Rough and ready thoughts on the Bexley Council election

Some incredibly rough and ready thoughts on the Bexley Council election results – somewhere I think is interesting at a national level as it was very much a target for Reform but ended up being, at least on the surface, a pretty straightforward victory for the incumbent Tories. This is obviously a huge generalisation, but Bexley, as a borough is inherently small-c conservative (as well as capital-C Conservative). There is an inherent suspicion of anything radical, to the left or right. People like a good moan about The State of Things Today but they also don’t really want anything to change. I think this absolutely played into people choosing not to vote Reform. It would be risky to have them in power, and while in some parts of the country people may feel they have nothing to lose taking that risk, many voters in Bexley are far too cautious and far too comfortable to roll the dice. Tories and Labour focused solely on the threat of Reform, unlike the national campaign. We’ve seen a…