Last week, voters delivered an electoral earthquake in parts of England, rejecting both main parties on an unprecedented scale. So soon after a general election defeat and defending seats gained in the vaccine bounce of 2021, the local elections were always going to be difficult for the Conservatives, but Labour too lost two thirds of its councillors.

It has always been a source of frustration in local government that so many voters will decide who their ward councillor should be based on national politics, including what they think of the UK party leaders. For my own team, the UK party leader has had little to no influence over the way we have conducted our roles both in our wards and in county hall.

I felt so sorry for all those councillors who lost their seats on Friday – in many instances through no fault of their own. The tidal wave of support for, primarily, Reform washed out many councillors irrespective of whether they were good at their job or not. Most Reform councillors were elected without a plan for their local ward or even their county. Reform groups of councillors will now be running some councils in England without a manifesto because their leaflets were mainly full of soundbites from Nigel Farage about UK policies including immigration.

It seems such a disservice to the public to not explain what you would deliver if elected. At the last local election my team set out very clearly in bespoke ward-specific leaflets what they would do for their ward if elected. We also had a manifesto of what a Conservative-led council would deliver for residents in a five-year term. It’s worrying to think we now have so many inexperienced councillors leading local authorities, with responsibility for massive budgets, without a plan.

There’s no denying that Nigel Farage is a skilled and no-nonsense communicator. On immigration he’s right to identify that neither the Conservatives nor Labour have delivered. But he has no effective team around him who could run a local authority let alone a government. There are no proper checks on who their candidates are. Even one of their MPs has been jailed for assault, while another MP has already jumped ship. I worry about what comes next but to stop the rise of protest parties, Labour and the Conservatives need to raise their game, listen to the public and deliver on their expectations.