Labour promised ‘ambitious reforms’, but it was fixing things that were not broken. And the moral: focus on what matters and stop making stupid mistakes
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hat were they thinking? Labour inherited the worst of everything, including prisons beyond breaking point, court backlogs as bad as NHS waiting lists, children cast into exceptional destitution, the National Grid unable to cope with demand, reservoirs unbuilt while sewage poured into rivers, high debt, no money and deep public distrust in politics. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were honest about what they found.
So what on earth can have seized them, within months of taking over, to decide this was a good time for a gigantic English council re-disorganisation? Angela Rayner, who was in charge of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at the time, kicked it off in December 2024. But why, when councils are near-bankrupt and crippled by the ballooning costs of social care and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities?
Steve Reed, the local government secretary, boasted to council leaders this week that it will “deliver the most ambitious reforms of local government in a generation”. But what for? Local government reform wasn’t in the manifesto. Until it was legally challenged – because the reorganisation would have delayed local elections in 30 places in England – it barely featured on the political horizon because it had no political purpose. Few people know much about what responsibilities fall to different layers of local authority and national government – which is why mayors are a good idea, putting an identifiable person in charge. Few people bother to vote: average council election turnout in 2024 was 30.8%, not much changed over recent decades. There was scant political mileage in this, but great organisational risk.
