I famous this within the FT this morning:

Kent’s native authority is prone to elevate council tax charges subsequent yr as Reform UK has struggled to seek out massive financial savings below an Elon Musk-inspired cost-cutting drive.

They added:

Kent was considered one of 10 English councils that Nigel Farage’s rightwing populist celebration seized in a swath of victories at native elections in Could this yr. He vowed to save lots of “a whole lot of cash” by abolishing “wasteful” spending.

However Diane Morton, Reform’s cupboard member for grownup social care on Kent county council, informed the Monetary Occasions that companies in Kent have been already “right down to the naked bones”.

That is hardly stunning. Like all UK councils, Kent has suffered huge cuts over the past decade or so, and now solely barely supplies the statutory minimal stage of service required of it, nearly completely devoted to grownup and baby social care and particular instructional wants plus different important, and legally, in addition to socially, required companies, which compared wth these social companies do in any case come at low value and haven’t any room for nearly any additional cuts.

Reform, in different phrases, made claims about reducing prices that have been wholly unjustified.

Reform claimed that its councils would present simply how profitable they might be at remodeling authorities. Evidently they already are: what their councils are exhibiting is that there isn’t a additional room for cuts, and all the pieces that Reform has been saying is complete nonsense.

We could transfer on in that case? Being racist shouldn’t be a foundation for delivering helpful coverage at any stage of presidency, and since that’s all of the Reform has to supply, this end result was at all times inevitable, but it surely’s good to see it figuring out as anticipated in apply. Perhaps folks will take be aware.

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