As the BBC has noted:
Warwickshire County Council has formally appointed a teenager to run the £2bn local authority.
Reform's George Finch, 19, has become the youngest permanent council leader in the UK during the vote at the council's Shire Hall headquarters in Warwick on Tuesday.
At 19, I was editing the student union newspaper at the University of Southampton with Jon Craig, now of Sky News.
I was also, subsequently, a member of the student union finance committee as an independent group called Union for Students.
Did I know enough to lead a council? I did not lack self-confidence back then, but I know I would have had the sense to decline such an appointment.
The fact that George Finch has no such awareness is the best reason why he is wholly unsuited to the role he has now taken on.
Reform appears to be intent on pushing its self-destruct button.
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I was in Borstal when I was 19..
Age does not necessarily imply wisdom acquired from experience. According to a report yesterday in the Independent, the older yet no wiser leader of Kent County Council, one Linden Kemkaran, in a Times Radio interview called for the police to be given “the proper backing…..to shoot people if necessary” as Reform launches a crackdown on crime. Desperate stuff from the party of swivel-eyed loonies and bigots. As a resident of Kent I am still waiting to see any signs of coherence from those now in charge in Maidstone. It looks more likely that I will see penguins at the North Pole than any sensible policies emerge from Reform.
I think you are being overly optimistic.
Did you see the KCC debate on violence against women? Reform councillors should be ashamed of themselves. I am pleased to see that Maidstone Borough council is flying all the flags that are banned from County Hall. Not all at once, they’d have to get a bigger flagpole!
To be fair, so many of the older Reform councillors quit when they realised it would be more than arguing about pride flags and sticking it to the “Woke Mob”, you have to give him credit for sticking it out. I worry about his agenda though. How much experience does he have to balance out his views.
I was eating chips and gravy for the first time. Not to mention enjoying a sufficiency of Benson & Hedges.
This chap may be exceptional, and capable of doing his job. He has the chance to succeed. Just because most of us weren’t so capable at 19, doesn’t mean that he isn’t. In WWI we had 19-year-olds leading soldiers in trench warfare. And most had the sense to listen to their older NCOs.
Probably this isn’t the case. In which case, his failure will be bad for Reform, a very desirable outcome. Hard luck on Warwickshire citizens, but they did elect a Reform council.
At 19 I went to university, having worked for a year to set aside some money. My English teacher had explained UCAS and the grant system to me, and my mum (who didn’t get to continue her education beyond 18 in the 1950s) persuaded my dad I should go. I walked into the library and wept tears of joy and gratitude.
🙂
I was studying Engineering Science at Cambridge. I was also in a partnership printing T-shirts, and I started and owned the first chauffeured punt tour business on the River Cam, employing half a dozen fellow students. I was Rear Commodore of the sailing club, and I raised money for charity by putting wheels on a punt and ‘punting’ from Cambridge to London along the A10.
I wouldn’t have had a clue how to lead a council, but there again I wasn’t a fascist so I wouldn’t ever have had the opportunity.
🙂
In my 1st or 2nd year reading Chemistry at Imperial College. I emerged in 1985 with a Ph.D., worked in the chemical industry for 25 years until redundancy pushed me into a job in a consultancy. It was only when faced with the variety of demands in the 2nd job that I realised what I had learned about chemical process more broadly than just the chemistry involved (that mixture of R&D and Manufacturing roles was very valuable). No useful knowledge at all at 19!!
Me neither
At 19 I was regretting failing my A levels although looking back, I was about to learn a load of stuff a different way – by actually doing it.
Sometimes the best way
At 19 I was in my second year of studying chemical engineering at Swansea university under the tutelage of one of the greats of that field (Prof Jack Richardson). But I had 2 stints working in a factory aged 14 and 15 which made “exceedingly good cakes”. Those stints taught me a huge amount as I followed my father’s sage advice to keep my eyes wide open and my mouth shut unless acknowledging instructions. I actually really enjoyed learning about factory operations while I was there.
I had a great time working in a brewery when I was 21
But as a teenager on market gardens – where I learned to drive tractors and how to get off them when they were rolling….
I survived
So did the tractor
Had dropped out of studying Economics and International Relations. The economics was not what I was expecting lol At least this fellow has very immediate and real problems to deal with and hopefully can learn from more experienced hands…sink or swim
By a strange set of circumstances at 19 I found myself “the” social worker in a 1,000 bed mental hospital in Suffolk, a situation impossible today. But I loved it and felt I did a reasonable job given the situation. I then trained as a psychiatric social worker but found much of the training incredibly old fashioned, unrealistic, and unhelpful for the real world. By my late twenties I had a family , so bought some land grew vegetables and became a basketmaker, a long and rewarding career; but I have never given up my sometimes much wanted listening ear.
Go well with that!
My MP is the baby of the house. I would like to think that this would make him sceptical about Labour’s current policies, bu apparently not!
I went to university to study Chemistry when I was 19 after retaking my A levels. I’d done part time jobs in a local nursing home and factory by then. In no way was I experienced or confident enough to run a council!