Until recently, it has been unusual for governments of any political persuasion to postpone or cancel a local election. There are examples, such as the cancellation of Greater London Council elections in 1985, which was abolished a year later. Then there was the cancellation during the Covid pandemic, more understandable in that unprecedented and untypical time, although other countries did manage to hold elections during that crisis.
But then came the 2024 Labour Government and over a period of less than a year, there have been not one, but three such cancellations or postponements. So let's clear up one thing: is it a cancellation or a postponement? The bleating on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government website about ‘misleading' reporting and claiming that elections haven't been cancelled but postponed, is a bizarre act from a government department. We simply must ask the question: how many postponements make a cancellation? If you take the right to vote away at the specified and regular time you can call it an elephant if you like, you are still denying the right to vote. Also, if elections don't take place for an organisation and that organisation is then abolished and replaced with something else - the election has indeed been cancelled not postponed.
