Reform touted Kent Council, which they took control of following May’s local elections, as their “shop window” of how things might look were they to run the entire UK.
And how right they’ve been! So far the party’s stewardship of the council has been characterised by arguments, numerous expulsions, a leak of one explosive cabinet meeting and plans to hike council tax by the maximum permitted 5%, having been elected on a platform of swingeing spending cuts.
Fortunately, however, the governing Reform cabinet has found some money down the back of a sofa to fund a vital service – hiring political assistants at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds!
A new leaked recording of a meeting of Reform councillors – all wearing turquoise Santa’s elf hats – showed them being told last week by one of their leaders, Maxwell Harrison, that a former Reform director of campaigning and training at the party’s head office had been hired by the council as a “political assistant”.
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Harrison named him as Michael Hadwen, a man whose LinkedIn page describes him as “political strategist”. But he is possibly better known as a former Conservative staffer – yes, he’s another turquoise Tory – GB News talking head and Enoch Powell fanboy who once posted on X: “Enoch was right, he was just before the times”.
Somewhat awkwardly for a party trying to distance itself from one of its most prominent members being jailed for accepting cash from Putin’s Russia, in April 2018 – about a month after Russian agents attempted to assassinate Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury – Hadwen also wrote that “Russia is not my enemy”, adding: “We should be working with them, and not throwing around threats like a spoilt child.”
His appointment was voted through on Thursday with 45 votes in favour and 26 against at a full meeting of the council. Reform still holds a majority despite leader Linden Kemkaran’s purges.
Reform took power in Kent vowing to slash spending and reduce council tax. But that was before they discovered the clause in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 which allows councils to appoint a maximum of three people to provide assistance to members of political groups, with salaries of up to £49,282 – around £9,000 more than the average in Kent.
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