A Labour council that cancelled its local election to cut costs spent tens of thousands of pounds on an “asylum seeker mental health and trauma project”. Blackburn with Darwen borough council is one of 29 local authorities granted government permission to halt its local election this year. The cancellations have resulted in Sir Keir Starmer being accused of “running scared” of the electorate at a time when polls show a collapse in support for Labour. Defending Blackburn’s decision to ask the Government for a postponement, Phil Riley, the council’s Labour leader, previously said the council would “rather the money went on delivering services people want than on an election which would have to be repeated just a year later and on different ward boundaries”. “It costs around £200,000 to hold an election,” he added. However, the same local authority spent £30,000 on commissioning a project that focused on the mental health of asylum seekers, The Telegraph can reveal. A contract awarded in January 2024, when Mr Riley and his party were in control, granted the …