Free Republic

The scale of the electoral challenge facing Labour has been laid bare as the party haemorrhages councillors at the local elections and Reform makes significant gains. Keir Starmer’s party went into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as “tough”. Initial results overnight painted a bleak picture for the prime minister, with Labour losing councillors in its traditional northern heartlands. Reform took control of its first council at around 6am, gaining overall control of Newcastle-under-Lyme from Labour. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, described the early results as a “historic change in...

Study of England, Scotland and Wales dispels myth of ‘Asian grooming gangs’ popularised by far right The majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30, an official paper has said. The report, which covers England, Scotland and Wales and summarises a range of studies on the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE), also known as grooming gangs, said there was not enough evidence to conclude that child sexual abuse gangs were disproportionately made up of Asian offenders. High-profile cases including in Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford have involved groups of men...