Why postpone elections?

 It can be argued that the Labour Government's decision last year to postpone the local elections due  next next  May was sensible. The councils concerned are to be reorganised  and their new councillors would be in office for only a year. Then the councils i would be abolished. 

Why waste money on elections when it could be better used for mending the potholes, as Labour's current response argues now that "legal advice" obtained as a result of protests by  Farage's Refom Party indicates that the move is illegal and will probably be reversed if it goes to court.

 Such an argument should not be taken to indicate agreement with the proposed reforms. In fact they are changes in quite the wrong direction. They take local councils  further away from the people they represent and thus make them even less responsive to our needs.  Before the  Edward Heath "reforms" in a similar wrong direction  in the early 60s there were around 75 000 councillors  serving the public.  If and when these reforms are implemented that total will be reduced to  around 11 000.

 It is interesting that today's  Guardian faces both ways on the reforms. On page one of the "Journal" section Polly Toynbee calls them a "botched plan."  On page two the Editorial says they are "a necessary administrative reform."  Take your pick.

 However, back to the rights and wrongs of the cancellation.  There is hardly any evidence of anyone ever cancelling an election they expect to win, and plenty of dictators and authoritarian governments which have cancelled election  which they fear they may no long be able to fix.  

Two-thirds of the authorities where the elections were to be cancelled are currently Labour-led, and the polls indicate that Labour is to receive a drubbing , and Reform make massive advances, in the elections next May. Would Labour have been quite so keen to cancel them had the reverse been the case?

 Whatever the truth It is easy to make the argument that the  cancellation decision was a cynical ploy to reduce the embarrassing size of the losses, and Reform and the Conservatives, probably the Liberal Democrats too, will not hesitate to make the most of it.

 We are in a period, not just in England but in the rest of the World, where what we took to be the democratic norms are becoming very fragile.  Tampering with the democratic process, for whatever reason, should be avoided at all costs.

 Labour has presented yet another open goal to the forces of reaction.  Oh dear.