Reform Watch Xmas edition — who’s on Santa’s naughty list? Cloned

This festive edition of Reform Watch comes with a scoop leaked from top-level elfin sources at the North Pole. Swiped from the desk of Father Christmas himself: every Reform UK name on the naughty list. Our Lapland insiders say this year Santa is going to be delivering a lot of coal, along with the following prizes.

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🏆 Unfathomable Laziness Award

If you’re a councillor, there are a number of meetings you’re meant to attend, depending on what committees and panels you sit on. Some Reform politicians have been very bad at this. Councillor Steve Trevelyan (Cornwall) has gone to only two of seven meetings since the May elections. Councillor Nicholas Thompson (Staffs) has missed 10 out of 12 meetings. Perhaps the worst is Councillor Tony Hill (Hertfordshire) has only attended one meeting, missing six. Yesterday we phoned him up to ask why, and he said: “I’m not doing nothing, I’m laying down below the radar cause I’ve got a few problems.” He wouldn’t specify beyond saying he had “family issues”. When asked if he had done any other council work, Councillor Hill said “yes, yes, I have”, but failed to elaborate. Our call ended shortly after.

🏆 Top Prize For Being Inexcusably Bone Idle 

While we’re on the subject of utter slothfulness, how hard do you think Shaun Knowles, one of Reform’s Northumberland councillors, is working? He has gone to just one meeting in the last six months. According to a freedom of information request, Knowles has received 948 emails since starting his job — and only sent two! Again: in six months of work, for which the taxpayer has rewarded him with about £9,500, he has gone to a single meeting and sent two emails! And what of his case work, the people in his ward who need help? “The local Conservative councillors are picking up 100% of his work,” says rival Councillor Wayne Daley, who submitted the request. Our email to Knowles, unsurprisingly, went unanswered. (Thanks to our friends at Reform Exposed who brought this to our attention.)

🏆 Kim Jong Un Award For Protecting Free Speech

Reform’s manifesto promises a free speech bill to stop “cancel culture”. How might that sit with Jo Monk, the party’s leader of Worcestershire County Council? She has threatened a rival councillor with legal action for mentioning her name. Ed Kimberley, a Labour politician in Worcester, has been given a cease and desist letter, ordering him to stop publishing or sharing any videos, posts or commentary about the party. Kimberley refuses to be bullied, and says he’ll keep his social media clips holding power to account online.

🏆 Child Hater Medal (sponsored by Ebenezer Scrooge)

How would you describe children in care? Unfortunate? Underprivileged? How about “downright evil”? These were the choice words spoken at a November meeting of the children and young people committee by Andy Osborn, a Reform councillor in Cambridgeshire. He was placed under investigation by his party, and remains a councillor. Bah! Humbug!

🏆 Rules For Thee But Not For Me Award

Nigel Farage has made his views on immigration perfectly clear, but what about his members? The business of Michael Andrew Harrison, a councillor in County Durham, has been fined £40,000 for hiring an illegal worker who did not have the right to UK employment. Harrison is appealing the penalty and says he is the victim of “a targeted attempt to get money from small businesses”.

🏆 Prize For Best Re-enactment Of A Stalinist Purge

Kent Council is Reform’s “shop window”, meant to be the very model of smooth governance. Unluckily, a video of its leader Linda Kemkaran was leaked, in which she berated colleagues, telling them if they didn’t like her decisions, they would have to “fucking suck it up”. In the hoo-ha that followed, Kemkaran criticised the “treachery” of the “cowards” who shared the video, and ended up suspending five councillors in total. “This council has been made a laughing stock with more clowns on display since I saw Bill Smart’s last circus,” said a rival politician.

🏆 Nothing To See Here Award

What would prompt Nigel Farage, Zia Yusuf, Richard Tice, Sean Matthews (Lincolnshire council leader), and George Finch (Warwickshire council leader), to repeatedly praise JCB’s pothole fixing machine on Facebook, X, and TV interviews? Could it have been anything to do with the £200,000 donation given to the party by Lord Bamford, JCB’s boss? Maybe Christmas is just a time for giving! 

🏆 Even More Nothing To See Here Award

Nigel Farage went on LBC in September to promote Tether, a cryptocurrency. As it just so happened, a Tether investor — a Thai-based entrepreneur called Christopher Harborne — gave £9 million to the party in August! But there’s nothing untoward about this. “Does he want anything in return for his money? I promise you absolutely nothing,” said Nigel Farage. So that’s OK then!

🏆 An assortment of hats that Reform leaders might wish to eat shall be presented to:

Zia Yusuf! For pledging to improve bin collections after the local elections, only for Lancashire Council to reduce bin collections from every two weeks to every three.

Nigel Farage! His local election leaflets promised to reduce or even freeze council tax, only for nearly all the local authorities under his control to raise it (including Kent and Durham) by the maximum allowed of 5%.

Sarah Pochin! The Runcorn and Helsby MP said she secured funding for a local boxing club, only for the club to say it hadn’t received a penny. “This is a complete fabrication,” it said.

God bless us every one!