• Chatterbox

One of the problems with listening to what he says is that there’s so much of it. According to this article in the New Yorker, in the first year of his second term he’s uttered 1,977,609 words in public, an increase of 245% over the first year of the first term. The obvious conclusion, the author points out, is that “he loves the sound of his own voice, and the slightly less obvious corollary that he has no one around him willing or able to tell him to shut up.”

The difference this time is that “he presides over a cowed American government, whose checks and balances no longer function as they used to, is that his administration is far more willing and able to turn his fantastical words into tangible realities.” The magazine diagnoses this as “the world’s most consequential case of untreated logorrhea”, a term that basically means an inability to shut up.

There’s also a strong strand of echolalia in there, which involves repeating phrases for no obvious reason. Regarding Greenland (or “Iceland” as he sometimes calls it: add compulsive malapropisms to the list) he said “we can do anything we want – we can do military, we can do anything we want.” So, as well as there being a lot of words, there are also a lot of the same ones. This is the kind of behaviour associated with very young and very old people, stroke victims and those quite far in to the red on the autism spectrum.

Given his ability to insult people seemingly without noticing, there’s also a dollop of Tourettes in there as well. All in all, we’re perhaps talking about a carnival of probably undiagnosed and certainly untreated conditions. These helped him get elected to office but, by many opinions, provide compelling evidence as to why he should not hold it.

• Power

Trouble is, this can be applied to many other leaders. Ruthlessness, conquest, mendacity, fraud or dynastic accident explain virtually every ascent to power. The methods needed to acquire power being very similar to those required to keep it, it’s not surprising that virtually no one who employs any other tactics succeeds.

With that in mind, it’s hard to regard Trump’s rise to power as that odd. He’s also managed to do what no US president perhaps since JFK has done which is to give direct expression to the idea of the USA’s manifest destiny as Top Nation. For the last eighty years, this position has been in any case unchallenged and self-evident in geo-political terms. Now it isn’t. He is re-energising the USA, just as Putin and Xi are doing in Russia and China. That’s what leaders of super-powers do.

Part of this involves stressing that the USA is strong enough on its own and that it doesn’t need its allies as much as its allies need the USA. There’s some truth in this. The distrust of NATO is a riff going back to 2017. If you’re going to claim that your country is the best, it’s illogical to offer much in the way of praise for its allies. These are, by definition, minor and dispensable. In the Orwellian three-state world to which we seem inexorably to be heading, everyone else is of little consequence. It therefore doesn’t greatly matter if you annoy them.

There’s therefore a compelling internal logic to what he said about NATO’s soldiers. His reasoning, if he thought about the remark at all, is that the more he makes the USA a big dog the less their reaction matters.

NATO is, he believes, a European plot to get the USA to fund its defence while they sip cappuccino, watch “soccer” and seduce their next-door neighbours. The whole decadent continent has been living on borrowed time, and money. Now, in his time-honoured transactional style, he’s calling the debt in.

• Money

Anyone who believes that many western governments are living on borrowed time, and money, can find compelling evidence of this in the crisis facing local councils in England. We take a look at the particular problems in our own West Berkshire below. However, these general points are widely applicable, even if they aren’t being widely faced.

Let’s wind back to the late 70s, just before the election of Margaret Thatcher: the hinge upon which the late twentieth century history of Britain swings. There was a welfare state, a public education system, house-building by councils and a whole raft of protections and safety nets. This was underpinned by a consensus by both parties between the governments of Atlee and Callaghan that this state infrastructure was sacrosanct. So too was the less beneficial raft of state monopolies including the unions.

Thatcher swept all this away. Councils were forced to sell off homes and not build new ones, the unions were largely defeated, monopolies broken up and sold off and the private sector was invited into every aspect of public life. Opinions differ as to how beneficial, short-term or long, these were.

For my part, I’d given her praise for privatising BT which was, in the early ’80s, the most appalling organisation to deal with. The malign effects of her housing policy, however, are still being felt today.

The real problem, though, is what happens in the early and last years of the average life.

• Beginnings and endings

We need to look after our children but direct and early intervention by the state is now frowned upon. Economically, this can lead to a lifetime of dependence on state support as a whole raft of special educational needs (SEN) conditions are now recognised. Diagnoses are often beneficial to the individual but are incredibly expensive to cater for.

At the other end of the timeline, life expectancy is increasing. A long life is not, however, always a healthy or a self-sufficient one. More than one condition can almost exponentially multiply the time and thus the costs required to manage them.

The state services being quite unable to cope with these early- or late-years demand, a vast number of private providers have sprung up. Regulation as regards pricing seems best to be described as light-touch. When you have a largely unregulated sector operating at a time of high demand to provide services which must by law be provided, there’s only going to be one result.

So we have children’s homes, SEN provision, adult social-care and care homes for the elderly. Who pays for these?

Your council does. Are they being funded in order to provide these? No. Twenty years ago, West Berkshire might have spent half its budget on social care and children’s services. Now it’s closer to 70%. Other councils with these responsibilities would probably say the same.

Can we continue to provide this level of service? Self-evidently, we can’t. Local councils also provide hundreds of other services, many of which are wholly or partly non-statutory. These include libraries, leisure facilities, open spaces, environmental initiatives and arts support.

There are also decisions they have to take about how many potholes they fix, what waste they recycle and what personal projects they develop. If they have to choose between a statutory and a non-statutory service, there’s only going to be one winner. If a library closes, a sports field is sold off or a worthy environmental project ends, it’s gone for good.

Final question. The UK is about the sixth richest country in the world. We’re being taxed almost every time we breathe and yet there’s still no money. Where is it all? I have absolutely no idea.

• No answer

This might seem like I’m about to tell you I’ve joined Reform UK. Nothing could be further from the truth. What this bunch of opportunists has cleverly done, however, is to learn the lessons of Brexit: if your life is not as you were promised, we’ll provide an enemy (the EU, the Tories, the judges, immigrants, etc) whom you can blame.

There are real and present threats that we face, the main one of which is a complete disconnect between what governments have promised and what, in these massively changed circumstances, they can afford to provide.

Reform UK isn’t the answer to this, or anything else. There needs to be a new and rational consensus, such as existed in pre-Thatcher times, that certain truths are self-evident. One of these is that we can no longer afford our current welfare state under our current taxation system, whereby wealth is less taxed than income.  If that point can be agreed we might have some chance of agreeing what can be done about it.

Business rates are a classic example of how badly disconnected the system has become: speaking of which…

• Business rates

If you were going to think of a way to tax companies then you surely wouldn’t come up with this one – a charge based upon the notional value of their property rather than on their income or profits. (Much the same accusation can made against council tax.) This is bad enough: but it’s when you look at the way the money’s collected that the madness really starts to bite.

The charges are set nationally but collected locally. Most of this (87% in West Berkshire’s case) is then sent back to Whitehall, this then being re-distributed to coucils which are less able to raise these sums. Several parliamentary committees in recent years have slammed this system, not least because of its inefficiencies.

Last year, West Berkshire retained only about 30% of what it collected.So it’s impossible to see why the Council should encourage businesses to set up shop here. Once again, councils are being used as underpaid government servants.

There has to be a better system than this. Businesses that are profitable pay corporation tax. This is surely a better and simpler way of raising money. It’s not as if businesses derive any benefits whatsoever from the council that collects this tax.

The government recently announced a partial back-track on this, but only with a small reduction and only for pubs and music venues. This is in some ways the worst of all options: the relief, for those that get it, will be welcome, though perhaps not enough to stave off insolvency; while the fact that this has been mentioned at all shows that the government is aware the system’s flawed but that it hasn’t yet got round to trying to fix it properly.

• CIL contortions in Waverley

Since the scandal of the weaponisation of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charges against residents in West Berkshire was sorted in March 2024, our attention has shifted to another WBC – Waverley Borough Council in Surrey – which has persisted in this policy.

“Over 150 councils operate CIL,” a statement from Waverley’s opposition leader announced on 28 January. “Yet only West Berkshire and Waverley have seen this clustering of cases. That points to local issues in implementation.”

Indeed it might. Even though another WBC authority, Wokingham Borough Council, has some cases, including one of over £100,000 which is driving the victim half out of his mind with anxiety, it can’t be just the initials. Is there a connection between West Berkshire and Waverley aside from this?

In Waverley, the issue was most recently raised as a result of a petition launched by local resident Steve Dally which was considered at the full council meeting on 27 January.

It was a strange event, with procedural wrangles, debateable constitutional interpretations, unexplained adjournments, sound problems, bouncers, warning notices in the chamber and a walk-out by the main group of protestors. The matter was discussed with the greatest reluctance by the administration which defended its position with a rather unconvincing amount of casuistry.

In essence, Waverley’s position is that it has no power to exercise discretion with CIL charges, despite the fact that several councils have done this by exempting private extensions (which are the issue here) in the first place and that the one council that has reversed its policy, West Berkshire, did so nearly two years ago with no comeback.

Arguments about legal precedents, court judgments, judicial reviews and ministerial guidance abounded. There was also a submitted statement from a resident, which wasn’t read out, which trenchantly criticised Waverley for “the persistent lack of meaningful opportunities for residents to engage with, question or interact with councillors.”

All in all, it was all rather unedifying – as examples of councils in full corporate defensiveness mode often are – and didn’t greatly impress many of the opponents. Waverley does not appear to be a happy ship.

Nor was West Berkshire Council when it conducted in 2022 a defenestration of a serving councillor, Claire Rowles, who had had the courage to stand up to the Council on the CIL issue. She lost that particular battle but, more importantly, won the war, thanks in part to the incoming administration honouring its election pledge. This episode marked a low-point in my respect for the people running West Berkshire. I doubt that anyone watching the Waverley meeting will have come to a different conclusion about their own authority.

Perhaps crucially, Waverley admitted that a fresh look at the CIL legislation was needed. Almost everyone agrees on this: the question is whether the government will act to reform this essentially beneficial but badly-drafted legislation, and apply this retrospectively. In the process, it should remove the foolish amount of discretion that’s accorded to planning authorities in interpreting it.

The result of the meeting was a compromise of sorts after the opposition managed to add a clause to the motion following the debate that voted to commission an independent investigation into Waverley Borough Council’s CIL practices. This was passed unanimously.

Criticising the Council’s discretionary review, Opposition leader Jane Austin said that “progress has been devastatingly slow. Over the past year, residents have been left anxious, distressed and in limbo. No cases have been resolved in twelve months. That is not the behaviour of a Council showing concern for its residents.” 

• And finally…

• Reform recently scored another high-profile defection with the not entirely surprising migration to the even-further right of Suella Braverman. The whole affair was tarnished by the accusation that the Tories had tried to tarnish her by referring to her mental health. Kemi Badenoch later apologised, saying that “the comment was “completely wrong and not the kind of culture we should have in our party”. Well, no: but the statement was issued, so draw your own conclusions.

Kemi: you’ve got to get a grip on this. The opinion polls currently put your rapidly-diminishing party at about 18% of the vote: in the general election in 2024 you got 23.7%. Your job, which your party has done for decades, is to prevent the wild-west area of the right wing from being overwhelmed by even more opportunistic and extremist libertarian and nationalistic weirdos than you’re prepared to accept in your own flock. You’re failing in that, big time. You’ve abandoned the defences on your right and the illegal migrants from Reform are swarming in. Sort it out.

• Meanwhile, one person who won’t be returning to the Commons bear pit any time soon is the so-called King of the North, Andy Burnham. His bid to stand in the the Gorton and Denton by-election was blocked by Labour’s NEC, which includes the Prime Minister. Starmer, perhaps rightly, seems to see Burnham as even more of a threat to his position than Farage.

The argument used was the party didn’t need, and couldn’t afford, the distraction of a second and “avoidable” by-election for Burnham’s role as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Believe that or not, as you choose.

• More and more horror stories seem to emerging from Iran, none of which are that surprising when you have people protesting against a theocracy run by elderly men. Whether Trump’s threats to take direct action will help is another matter.

• And speaking of religion, the new Archbishop of Canterbury has said she’s “committed to speaking out about misogyny where she sees it.” Fine. However, the real problem is the CofE’s terrible record in dealing with abuse. In fairness, this was an issue she addressed in her interview with the BBC to mark her enthronement: but, as we’ve seen before, talk is cheap. The report was also full of the vapid platitudes in which this state monopoly has long specialised.

• The government’s recently announced a substantial investment in rail infrastructure in the north of England. Credit where credit’s due: the penny seems to have dropped if you want to benefit the north, you don’t build an insanely expensive rail line between London and the Midlands. Who knew?

• The Champions League has reached its half-way point with the conclusions of the groups games, the final table giving five of the six English clubs an automatic berth into the next round without having to face the play-offs. I won’t revise my recent forecast: an English club will be in the final, but will lose to Real, Bayern or PSG. Do you want the score? Let me polish my crystal ball and I may answer that closer to the event…

Across the area

• WBC’s money

The recent government settlement for West Berkshire Council’s finances was not good news. Despite a cushion in 2026-27, WBC will receive about £28m less over the next three years. Given the increasingly high cost of statutory services (which cannot be dispensed with) this is potentially bad news for libraries, sports provision, arts and environmental projects which are not statutory. WBC’s leader Jeff Brooks assured me that he would push back as much as he could and “rage against the dying of the light.”

We have been here before, of course. About ten years ago a similar austerity drive would have resulted in the closure of all the libraries bar Newbury’s if local opposition had not found a volunteer-based compromise (or, in Hungerford’s case, an asset transfer).

It’s important to understand what a local council does. As Ross MacKinnon, the opposition leader, pointed out in a debate a few months ago, the two services that everyone knows about because we all use them are bins and roads. He’s right: but the most expensive ones are children and social care. These accounted for nearly two-thirds of the expenditure in 2025-26 and that won’t diminish.

Some of the more detailed figures are even more harrowing. Because of the mandatory costs associated with the provision for particularly vulnerable people, some can cost the Council £1m each a year. In 2019, the most expensive twenty-five people in the district needing specialist support cost WBC about £5m. In 2025 it was £13m.

No one, least of all Jeff Brooks, is saying that this money shouldn’t be spent. It’s the law and it’s what most think is the right thing to do. However, one has to wonder how much longer this can continue. The situation has been exacerbated by years of austerity and inflated by spectacular charge increases by some providers. People will become particularly restive if these are accompanied with a decline of  services on which we’ve come to rely

Unitary councils like WBC are increasingly being reduced to agents of the government; delivering their policy but without sufficient resources to pay for the costs involved. Even those which it’s they’re directly responsible for, as matters stand, cost it money.

The mushrooming SEN costs are kept off the municipal balanced sheets lest every council responsible for them goes bango overnight. The councils are, however, responsible  for servicing the debt. Add another £2m or so a year onto WBC’s costs for that.

The government’s plan is to focus money on areas of high deprivation. WBC has less of these than do many districts, but pockets exist. Moreover, the big costs remain. Money is needed in early-years intervention everywhere to prevent worse problems later. At the other end of the scale, the health needs of elderly people are largely unaffected by the wealth of the area, unless they resort to private care. Most won’t.

West Berkshire Council will debate a motion on Thursday 29 January which seeks to highlight the reduction in its funding from central government. Job losses for council staff are on the agenda as well.

As mentioned last week, this has been suggested as a high-risk strategy by the opposing Conservative group, which will boycott the meeting. The fear is that criticising the government will produce no results but will reduce the chances of further exceptional support being provided.

The administration says that it has already made representations to Whitehall before the deadline and feels that a council vote on its objection to the settlement will add to the impact.

The minority group will attend but, at the time of writing, has not decided what collective position, if any, it will adopt.

There are political aspects to this, from both the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. In my view these cancel out and are in any case dwarfed by the scale of the financial problem the Council faces. I’m not sure it would have been greatly different were the parties’ election results over the last twenty years to have been reversed. Nor am I sure what any opposition members would suggest doing as an alternative.

This is a real crisis, and not just for WBC. About thirty councils, all unitary authorities like WBC, currently get exceptional funding and this could easily double in the next few months. This is, perhaps, seen in Whitehall as a better option that the dramatic S114 notices, admissions of effective bankruptcy.

Many of us rely on or benefit from services from our council, some of which they are not obliged to provide. Depending on where you live, these may start to be chiselled away. We all need to fight and campaign for what we feel needs to be saved and rage our own battle against the dying of the light.

A final point is that many local politicians I’ve spoken to despair at how hard it is to convince people of the seriousness of the immediate threat. I’ve done my best to express this here. The politicians have their own role to play as well. At times of extreme crisis, party differences are set aside and a common policy is adopted on a particular mater. This doesn’t happen often but, when it does (like in 1940 or during the early months of the pandemic) it gets our attention.

If the parties in West Berkshire recognised that this existential financial threat was very grave, and impossible for any one party to solve, and provided a united front, residents might take the problem more seriously. Opposition Boycotts “Irresponsible” Council Meeting is a good headline: Local Parties Combine to Push Back on Financial Settlement would be an far better one.

• Enforcement

West Berkshire Council is inviting residents to share their views on the draft Planning Enforcement Plan during a six-week public consultation running until Monday, 9 March 2026.

“Planning enforcement plays a vital role in ensuring development across West Berkshire is carried out in line with planning permissions, helping to protect the character and amenity of our communities,” a statement from the Council asserts. The also quotes portfolio holder Denise Gaines as saying that “Planning enforcement is essential to maintaining trust in the planning system and protecting our communities.”

Vital? Essential? perhaps another word is needed. “Local planning authorities have responsibility for taking whatever enforcement action may be necessary, in the public interest, in their administrative areas,” says the Gov.uk website. Planning authorities are obliged to investigate planning breaches but not to do anything about them. This seems one or two steps down from “vital” or “essential” to me.

Be that as it may, the proposals that WBC is considering seem fairly sensible. What’s really needed is a change in the law to make all planning conditions legally enforceable and to fund the planning authorities properly to do perform this.

This clearly isn’t going to happen, however, so instead we have a system where a large amount of time and expertise is spent on determining applications and the conditions that are attached to these but with pretty good odds of getting away with any breaches. This is beyond WBC’s power to fix, however.

You can click here for more information on the consultation and how to take part, which you need to have done by 5pm on Monday 9 March.

• An AGM for CCB

Connecting Communities in Berkshire (CCB) is an independent charity with fifty years of experience in community development work, originally founded in 1973 as a Rural Community Council. To quote the charity’s website, “our team is knowledgeable and experienced in finding solutions that best meet the needs of communities. We develop partnerships that foster good communications, which in turn build engagement and deliver strong, sustainable communities.”

On 28 January, CCB held its AGM in Chieveley Village Hall, which Penny Post attended along with over fifty other people, representing various organisations which work with or were supported by CCB. The event also included a 21st Century Community Halls case study event which enabled attendees to learn more about the work CCB is doing in this area.

You can click here to read our report on the event, which includes comments from some of the attendees and members of the CCB team.

News from your local councils