Chancellor said she understood the focus on possible deal with US, but added the EU remained ‘our nearest neighbours and trading partners’A successful result for Reform UK in next week’s local elections will bring down the proportion of women in local government, an academic study suggests.Researchers at the University of Essex says that Reform has been worse than any of the other main parties at selecting women to be council candidates and that this could result in local government becoming more male than it already is.Reform have lower levels of female candidates (less than a quarter) than the Conservatives (not quite 30%). The Greens and Labour are at over 40% overall and LibDems, Others/Indys and local parties hitting the 30-33% mark.The introduction of widespread Reform candidates, and particularly if they win, has widened the gender gap.Liberal Democrat HOLDThatcham North East (West Berkshire) council by-election result:SNP HOLD Glenrothes Central and Thornton (Fife) council by-election result:SNP: 47.6% (-1.1)Labour HOLD St John’s (Suffolk) council by-election result:LAB: 28.0% (-19.7)Reform GAIN from Independent Marine (Arun) council by-election result:REF: 26.0% (+26.0) Continue reading...