Labour has forgotten the first rule of politics: let voters vote

Four million people will be denied the right to vote in local elections this year, unless Nigel Farage succeeds in a legal action to overturn the government's decision.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Twenty-seven councils, most of them Labour-controlled, have asked to delay elections that were due in May, because they will be abolished in 2028 or 2029. In other words, councillors who were elected for four years are asking to serve another two or three years without bothering the voters.

Steve Reed, the local government secretary, says opposition parties "want pointless elections" while "Labour wants to fix potholes". He has written an article lecturing the voters on what they really want. "Ask the public if they think it's a good idea to elect thousands of councillors to jobs that are set to be abolished," he says.

But that is precisely the problem. He is not planning to ask the public. Instead, he asked the councillors whether they thought it was a good idea not to have elections. Two-thirds of Labour councils said they thought it was, and one-third of Conservative councils. That allowed the government to pretend that this was a cross-party betrayal of democracy: Tory councils had requested "postponement", the government said, and it would not be so partisan as to refuse.