Reform’s farcical performance in power at local government level goes from bad to worse. Last week one of its new council leaders quit after just 41 days, leaving an 18-year-old in charge of the authority and its £421m budget.
Rob Howard, who became Warwickshire council leader in May, said “health challenges” had forced him to step down, leaving George Finch, who was previously portfolio holder for children and families despite until very recently being a child himself, running the council for its 600,000 residents.
Reform has boasted of Finch’s perfect attendance record since being elected, the deputy leader having turned up to both council meetings held since May. “I’ve played rugby since I was four, which gave me great team-building skills and leadership skills,” he cheered of his qualifications to run an authority with a budget more than that of the entire GDP of Micronesia.
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Meanwhile, just over the border in Worcestershire, the first meeting of the exciting new Reform-led council there lasted just 20 minutes after the only item on the agenda was a report on the council’s accounts and the cabinet member responsible for finance, Rob Wharton, failed to turn up. Alan Amos, the cabinet member for business, was also absent, while several other cabinet members wandered in late.
Reform are rather more concerned by councillor absences at Wolverhampton Council, though, where Labour councillor Carol Hyatt has been granted special dispensation to work from home due to being treated for cancer. Hyatt has non-Hodgkin lymphoma and struggles to go out because, as she says, “I’ll get sepsis and could die”.
But this isn’t good enough for her Reform colleague on the council, Anita Stanley. “I do not feel it is very fair on the residents not to have a political representative being able to speak up for them for the period of effectively one whole year,” says Stanley, who says Hyatt’s arrangements are “influenced not by her personal welfare but by Wolverhampton Labour’s reluctance to trigger a by-election — which polling suggests they WILL lose to my party – Reform UK.” What a charmer!
