The cost to the taxpayer of institutional care is huge while the outcomes are awful. Finding alternatives should be made a much higher priority.
River rescue, domestic violence support, junior sports teams, and groups combating loneliness have been given financial help.
From failing energy companies, to white elephant projects, many local authorities have continued to pour public money down the drain.
This should have happened a long time ago. We have a larger population than neighbouring cities such as Sunderland, York and Durham.
Labour isn’t focused on the second, preferring to blame others for problems, and too many of its activists aren’t the first, either.
Will it be: Keir On Course, So-So Starmer…or a Knightmare for the Labour Party in Hartlepool – and elsewhere?
Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s Mayor, and other city council leaders in the north have joined together to say that they “do not support further economic lockdowns”.
That was the norm of the past ten years, in the form of Farage’s parties. There’s no reason to assume that a new challenger won’t emerge.
The last in our series: how the 2017 generation of winners from Labour, increased their majorities.
Despite polarisation on Brexit, there is more agreement among voters than often appears – and therefore more cause for optimism.
They’ll bank what good news they can get, but net losses of councillors and authorities is not what they had hoped for.
That doesn’t mean the Party needs to move right; on the contrary, it means accommodating on issues such as the NHS.
We can make progress in these local elections next year – but not if we’re frustrated by stupid new rules.
In the last financial year, there were over 500 council employees earning more than the Prime Minister.
In my view, no Labour seat in County Durham is safe. The remaining seats all have majorities under 6,000.