[soulboy]

Any chance of a summary? That is a private Facebook group

[Oboogie]

Looks like my county council is the gift that keeps giving

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Bts2S ... tid=wwXIfr

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AQjnF ... tid=wwXIfr

Which council and what have they done?

[mattomac]

How popular is populism? A funny article to laugh about on a Sunday morning:

Reform UK struggles to find friends to share council power

Reform UK's success in the recent local elections has propelled many councillors with limited or no political experience into council chambers across England.

While Reform UK's rise was the big story of those elections, almost half of the councils up for grabs were not won outright by any single party.

That means many of those newbie councillors are now navigating so-called hung councils, where parties with little in common often work together to get the business of local government done.

But so far, it hasn't panned out that way for Reform UK, which isn't involved in any formal coalitions, pacts or deals in areas where there were local elections this year.

This was despite rampant speculation about Reform-Conservative coalitions ahead of the polls, with party leaders Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage not ruling out council deals...


... In other areas where coalitions were possible, Reform UK has either shunned co-operation or vice versa. Where Reform UK has explored potential partnerships locally, its policies have been viewed with suspicion by the established parties...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c365y0190l7o.amp

I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

Edit

And here's another one

Reform UK councils in ‘shambles’ as newly elected councillors fail to show up

https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/ ... 65359.html

Interesting that they will claim no one wants to share power but you look further down and it’s them who have ignored others.

[Watchman]

Sorry folks, below is some script from the 2 links I posted.

Link 1

Charles Pugsley, the 19 year old Reform have put in charge of Children & Family Services at Leicestershire council.

An extremely important and demanding role, although not demanding enough it transpires, for young Charles to give up his degree at Nottingham Uni for.

You read that correctly, the head of one of, if not the, most important directorates at Leicestershire council is treating the role the same way most students do a part time job behind a bar or stacking shelves at Sainsbury’s…

Link 2

Cllr. Joseph Boam, Chairman of North West Leicestershire branch of Reform, deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council and the councillor for Whitwick.

At the tender age of 22 this isn’t young Joseph’s first foray into politics, having previously stood in the council elections as a Tory.

Upon losing he threw his toys out of the pram and left the Conservative Party citing corruption as the reason, stating "there's definitely a lot of corruption on a local level as well", which must have made dinnertime awkward at home that evening as daddy is Leicestershire Tory councillor, Russell Boam.

I’m sure,however, it will have been water off a duck’s back for Joseph though, as offending people is something that comes naturally to him.

Online Boam has used many different aliases including BoamytheBeast, Sub2JoeBoam JoeBoam02, and
Lord Joseph Boam II, under which he has posted some really questionable stuff (see pics), although when you see what his father shares, well, it’s obvious where he gets it, to quote the character Turkish in Snatch “they could charm the paint off walls these fellas”.

Boam’s latest foot in mouth moment came just a few weeks ago, when an old post from his “boamythebeast” account resurfaced where he claimed “depression isn’t real”.

Remember, this is the *head* of Adult Services at Leicestershire council.

When confronted with what he had written, and despite evidence being provided in the form of a screenshot, in true Reform/Trump fashion he dismissed it as “fake news”, even going on to laugh about it in a subsequent tweet.

Good luck to the people of Leicestershire, you're going to need it…

[davidjay]

I can well imagine a lot of similar scenarios, where Reform councillors say they're not going to do the job full-time, public service, not like the fat cat main parties, never used to be paid. All without realising that being a councillor now is a lot more time-consuming than it was fifty years ago.

[Andy McDandy]

Harking back to the days of venerable aldermen might push the nostalgia button, but back then they didn't need to get paid. The backhanders from doling out contracts were enough.

[Youngian]

Rupert Lowe gives his MP salary to charity and wants you to think this is very noble. Not harking back to an era when only proper chaps of independent means could afford to become MPs.

[Abernathy]

Farage seems himself to have swallowed the bullshit infecting the news media currently that he could credibly become Prime Minister of the UK in 2029 at the head of a Reform UK majority. No doubt with 30p Lee as Chancellor.

He is noticeably trying to expand the appeal of the Reform UK offer to include supposedly populist (but probably unworkable) policies in various parts of the UK. The “DOGE” bollocks, imported directly from Trump, in English local authorities, coupled with, of course a generalised “anti-woke” pogrom.

The revival of coal mining in South Wales. Yes, really.

Another slogan taken directly from the Trump playbook used apparently to some effect in the recent by-election in Hamilton & Larkhall, : “Drill, Scotland, drill”. Yes, really.

How can the frog-faced cunt fail ? *


* rhetorical

[Rosvanian]

Well, if Nige can bring back shipbuilding to the Tyne and I can go and watch the ships roaring down the slipway and gliding into the water perched on my dad's shoulders like I did when I was a boy, I'll vote for the frog faced cunt until my dying day.

[davidjay]

"We don't make things anymore," is a cry dating back to Thatcher. It's yet another bit of nostalgic populism.

[Killer Whale]

If Fartage is prepared to do a 9 hour shift underground with only bread and cheese in his tocyn, then I'm wholly minded to let him.*

*Oh, wait, it would be other people doing that, wouldn't it?

[Boiler]

"We don't make things anymore," is a cry dating back to Thatcher. It's yet another bit of nostalgic populism.

I'm sure that the 4,000 employees of Perkins Engines round here will be surprised to learn that they don't make things any more. Two of my former neighbours were high up in the research team there.

Wasn't it various economists popular with Thatcher (and Brexiters) that said we should be an entirely services-based economy anyway?

Meanwhile, I read that the new chairman of Reform is to be Dr. David Bull, a former TV presenter.

[Bones McCoy]

All disaster capitalists and crypto scammers.
Just like their fraternal MAGA chumps.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Nigel Farage has just finished his press conference. It was his second in two days, and he took a large number of questions. Tim Montgomerie, the journalist who set up ConservativeHome and who is now a Reform UK supporter, says he thinks Farage has taken almost 100 questions from reporters at press events in the last fortnight, far more than any other party leader.

It's almost like the leader of the Labour Party is busy being the Prime Minister or something.

[mattomac]

Nigel Farage has just finished his press conference. It was his second in two days, and he took a large number of questions. Tim Montgomerie, the journalist who set up ConservativeHome and who is now a Reform UK supporter, says he thinks Farage has taken almost 100 questions from reporters at press events in the last fortnight, far more than any other party leader.

It's almost like the leader of the Labour Party is busy being the Prime Minister or something.

It's a lot easier to do when you do no constituency casework

[Tubby Isaacs]

You'd hope that the energy transition were so far on by 2029 that this Farage stuff will look silly even to lots of people who might support him. It isn't even particularly popular now. Are there enough voters for both the Tories and Reform in this?

South Wales coal mining seems very much like a crib from the US Right. Appalachian coal mining is a very powerful symbol of proper jobs done by men and all the rest of it, even though something like Health is a more important employer. But the difference is that Appalachian coal miners do still exist for Trump to campaign with. Nearly 20 years since there was a single deep coal mine in South Wales. Who's Farage going to have his photo taken with? The ex-miners who now work as tour guides at The Big Pit?

[soulboy]

Meanwhile, I read that the new chairman of Reform is to be Dr. David Bull, a former TV presenter.

I wonder if the gay man will fair any better than the man with South Asian heritage in that vipers' nest. I wonder if Lee Anderson will be keen to "follow him into the toilets".*




* A delightful comment he made about Suzy Eddie Izzard https://www.theguardian.com/culture/202 ... die-izzard

[Bones McCoy]

Nigel Farage has just finished his press conference. It was his second in two days, and he took a large number of questions. Tim Montgomerie, the journalist who set up ConservativeHome and who is now a Reform UK supporter, says he thinks Farage has taken almost 100 questions from reporters at press events in the last fortnight, far more than any other party leader.

It's almost like the leader of the Labour Party is busy being the Prime Minister or something.

It's a lot easier to do when you do no constituency casework

Even easier when you have so many press organisations cheerleading for you.

[Youngian]

Bull's a nice chap who was unusually hard to dislike for a Faragist according to the Labour candidate who ran against him in Suffolk West. Unlike the Tory candidate who is the odious Nick Timothy. Dr Daytime TV has a very plastic face apparently.

[satnav]

I'm sure that Farage made a comment a few weeks ago about how a future Reform cabinet would include 'stars of business, sport and TV'. I can't think where he got that idea from.