8th May 2026 - Council Elections
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Yesterday was voting day for a third of council seats in the UK. All 
of Solihull's seats were up for election. Today has been a bit of an 
odd one. I tend to not look at council election results. I check local 
results and only care about those. I have firmly been a believer in 
voting for those who are local and do things, regardless of party. 
Well, within reason. I do not believe I could vote for Reform, a party 
led by frog eyes, money sucker, knob end, scammer Nigel Farage. He is 
scum and the sort of dangerously charasmatic scum who leads people to 
spite themselves. Reform has ended up winning a lot of seats. People 
are voting as Nigel seems to represent a change from the usual soul 
sucking political classes when actually he is a shyster who is in it 
for the cash. The party claims to check those who want to stand in 
elections but often they end up with racists, xenophobic or general 
nutters. After all, you have to pay to be considered to run in 
elections. More nutters = more cash in the party coffers. The party is 
also not ran like normal parties. It is a company with Farage and 
Richard Tice as the sole directors. They control the cash and so 
control the party with no oversight. Bloody ridiculous but people are 
fed up of the usual political parties and so end up voting for a party 
who's candidates promise to lower taxes and stop those pesky 
immigrants when running for council roles. Yes, those councils whose 
sole role is sorting out the local social care, schools, bins and 
other local services. At best, they might reduce council tax by 
sacking the diversity officer and so reduce council tax by 0.01p for 
each band A property, a minority of tax payers. 

Reform has won seats in Solihull. In my ward, they won 2 out of the 3 
seats. A real shame and one I wish didn't happen. Hopefully they might 
actually care and do something to help. Thankfully the lib dem 
candidate who is passionate and vocal about the community has retained 
their seat. She seems to be a prime example of someone who should be 
elected for public service. 

While it all looks like doom and gloom with Reform winning lots of 
seats, they remain a minority party. Also the Greens did pretty well 
and Lib Dems increased too. Hopefully Reform's lot keep up the trend 
of those who were elected previously and doing strange things which 
lead to their being removed or quitting. They have done well at that 
sort of thing so far. 

Running a council is a thankless task. It always costs too much while 
services are always being cut back and should be better. Enthusiastic 
people who care are who we need to do this. Who else can work out the 
least worst way that keeps things running even if we still grumble. So 
long as kids are educated, people are cared for, roads remain flat, 
parks cared for and the bins are collected, they are doing an amazing 
job.