{"id":84277,"date":"2025-07-23T17:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=84277"},"modified":"2025-07-23T17:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:01:33","slug":"reform-is-trolling-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/23\/reform-is-trolling-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform is trolling democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\">Appointing a teenager to run a county council with \u00a32 billion at stake isn\u2019t just poor judgement\u2014it\u2019s a deliberate mockery of democratic government. In this video, I unpack what\u2019s really going on behind Reform UK\u2019s shocking move in Warwickshire and why this must concern us all.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/afhsFOwHyP0?si=dPEeupuyrqouuGtD\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the transcript:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Reform is trolling democracy.<\/p>\n<p>What do I mean?<\/p>\n<p>It's appointed a 19-year-old to be the leader of Warwickshire Council.<\/p>\n<p>That council has a total budget of around \u00a32 billion a year and discretionary spending of around half a billion pounds a year, and they put a 19-year-old in charge.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I don't know what you were doing at the age of 19, and I don't know how mature you were, but I was a pretty confident 19-year-old who had only just left home and was learning how to manage my own expenses for the first time in life.<\/p>\n<p>We're not even clear that this young man has even done that. And yet he's in charge of a council. That, in my opinion, justifies my claim.<\/p>\n<p>What Reform is doing is basically making a mockery of democracy by putting somebody in charge of a council who clearly does not have the life experience to let them do so.<\/p>\n<p>He might have very strong opinions on migration.<\/p>\n<p>He might have rather strong and probably rather obnoxious opinions on gay rights and other such things.<\/p>\n<p>But will he know how to ensure that adult social care is supplied to those who need it, including those who might be gay?<\/p>\n<p>Does he know how to provide for planning?<\/p>\n<p>Does he know how to ensure that local roads, which will be the responsibility of that council, are maintained?<\/p>\n<p>Can he be guaranteed to be in charge in a competent manner of bin collection?<\/p>\n<p>I very much doubt it. I very much doubt that any 19-year-old could do that, and I doubt it for one very good reason. They simply haven't got the training and necessary experience to do so. And by allowing this appointment to take place, Reform shows us what they think of us.<\/p>\n<p>They're treating us with contempt.<\/p>\n<p>They're making a mockery of the whole system of local government.<\/p>\n<p>They are undermining democracy and public services, and they're doing so deliberately.<\/p>\n<p>These people are not to be trusted. They're not serious about meeting our needs. They're trying to destroy the very foundation of UK society, and for that reason, I don't think that anybody should be voting for them because they're a danger to us all.<\/p>\n<p>But what do you think? We're putting up a poll. Do you think a 19-year-old should be in charge of a UK county council? If you do, say yes; if you don't, say no; and if you're not sure, I'll provide that option as well; but I'll be interested to see what you think.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Poll<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-154\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Should a 19-year-old be leader of a county council?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-154-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>No <small>(90%, 478 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 90%;\" title=\"No (90% | 478 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Let's see what happens <small>(5%, 26 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 5%;\" title=\"Let&#039;s see what happens (5% | 26 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Yes <small>(3%, 17 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 3%;\" title=\"Yes (3% | 17 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>I don't know <small>(2%, 10 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 2%;\" title=\"I don&#039;t know (2% | 10 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\">Total Voters: <strong>531<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_154_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"f8cc0ef12f\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-154-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Appointing a teenager to run a county council with \u00a32 billion at stake isn\u2019t just poor judgement\u2014it\u2019s a deliberate mockery of democratic government. In this<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/23\/reform-is-trolling-democracy\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,106,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-politics","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84280,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84277\/revisions\/84280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}