Latest news with #Labour-dominated
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
First Reform councillor says no Labour seat safe
Wales' first elected Reform UK councillor has claimed his by-election victory means no Labour seat in the country is safe. Stuart Keyte won the Trevethin and Penygarn seat on Labour-dominated Torfaen council. The by-election was called following the resignation of a councillor from the ruling group, which retains a majority of 17. "I would imagine there isn't a Labour councillor, assembly member or MP who thinks their seat is safe if Trevethin and Penygarn is no longer a safe seat," said the former army major, who won by nearly 200 votes. "Perhaps then we can have a realisation that councillors, AMs and MPs are supposed to be servants not the bosses, they are not the masters supposed to impose an ideology." The election, held on Thursday, was the first time Reform - rebranded from leader Nigel Farage's Brexit Party - had won a seat at an election in Wales. But the new councillor will join an established group at the Civic Centre in Pontypool, as three previously independent councillors joined Reform in August last year. And the victory is in step with a trend towards success for the party in Wales, after it came second in 13 of the 32 Welsh constituencies at last summer's UK general election, securing 16.9% of the vote across Wales, compared to 5.4% in 2019 when it stood as the Brexit Party. Its council group leader David Thomas hit the headlines on the eve of the by-election when Reform denied he had composed crude songs, posted online more than a decade ago, credited to him and others, and linked to a record label he ran. Reform could win next Senedd election, party says Reform to challenge Labour at Senedd poll - Farage Reform could win lots of Senedd seats, says Farage Anthony Hunt, Labour leader of Torfaen council, said Mr Thomas should apologise and Labour MP for neighbouring Monmouthshire, Catherine Fookes, called for him to resign. On the day of the election, Mr Thomas and his two fellow Reform councillors were embroiled in a row over the opening of a Lidl supermarket in their Llantarnam ward in Cwmbran earlier in the week. The supermarket said there had not been an official opening. Mr Keyte said he had no concerns about the row over the "happy hardcore" dance tracks credited to his council group leader. He said: "It's not my type of music, I'm more of a classical music type. It's not something that concerns me. "I take it for what it is, I believe it's a smear campaign." The new councillor added he had been "too focused" on his campaign to raise it with Mr Thomas, who was a prominent supporter in the by-election. He added: "It didn't seem to be an issue when Mr Thomas was a Labour councillor." He also said it was "farcical" to suggest his colleagues would have attended a supermarket opening with their own scissors and ribbon and for staff to have posed for photographs with them. The semi-retired 64-year-old, who has been a volunteer with the Citizens Advice Service in Cwmbran and in Pretoria in South Africa, said he had "no doubt" his victory was a sign of potential further success in Wales, with the party targeting elections to the expanded Senedd next year. He said people were "looking for a change in support from somebody other than Labour or any other established parties for that matter". Mr Keyte, who lives in Wainfelin, Pontypool said as a councillor he wants to "get back to basics and see the place cleaned up, fences put back up and get a police presence". Labour won both Trevethin and Penygarn seats at the 2022 local government elections, with the Conservatives the only other party standing. Turnout in 2022 was 23%, which is slightly below the 24.7% of the electorate who voted in the by-election. Meanwhile, the Welsh Conservatives won a by-election, also held on 13 February, to fill the New Inn Upper vacancy on Pontypool Community Council, called due to the resignation of former Labour councillor Sue Malsom. Lidl denies Reform councillor officially opened shop Councillor not behind 'offensive' songs, Reform says Tories suffer first Welsh wipeout since 2001
New European
05-02-2025
- Politics
- New European
Migrants not learning the local language? No problem, says GB News
In search of a better life? Then simply move to another country – and don't even bother learning the local language. That – confusingly for its viewers, who are used to foam-flecked rants against immigration – is the view of GB News! The channel has run an interview on its website with an 'expat in Cyprus' named only as Jack raving about the benefits of migrating to the Mediterranean island. 'You feel relaxed here, with a holiday mood and ambience,' boasts Jack. Can't be bothered learning the local lingo? No bother. 'It is very common for individuals to speak English,' notes GB News. 'The only times a language barrier is noticeable is in the high mountains and rural villages, but Jack said the majority of expats do not go there.' And, anyway, you probably don't even need to mix with the natives. As the article points out, 'the country is home to lots of expat hotspots such as Limassol and Larnaca' so you can just mix with them. All worth remembering the next time a GB News host launches into a monologue about foreign ghettoes in Britain where people insist on speaking their own language! Meanwhile, 'Nigel Farage announces two huge defections in key seats', ran a headline in the Daily Express at the weekend on a story of such enormity it required two reporters, including the paper's deputy world news editor, Alice Scarsi. And who were these huge defections? Household names Cathy Hunt and Joe Quinn, who represent Woodhouse Close and Ferryhill respectively on Durham Council. Quinn defected directly from the Conservatives, while Hunt went via a brief spell as an independent after quitting the Tories when she wasn't selected for a seat under the council's soon-to-be-redrawn boundaries. 'The defections mean Reform now has a total of three councillors on Labour-dominated Durham County Council, which has a total of 163 councillors, according to the local authority,' the paper reported breathlessly (it actually has a total of 126 councillors, of which Labour holds 56, or 44%, which is a peculiar definition of 'Labour-dominated'). If that's not 'world news', what is?
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
One teacher's suicide should not lead to a loss of standards in education
Julia Waters, the sister of Ruth Perry, the headmistress who took her own life allegedly in response to a negative Ofsted review of her school, has accused its head Sir Martyn Oliver of showing inadequate commitment to reform after a 'defensive and complacent' performance in front of a parliamentary select committee. His main offence? Pointing out that 'there was no suggestion' that the inspectors who assessed and downgraded Perry's school (Caversham Primary in Berkshire) 'did a bad job or did anything wrong'. To Waters, this demonstrates merely that Ofsted is not 'making all the changes that are needed to prevent future deaths'. To her, the fact of her sister's suicide is proof that Ofsted needs to change. The Government agrees; it has acted on demands by trade unions to scrap single-word reviews for schools. At first glance, this might seem reasonable. Modern society tends always, in response to any tragic event, to demand steps to ensure that it never happens again. But when you actually interrogate the underlying logic, it is absurd. Ofsted's purpose is to accurately assess a school and then communicate that assessment clearly to parents, policymakers, and the public. So long as it does this, and its inspectors conduct themselves in a professional manner, it has done a laudable job, end of story. Samaritans strongly advise against blaming particular causes for a suicide. But the weaponisation of Perry's case by campaigners has totally ignored that principle, and any interrogation of it must do likewise. Perry's response was deeply tragic. But it was not a rational one. It was certainly not predictable by Ofsted, nor is it the inspectorate's job to try and predict it. To blame Ofsted for a suicide is to grade it on an explicitly irrational curve. Maybe this seems a callous line of argument, so let's boil it down to the fundamental question: should we downplay or even cover up for a poorly-performing school, in case one or more school leaders cannot cope with the shame of having their homework marked in public? If your answer is yes, just abolish Ofsted – and along with it league tables, our participation in PISA, and any other visible yardstick by which schools can be measured against an independent standard. This is the clear preference of the unions, and the policy pursued for decades in Labour-dominated Wales; it would undoubtedly be most effective if the priority is allowing school leaders of even the lowest calibres to sleep easily at night. But it would have dire consequences for school performance, as the collapse of standards in Wales demonstrates. It would disempower parents and subject hundreds of thousands of children to an inferior education, with all the attendant implications for their future prospects. How many children being placed on a worse life path is it worth to mitigate against one possible suicide? If that calculation makes you squeamish, tough; that's the trade-off at the heart of this policy question. The reflex to make sure any bad thing, however unique, never happens again creates a lot of bad policy. A sensible system is drawn up with an holistic understanding of trade-offs, takes reasonable precautions, and has a tolerance for black swans. Yet if your policy is to respond to every tragic event with reform, the system's actual tolerance is zero, and it ends up lurching piecemeal towards measures which are wildly cost-inefficient at best and actively counter-productive to the system's core purpose at worse. Sir Martyn is right. Beyond the personal tragedy of the Perry case, the critical questions about Ofsted are whether it did its job properly. If the inspectors conducted themselves professionally, and their assessment of Caversham Primary was accurate, then Ofsted did nothing wrong. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
