Reform UK accused of ‘empty rhetoric’ over plan to hike council tax 5% in Derbyshire
A Reform-led local authority has confirmed it is planning to increase council tax by the maximum allowed amount, despite promises during the local election to reduce taxes.Derbyshire county council confirmed the rise after predicting a £38m gap in its budget, with overspends in children’s social care and adult social care.It is now one of four local authorities where Reform UK has a majority or is the biggest party to have proposed 5% council tax rises, according to recent announcements.This includes North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Leicestershire county councils.In addition, a 5% council tax rise has not been ruled out by leaders at Reform-led Lancashire and Kent county councils, as well as in Warwickshire.
Local authorities are due to approve council tax proposals in late February or early March.In December, the government published its funding plans for local authorities, which assumed most would raise council tax by the maximum amount.The increase in council tax in Derbyshire is expected to raise about £29m this financial year and will coincide with a new round of cuts worth £22m, according to its budget saving proposals.The savings do not appear to include significant job cuts, despite council leader, Alan Graves, pledging to do so after claiming the local authority was 20% overstaffed.The budget proposals report blames inflation, rising demand and the government’s new local government funding formula as having contributed to budgetary pressures.
It states the council “being a rural shire county has suffered as a result of the reforms” and in order to “maintain funding levels there will be a need to set increases in council tax at the maximum permitted level”.The proposed increase in council tax has attracted criticism from opposition councillors in Derbyshire who accuse the party of “empty rhetoric”.Conservative opposition leader, Alex Dale, said: “It is now painfully clear that Reform’s promise to ‘cut your taxes’, plastered across leaflets and campaign material right across the county in last year’s elections, was nothing more than empty rhetoric.“Residents were sold a simple slogan, but the reality is that those promises were as worthless as the paper they were printed on.”Gez Kinsella, the leader of the Green group at the council, said the party had promised to “cut taxes and improve services”, adding: “Reform’s ‘moon on a stick’ promises are turning out to be as true as the previous Conservative administration fantasy economics.
”Kinsella shared leaflets and letters he said Reform had distributed in Derbyshire before the local elections which pledged to “cut your taxes” and criticised rising council tax bills amid cuts to services.In March this year, Derbyshire councillor Martin Bromley also posted an image on Facebook which included the statement: “Say no to Labour … say no to increased council tax.”Reform UK said it never promised to freeze or reduce council tax during the election campaign and any pledges to reduce taxes were in relation to national policy.Similar criticisms have also been raised at other Reform-led councils.Leicestershire county council leader, Dan Harrison, declared the party would be able to “cut council tax” after the May local elections.
However, just six months later, Harrison conceded that, although “a council tax freeze is our aspiration … conditions are unlikely to allow this for next year”.Reform took control of 10 local authorities and became the largest party in three others in May, with the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, promising to tackle “wasteful” spending as well as scrap net zero and diversity and inclusion initiatives.Councils are legally required to ensure a balanced budget.The proposals put forward by Derbyshire council of an £838m budget for the upcoming year is about £38m below what the authority said it needs.Like the previous Conservative administration, Reform will have to rely on part of the authority’s reserves to support “ongoing budget pressures,” a move it acknowledges is “not financially sustainable”.
The plans are expected to be considered by the council in the coming weeks.The cabinet member for council efficiency (Doge) at Derbyshire county council, John Lawson, said in response that next year’s council tax increase was still under review.“There is still work to do as we look at the numbers across the board.No decisions have been made as yet, and a final proposal will be put to cabinet to discuss at its meeting on 29 January,” he saidThe best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.
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‘I felt violated’: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot crosses a line
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Happy new year! I hope your 2026 is off to a great start. Today in tech, we are examining the output of Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, and the US’s ban on foreign drones.Late last week, Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot unleashed a flood of images of women, nude and in very little clothing, both real and imagined, in response to users’ public requests on X, formerly Twitter. Mixed in with the generated images of adults were ones of young girls – children – likewise wearing “minimal clothing”, according to Grok itself
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The billionaire boss of the chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has unveiled new AI technology that he says will help self-driving cars think like humans to navigate more complex situations.The world’s most valuable company is to roll out the new technology, Alpamayo, which is designed to help self-driving cars handle tricky situations such as sudden roadworks or unusual driver behaviour on the road, rather than just reacting to previous patterns.Nvidia claims Alpamayo will bring chain-of-thought reasoning to self-driving vehicles, combining what the car sees with language-like reasoning.In a speech at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Nvidia founder and chief executive said: “The ChatGPT moment for physical AI is here, when machines begin to understand, reason and act in the real world. Robotaxis are among the first to benefit
Leading AI expert delays timeline for its possible destruction of humanity
A leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions unchecked AI development leading to the creation of a superintelligence, which – after outfoxing world leaders – destroys humanity.The scenario rapidly won admirers and detractors. The US vice-president, JD Vance, appeared to reference AI 2027 in an interview last May when discussing the US’s artificial intelligence arms race with China. Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at New York University, called the piece a “work of fiction” and various of its conclusions “pure science fiction mumbo jumbo”
AI images of Maduro capture reap millions of views on social media
Minutes after Donald Trump announced a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela early on Saturday morning, false and misleading AI-generated images began flooding social media. There were fake photos of Nicolás Maduro being escorted off a plane by US law enforcement agents, images of jubilant Venezuelans pouring into the streets of Caracas and videos of missiles raining down on the city – all fake.The fabricated content intermixed with real videos and photos of US aircraft flying over the Venezuelan capital and explosions lighting up the dark sky. A lack of verified information about the raid coupled with AI tools’ rapidly advancing capabilities made discerning fact from fiction about the incursion on Caracas difficult.By the time Trump posted a verified photo of Maduro blindfolded, handcuffed and dressed in grey sweatpants aboard the USS Iwo Jima warship, the fake images with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents had already gone viral
Grok AI still being used to digitally undress women and children despite suspension pledge
Degrading images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed by Grok AI continue to be shared on Elon Musk’s X, despite the platform’s commitment to suspend users who generate them.After days of concern over use of the chatbot to alter photographs to create sexualised pictures of real women and children stripped to their underwear without their consent, the UK’s communication’s watchdog, Ofcom, said on Monday that it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK”. Ofcom added that it would assess whether an investigation is necessary based on the company’s response.Meanwhile, politicians and women’s rights campaigners accused the UK government of “dragging its heels” by failing to enact legislation that was passed six months ago making the creation of such intimate images illegal.The trend, which went viral over the new year period, also prompted the European Commission to say on Monday that it was “very seriously” looking into complaints that Grok was being used to generate and disseminate sexually explicit childlike images
Mother of one of Elon Musk’s sons ‘horrified’ at use of Grok to create fake sexualised images of her
The mother of one of Elon Musk’s sons has said she felt “horrified and violated” after fans of the billionaire used his AI tool, Grok, to create fake sexualised images of her by manipulating real pictures.The writer and political strategist Ashley St Clair, who became estranged from Musk after the birth of their child in 2024, told the Guardian that supporters of the X owner were using the tool to create a form of revenge porn, and had even undressed a picture of her as a child.Grok has come under fire from lawmakers and regulators worldwide after it emerged it had been used to virtually undress images of women and children, and show them in compromising sexualised positions. The widespread sexual abuse consists of X users asking Grok to manipulate pictures of fully clothed women to put them in bikinis, on their knees, and cover them in what looks like semen.“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” St Clair said of an image in which she has been put into a bikini, turned around and bent over
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