A ll parties struggle to invest local elections with meaning, because no party can alter the consequences of what is coming up to two decades of austerity. They can promise they’ll work hard for local people, and many of them will, but they can’t change the maths of inadequate funding and soaring social care costs. All they can do is hope to exist in an affluent enough area. Instead, the results are taken as a popularity contest, which – if things go your way – will hopefully supply enough buoyancy to last into a general election, and, if things don’t, will hopefully evaporate. In other words, these are ideal conditions for party leaders to say ridiculous things, but there’s no caveat for the unbridled nastiness that came out of Reform at the weekend. It promises to deport thousands of illegal immigrants (no change there) via locked detention centres (some change there, in the direction of “warehouseification”, borrowed from Donald Trump).…