He added that the government would provide an extra £63m to the 21 areas affected.
This issue has trundled on for so long, the concern being cost on local government, and then it turns out it can be sorted out overnight with just £63m.
If you ran on a pledge to clean up politics, and you’re up against Reform saying “they’re all the same and all as bad as each other”, then it should be obvious that delaying elections because you’re scared about the results is not a good look.
Absolutely, for the low, low price of two new hospitals and a new primary school some more people get to join the grift train for a few months before the council they are elected to ceases to exist. Worth it.
£63m is less than £1 per UK citizen.
Good luck building 2 hospitals and a school for that price considering the new maternity and cancer ward in Aberdeen (which has a huge hospital site already so land isn’t an issue) is to cost over £400m.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6r5zy4zro
But I guess facts are an inconvenience when you’re trying to build resentment and anger in people.
If you cherry pick a badly run upgrade to a run-down hospital in the middle of a city as an example then of course the numbers will be high. If (like me) you choose a badly needed community hospital in a more remote and deprived area then £30m is easily enough.
I don’t want a penny of my taxes going on these particular elections since it is a massive waste and your flawed logic isn’t going to convince me otherwise.
Cherry pick? I gave a real life example. You’re making up numbers out of thin air to try and, what, prevent the democratic process?
But okay, let’s go for this again. You’ve now stipulated remote and deprived. Let’s try a primary school this time though. How much could that really cost?
Well, turns out it’s £18 million in a remote coastal town that has known poverty for the majority of its existence.
63 - 18 = 45
So £45 million left to create 2 new hospitals? 10% of the real life example that you’ve dismissed just because it proved you wrong. So 5% of a real life example, per hospital.
Aye, sure, awa and bile yer heed yi ignorant twerp.
What the fuck is Scotland doing wrong?
https://www.essex.gov.uk/news/2024/three-new-schools-open-start-autumn-term
Three new primary schools for £31m within a short commute of London.
63/10.3 = 6 Primary schools.
…and based on your reply that education is sorely needed.
Hmm that’s kinda the price of democracy though. It’s a lot of money for sure I’m not denying that. But we can’t have a system of democracy whereby we ignore the rules (I know I know how stupid that sounds given the UK, but we can try and be better 😂).
As a counterpoint, we held EU parliament elections in the UK in 2019 when we were leaving the EU. We could make the same argument there. But we did it to follow the rules that underpin good democratic governance (I know I know Brexit bad, grr shakes fist).
We did it because the EU made us.
They made us on a whim? Or because it was the law? Now apply that thinking here.
Difference here being we make the UK’s law.
Yes. And it is the law to conduct the elections. It wasn’t the law to “conduct regular elections unless you can’t be bothered in which case YOLO”. That’s why the courts ruled against the government.
Are you suggesting that if the government doesn’t find the law convenient it should just ignore it?
No I’m saying that the British government could pass primary legislation if it really wanted to and cancel the elections. Parliament is sovereign, but they just cancelled these elections in a really cack-handed way that forced them to backtrack (although they could in theory still take this route).
They didn’t really have that choice for the EU elections.
Hey now, that’s only the cost of 30 cruise missiles.
Labour keep making stupid decision after stupid decision.
