Government 'lost touch', says long-serving councillor

"Good Labour councillors who I've worked with over the years... all that experience has gone."

Speaking earlier this week, John Clarke's frustration at the election results for Nottinghamshire County Council was plain to see.

After Reform UK's decisive victory, other parties have started the inquest into what went wrong for them.

The Conservatives lost control of the authority and have been left with 17 seats - a net loss of 20 compared to the last election - and will now be the main opposition group.

Labour, on the other hand, were reduced to just four seats - the party's worst ever performance in an election for Nottinghamshire County Council, at least in its current form.

Clarke was one of the few who held on to their seats, maintaining a decades-long personal winning streak.

When he was first elected as a Gedling borough councillor in 1989, Neil Kinnock was Labour leader.

He has won every election he has stood in ever since, joining the county council in 1997 and becoming Gedling's leader in 2011.

He claims, however, that he has never been asked by his party what the secret to his success is, and he had considered not standing this year.

Had the election come a year before, when Labour was performing far better in the opinion polls, he said the result would likely have been very different.

"We should've walked into this place, but we haven't," Clarke said.

"I thought we'd do a lot better than that, but I think the government - my government - have lost touch with ordinary people."

He criticised the cutting of winter fuel payments for some pensioners, but stopped short of calling for a full U-turn.

"I think they need to look at it, and fairly obviously some people were taking it for a ride, but in most cases that was part of people's budget," he said.

"I represent a lot of vulnerable people, and they're very very angry. Lifelong Labour supporters who've said no."

There have been similar calls from some Labour MPs, but on Tuesday the government insisted it will not reverse the cuts.

But Clarke claimed the electoral drubbing was not purely down to national factors.

He is an outspoken opponent of plans that could see boroughs like Gedling combined with Nottingham city, and said his concerns were shared by voters in the election campaign.

"That came through loud and clear on the doorstep, on the bus, anywhere else, you could hear people chattering about it," he said.

"They do not want to be joined up with the city."

No decisions have been made over the future configuration of Nottinghamshire councils, but ministers say merging some authorities will help streamline services.

The city council's leader has previously argued the city is "significantly under-bounded" and said "we need to address that imbalance".

There has been acknowledgment from government that the local election results were "disappointing", and earlier this week Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC ministers were "reflecting on what the voters told us".

Clarke, however, issued a stark warning.

"I think the next general election is up for grabs at the moment, unless they start steering in another way."

The Labour Party was contacted for comment.

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