Reform swept into local government last May. A heady night gave the insurgent populist right party control of ten councils and a plurality in several more. Nigel Farage’s acolytes promised to cut down on wasteful “DEI” spending, keep council tax down and establish a UK version of Elon Musk’s notorious Doge.
However, the reality of government is somewhat different. As I’ve written before, local government finance in the UK is fundamentally broken. Decades of underinvestment and degrading of services alongside rising demand for social care have pushed several councils over the edge into bankruptcy, although often…