Saba Salman

Well, let me paint you a little picture of Sunderland.

Come with me as I take you to one of the big reform rallies.

Absolutely.

So I'll just take you to Sunderland with me now.

So if you picture a scene, 2,000 strong stadium room, big lights, music to announce all of the speakers and a tune that you may not know.

It's called Street Rev Anthem.

By an electronica pop producer.

That's right.

But, you know, small mercies, no Andrew Jenkins singing her own tune.

So at least that's something.

So, yes.

So in Sunderland, he's basically banging on about the same thing, which is low tax music.

community voices, which is kind of what local councillors do anyway, so not a difficult promise to make.

And they don't set the tax?

Well, council tax is set at a local level with guidance by government.

But I think what's interesting with the reform promises on this, as we've said in rotten boroughs, is that a lot of the reform councils have come in and said, we're not going to raise taxes, we're going to actually cut taxes.

And what's happened is they have raised them.

But the way it's being peddled is we've got the lowest raises in the country.

Therefore, we're sort of sticking to our manifesto.

So it's a cheeky way of retaining that popularity.