The final week of the local election campaign begins today. Much of the weekend discourse was dominated by the fall-out from Robert Jenrick’s comments about a potential ‘coalition’ with Reform. Strikingly, Ben Houchen – the most senior Conservative left in elected office – used his appearance on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to suggest that if both parties win seats in 2029 then ‘obviously there is going to be a conversation to form a coalition or some sort of pact’ to keep Labour out.