he was, comparing his TV background to Donald Trump's unconventional political rise. In May, the Prime Minister escalated his rhetoric, attacking Reform directly and calling them his main political rival. Yet, his attempt to discredit the party has only backfired. Last month, he echoed Reform's tough stance on immigration, warning that Britain could become an 'island of strangers.' His words sparked outrage among Labour MPs, and he was forced to walk back the comment, admitting regret. In May this year, Mr Johnson's allies were reportedly trying to convince him to make a bombshell return. Mrs Badenoch attempted to play down the prospect of a political return by Mr Johnson in a TV interview this morning, telling GB News: 'So, I love Boris. 'He sends me lots of messages, gives me lots of advice, like Iain Duncan Smith, like David Cameron. 'I have great people who have been in this situation before, who dealt with difficult times. So it's up to him what he wants to do. 'I have to focus on my job, which is making sure that Keir Starmer does not do more than the damage he's doing right now. 'We have to get him out in four years time, otherwise there's not going to be a country left I'm afraid.'
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
ANDREW NEIL: We've become an unserious country. We're rudderless, adrift in a sea of troubles rather than in command of our destiny. And our leaders are to blame.
By common consent, on the Left almost as much as on the Right, Keir Starmer has got off to the worst start ever of any incoming British Prime Minister swept to power with a large working majority, as he was a year ago yesterday. 'Can he get the show back on the road before more damage is done?' I asked a senior Labour minister this week. 'Yes, he can,' came the reply.
