- Sat Feb 07, 2026 11:21 am
#105567
Locally, I've seen letters from them with individuals claiming to be community champions.
The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Sat Feb 07, 2026 10:35 amBut we're full up! Where will we house these babygrants when they grow up? Doesn't Matt know there's homeless ex-soldiers on the street?
Matthew Fraser Moat was head of local government efficiency at Kent County Council but stepped down from the cabinet on Tuesday after an interview with the Financial Times.https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ro-savings
The Reform UK councillor claimed his words were "twisted" but said he made a "lapse of judgement" and it had become clear that continuing in the role was "not sustainable".
The council, controlled by Reform since the party unseated the Conservatives in May, said it had "instilled a value for money, efficiency and commercial culture".
According to the newspaper article, Fraser Moat claimed the council "had not actually made any cuts" since Reform UK took over and pledged to open the books to find where waste might lie.
The councillor, head of Reform's Department of Local Government Efficiency (Dolge) initiative in Kent, reportedly said: "We haven't cut front-line services other than what the Conservatives had already planned to do."
Paul Chamberlain, a deputy cabinet member, was quoted in the article saying: "We made some assumptions that we would come in here and find some of the craziness found in America and that was wrong, we didn't find any of that."
Dolge launched in June with the backing of former party chairman Zia Yusuf, who quit the role shortly afterwards. It was modelled on billionaire Elon Musk's Doge advisory group as part of Donald Trump's second term as US president.
"I wish we could have found those big savings for Zia, it would have been a better story, but we didn't," Chamberlain reportedly told the Financial Times.
Reform UK’s flagship council has been accused of telling a “blatant lie” after its claim of nearly £40m in savings on net zero was found to be based on hypothetical projects for which there was no documentation.
Kent county council, which has a £2.5bn annual budget, is one of 10 where Nigel Farage’s party has outright control and is seen as a test case for whether the insurgent party can govern competently.
Soon after being elected, the council leader, Linden Kemkaran, promised the party’s “department of local government efficiency”, or Dolge, would bring a “laser-like focus on getting value for money”.
The council’s leadership claimed it had found £100m in savings, £39.5m of which come from what it said was two net zero-related projects: £32m by scrapping a programme to make properties more environmentally friendly, and £7.5m by not making the council’s fleet of vehicles electric by 2030.
After Kemkaran announced these at a council meeting last July, Polly Billington, a Labour MP in Kent, requested details of the apparent savings via a freedom of information request, setting off a months-long battle with the council.
soulboy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 07, 2026 6:00 pm Our neighbours are weird. He hides whenever he sees us. She has barely spoken two words to us in the last decade, but is always sticky beaking whenever my parents or in-laws are house sitting.No doubt now being retold as 'one of them government types told me I can't talk politics, so much for free speech'
We were doing a bit of gardening out front the other day when she came bounding over, chatty as you like. She announced that she was going to be standing as a Reform candidate in May and started to tell us how the borough has gone to the dogs.
My wife instantly piped up with "I am a civil servant and have to support the government of the day. I can't talk politics with you". 'Er next door slinked away.
She's a keeper, my wife.