The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has produced a report examining the broad financial position of the 32 local authorities that will form the ‘election battleground’ for the first scheduled ballot box test of the Starmer government in May 2025.

With the Tories controlling the majority of these councils, against the backdrop of Labour’s new austerity agenda, it will be necessary for anti-austerity campaigners not just to say ‘no cuts’ but to explain how councillors could defy the government and defend local public services. 

This report – available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2025-Reserves-Report.pdf – provides the detail for the battleground councils to supplement previously published TUSC material on how it is possible to prepare a no cuts People’s Budget (see the 55-page briefing document at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/450.pdf). ■