It’s been an exciting week, with local elections taking place on Thursday, resulting in significant gains for one of Britain’s smaller parties. This week also saw Trump reduce the priority of a UK-US trade deal, and the NHS announce plans to test trans children for autism and ADHD.
On Thursday, there were elections in 23 councils, as well as 6 mayoral elections and a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby.
These will have been watched closely by all parties, but by Labour in particular, as they’ll serve as an indicator of how people view the current Labour government - and it seems voters are not happy.
I’ll start with the by-election, which was won by Reform with a majority of just 6 votes. This overturned Labour’s majority of almost 15,000 in the seat, and means that Reform now has 5 MPs in Parliament.
This isn’t too surprising a result, considering the by-election was triggered when the previous Labour MP assaulted one of his own constituents.
Moving onto the mayoral elections, Reform managed to win in 2 of the areas, both of which had not previously had a mayor. Labour retained 3 of its mayors, while the Conservatives replaced Labour in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough. I’m sure Badenoch will be happy that her party won something, even if it was only one thing.
Finally, the council elections - Reform did very well here too, winning 10 councils and a total of 677 councillors. The Liberal Democrats did well too, winning 3 councils and 370 councillors, which is the highest except for Reform. The Greens also performed well, winning 79 councillors, which is 44 more than they previously held.
I am curious how the Reform councils are run, as the party has not won any councils before, and they said last month that they don’t actually have a plan on how to run councils. Of course, that may have changed now, but it still doesn’t bode well.
Many of you will be worried by just how well Reform performed in these elections, as is the Prime Minister. Starmer called the results “disappointing”, and that he is “determined we will go further and faster on the change people want to see”.
The only issue is, I don’t think he knows what change we want to see. Starmer is rightfully worried about Reform, but that’s not his base - the left is, and they’re all jumping ship too.
The more Labour moves to the right to win over Reform voters, the more they’ll lose votes on the left to the Liberal Democrats and Greens.
The White House has split negotiations with countries into ‘phases’, with the UK going into either phase two or three.
This means that Trump will not be focusing on a trade deal with Britain first, but will instead work towards making deals with the ‘phase one’ countries.
This further complicates Downing Street’s decision on whether to pick the US or EU for a trade deal, which the government has not been good at recently, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves favouring an EU trade deal, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer is open to either.
One of the main sticking points is that of food standards - the US wants Starmer to lower food standards so that American food can be sold in Britain, while the EU would require regulatory alignment with them for any trade deal to be made. This effectively means that Starmer has to pick one.
The government has announced plans to deny asylum seekers the right to stay in Britain if they have been convicted of sexual offences.
Currently, offenders who have been sentenced to over a year in prison can be refused asylum.
Asylum seekers would not be permitted to stay in the UK if they have committed any offence that would cause them to be included on the sex offenders register, including if the offence was committed abroad but would have resulted in the individual being placed on the register if it were to have happened in the UK.
Concerns have been raised that if the offence was committed abroad, the country’s judicial system may not be as robust as Britain’s, so the ruling may not be reliable.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has also said that there should be stronger rules to prevent judges from blocking the deportation of migrants on the basis of human rights.
Any child referred to a gender clinic will be ‘screened for neurodevelopmental conditions’, including autism and ADHD.
The change is being made due to a review which found that these conditions are disproportionately common in children with gender dysphoria, so the intentions may not be as sinister as they first sounded.
GP Dr Louise Irvine has praised the change, saying “The new service recognises that many also experience mental health, neurodevelopmental and/or personal, family or social complexities in their lives”.
However, Irvine also said that “The challenge will be to ensure NHS services can provide prompt access to appropriate service for any identified needs as waiting lists are currently very long”.
This is a key point, as though this new measure may detect more conditions, such as autism, there may be long waits before any follow-up appointments can be made.
I also wonder how the implementation will be handled, as it may sound to patients as if the NHS thinks that they only believe they are trans due to a potential neurodevelopmental condition.
You’re well over halfway through! You must have enjoyed my post to make it this far, so consider throwing a few quid my way.
Britain and the European Union may be close to signing a commitment to ‘free and open trade’.
This would definitely be of benefit to the UK, especially as Trump makes a UK-US trade deal less of a priority.
The agreement is currently a draft, but could be signed during a summit on the 19th May.
The NHS prescription charge usually increases each year, but has been frozen at £9.90 per item.
The freeze also applies to prescription pre-payment certificates, which allow people to pay for prescriptions before collecting them, which can make the overall cost lower than if they paid for each item individually.
See? Told you it was an exciting week. I didn’t expect Reform to do quite so well in the local elections - it’s certainly an interesting time in British politics. I hope that they mess up the running of their councils, which should dampen their growth. What about you, are you worried about Reform in the future?
Cover photo sourced from Owain Davies.
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