Reform's bungling George keeps his job - just

Good news for the government struggling with the number of 16-24-year-olds not in education, employment or training – at least one of them has just managed to hold on to his job, even if he’s really not very good at it.

Reform’s George Finch, who was just 19 years old when he became leader of Warwickshire Council with its £700 million budget last year, today survived a vote of no confidence by just one vote, after councillors became tired of his antics.

Finch’s inglorious period in office, not yet a year old, has included risking collapsing a rape trial after pontificating in public about an ongoing case, getting involved in an unseemly spat with the council’s chief executive over his hobby horse of Pride flags (he’s anti, as if you had to ask) and boasting on a podcast about his “boots on neck-type” management style. Finch had previously defended his lack of any work experience by saying playing rugby as a child had taught him “great team-building skills and leadership skills”.

The Green group on Warwickshire Council called for a vote of no confidence after accusing him of having “abused the office of leader”. But today Finch survived after most Tory councillors backed him and two members of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain – who had themselves only just defected from Reform – abstained.

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Speaking after surviving the vote, Finch said: “I want to thank the Conservative leader and his councillors that voted for me. We’ve seen some great common sense there.

“There has been terminology I could have used better and I take that on board, but again I still agree 100% with what I was saying. Everyone slips up every now and again and that’s real life, we’re human.”

Now it’s time for Finch – who has also endeared himself to teachers in his county by calling its sixth forms a “complete joke” which only taught teenagers how to develop something called a “woke mindset” – to get on with the job he was elected to do!

“I want to make sure the people get the county council that’s working for them and that’s what I’m committed to do,” he said. “I don’t want to waste any more time talking about it or going over it, because that’s not what the people voted us in for.” Rats in a Sack suspects, though, this may not be the last time we hear of this rising star of Nigel Farage’s party…