Is this Reform's new star of local government?

Reform UK promised that the brightest and best would run the nation’s town halls when they made their big local government breakthrough last year – and didn’t they just?

A video which has gone viral online shows an interview with Craig Ward, leader of the Reform group on Doncaster Council, with BBC local democracy reporter Harry Harrison. In it, the Beeb man asks Ward – who leads the largest group on the council, but under Doncaster’s mayoral system is not the council leader – why he has continued to claim that the council set the maximum permitted tax hikes in each of the past three years, when in fact it was just once.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a lie, Harry,” says Ward. When reminded of the fact it wasn’t true, Ward responds: “Well… it’s not… well… it is what it is, you know? It is what it is. It’s been a rise on the council tax.”

Asked specifically what the council’s undetermined savings for 2027/28 were likely to be, Ward said: “What? What our savings are going to be? They’re to be determined, yep.”

Ward was then asked how he expected to simultaneously phase pay restoration, saving £1.3 million this year, and reduce agency staff, as Reform had promised. After thinking, Ward said: “Well, we expect officers to do what they’re paid to do and work that out.”

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“I mean, it’ll get done, Harry. That’s what I can say. They’ve got to do it.”

Harrison then asked Ward about a decision to defer, for a year, high street funding for Norton and Askern, and Bentley, two of the poorer wards covered by Doncaster Council which delivered five Reform councillors between them last year.

“There’s no saying that that’s funding’s gone, is there?” said Ward. “I don’t think that it’ll affect things.” Asked whether it would have affected people if the funding had come sooner, Ward responded: “Hmmm.”

Finally, Ward was asked about costings showing that, under the settlement as it stands, the council tax base next year could be down by around £14.6 million.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that,” said Ward. “No. I don’t. I don’t think it’s… I think it’s what… I think they’ve done… I think they’ve been quite unfair in their… how they’ve… writ [sic] this 25 statement, that’s what I’d say.”

A sterling performance all round – is Robert Jenrick looking for a shadow chief secretary to the Treasury?