Musk style politics comes to Kent
Plus basic democratic functions aren't getting done, some excellent nominative determinism, news in brief, and more
It’s a lazy cliche to say that a week is a long time in politics, but it’s possibly never been more true than the past week of shenanigans at County Hall. We have the details of a wild week that saw Reform ‘auditors’ arrive at KCC on Monday and the team falling apart by Thursday. Meanwhile, some of the most basic democratic functions aren’t getting done. We get into all of it below.
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Musk style politics comes to Kent (and immediately falls apart)
On Sunday night, Reform Chairman Zia Yusuf tweeted that Reform had formed their DOGE team and that they would “arrive at Kent Council tomorrow.” The post included a letter sent to officers at Kent County Council that would border on comical if it wasn’t so serious.
The letter, sent on Reform headed paper and signed by Yusuf, Nigel Farage, and KCC leader Linden Kemkaran, requested that officers hand over data on ‘council-held documents, reports, and records,’ ‘relevant finance, procurement, audit, and contract data,’ ‘internal investigations or whistleblowing reports,’ and more.
The letter went on to argue that the team was ‘acting under the authority of the council’ (they aren’t) and threatened council officers, who would be seen as acting with ‘gross misconduct’ if they ‘resist this request.’ To be clear, this was a letter from a political party asking a council to hand over potentially sensitive internal data. There are zero grounds from a legal standpoint for them to receive access to any data that wasn’t publicly available in the first place. However, a threatening letter is apparently more sexy than putting in Freedom of Information requests.
DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is styled after the American entity of the same name that saw Elon Musk and a team of tech bros tear through Washington, shutting down federal spending that they deemed wasteful.
There was little imagination on display from Reform’s version of this, keeping the same very American name, even when looking at the finances of a county council, which is hardly the government. Still, presumably, they are so attached to mimicking Musk that the name was a crucial part of their identity. Yusuf’s tweet didn’t name who was part of the Reform DOGE team. It just said they were “world class software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors, working for free.”
On Monday morning, the circus rolled into town, with Yusuf arriving at County Hall with the DOGE team to begin their audit of council spending. So, who were these world class software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors? In the end, Yusuf was accompanied only by a tech bro called Nathaniel Fried and infamous (and litigious) UKIP and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks.
We asked Kent County Council whether they would comply with the request from Reform to hand over the requested information.
A KCC spokesperson told us, “We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively and professionally with the new administration here at KCC, including the DOGE team.”
They went on to say that “KCC has always been committed to transparency and accountability, and has been consistently praised by external auditors for the accuracy of its accounts and the prudent management of public funds,” further noting that “Much of our information including full budget, external contracts register, and auditor’s reports is already in the public domain for anyone to scrutinise and review.”
We also asked KCC how they would be able to comply with the request for potentially sensitive data while also ensuring the protection of data and individuals being shared, particularly given the explicit request for whistleblower reports.
They told us that “Kent County Council is aware and mindful of its statutory duties in relation to data and we ensure that we comply with these duties at all times.”
We also asked KCC whether they would hand over such data to other political parties that requested it, for evidence that DOGE was ‘acting under the authority of the council,’ and whether KCC would appoint a liaison officer to coordinate with the Reform DOGE team as they requested.
Kent County Council did not answer any of these questions.
We further requested that KCC provide a list of names of the full DOGE team, as we believe this would be in the public interest if they were being granted access to council documents.
They declined to provide this, suggesting we should put that to Reform directly.
We put the request to Reform directly, but they did not respond.
Following this, we approached the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, asking whether it was permissible for a council to hand over data to a third party acting on behalf of a political party, whether they have issued any guidance to local councils on this issue, and whether they have had any direct communication with Kent County Council on the issue.
They told us that it is common for councils to bring in external support to review services and identify savings or efficiencies. So that’s okay.
Taking more of a position on the issue was Rich Lehmann, leader of the Green group at Kent County Council, who told us when we asked whether KCC should be complying with the requests from Reform’s DOGE team:
“KCC should be co-operating with the requests of the doge where they are compliant with the relevant laws and regulations, but they should definitely not be co-operating if asked to go beyond those boundaries.
Sadly the wording of the letter which was tweeted on Sunday night was sufficiently vague that it's difficult to know whether what was being asked was beyond what is legal, but on the surface it did appear to me to be asking for access to information beyond that which is generally shared with elected councillors, and certainly beyond what would be shared with unelected members of the public, such as Zia Yusuf, Arron Banks and Nathaniel Fried.”
We also asked the opposition Liberal Democrat group and the Conservative group the same question but received no response.
It is unclear exactly how much access the Reform DOGE team have been giving to KCC data. One person with knowledge of the situation told us anonymously that officers were effectively handing them data that was already publicly available anyway, but we have been unable to corroborate this.
It is also unclear exactly what kind of smoking gun the DOGE team were expecting to find in the first place. Council accounts are heavily audited and almost entirely in the public domain, so it would be difficult to find anything within them that had already been extensively examined and discussed.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t try to come up with something though. Yusuf took to X to announce that they had found £2.8m in financial irregularities, something that Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay reported in May last year.
He proceeded to up the ante by claiming that KCC had tendered a contract worth £350m for recruitment services, which does sound very bad. Of course, the reality is rather different as the tender was for a framework open to all public bodies in the UK, meaning the KCC spend would be significantly lower than the headline figure.
Reform were eager to point out that the DOGE process at Kent County Council would take some time, but it is unclear this evening whether the tank is already empty. In the last few hours, Yusuf announced that he was quitting his role as Chairman, and DOGE bro Nathaniel Fried said he would join him in exiting at the same time. As a result, the Reform DOGE team, less than a week after being formed, seemingly consists of (again, incredibly litigious) upstanding citizen Arron Banks and some unidentified tech types. It’s hard to imagine they will be troubling County Hall again anytime soon.
Meanwhile…
Amongst all of the DOGE drama, there is still little sign of any actual governing from the new Reform administration at County Hall. As we reported last week, committee meetings where councillors scrutinise and make decisions continue to be cancelled, with nine scheduled meetings for June already being postponed or cancelled. These include committees related to health, environment and transport, children’s services, and, ironically, governance.
A Kent County Council spokesperson told us that “a number of meetings were squeezed into June due to the election and induction period preventing them from being held in May (as would be the case in a non-election year). Because there are no time sensitive issues due at these June meetings, consideration is being given to deferring business to relevant July meetings to make best use of Member and Officer time.”
Green group leader Rich Lehmann had a different take on what was going on with the lack of meetings, telling us, “My understanding is that a far greater number of Reform councillors were elected than expected, and that they are not able to find enough councillors to fill the far larger number of committee places they've been allocated compared to what they were expecting.”
In the meantime, other basic democratic functions appear to be falling by the wayside. Councils are legally obligated to publish a Register of Members’ Interests within 28 days of an election. It has been 35 days since the local elections in Kent, with no sign of any register being published. This seems like a somewhat unfortunate oversight for a council now being run by an administration of councillors who seem so enthusiastic about transparency and accountability.
Maybe they’ll get something published next week…
Have a Kent story you think we might be interested in? Get in touch via hello(at)kentcurrent(dot)news - We’re always happy to talk off the record in the first instance…
Nominative determinism of the week
Incredible scenes from the Register of Members’ Financial Interests this week, which logs all of the income, gifts, and donations received by MPs, where Tonbridge Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat has received a donation of £38,000 from… Michael Tory.
In brief
🏥 Hospitals in Kent will receive nearly £22m to carry out repair and upgrade works. East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust will receive £13.2m, Medway NHS Foundation Trust will get £4.8m, Maidstone Hospital £3.5m, while mental health facilities in Dover and Maidstone will share £400,000.
🐦 The government’s new Planning and Infrastructure Bill could make building on protected nature sites easier, with Lodge Hill in Medway highlighted as particularly at risk. The Guardian came for a wander around the woods.
🥀 Two Folkestone Labour councillors have quit the party, with one blaming “recent rhetoric on immigration” for their departure.
🏭 Plans have been submitted for a £120m waste-to-hydrogen plant at Manston, near Ramsgate.
💷 A transport campaign group believes tolls at the Dartford Crossing will need to increase to £8.10 if the Lower Thames Crossing is to be viably built using private finance.
🏗️ Sevenoaks District Council is seeking a development partner to deliver a £125m regeneration project for the town centre.
🏘️ Tunbridge Wells Borough Council could build 100 homes on Market Square as part of regeneration plans for the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre.
🍔 Dover District Council are recommending that a new McDonald’s on the A20 near the entrance to the Port of Dover be approved. The designers clearly expect it to be busy, including an incredibly long drive-through lane in the plans.
🚫 Folkestone and Hythe District Council continue to clamp down on live music in the town, rejecting an application to reopen a former town centre venue after nearby residents objected.
🌲 A new National Nature Reserve has launched in Kent. The awkwardly named North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve will extend from Shorne Woods to Wrotham Water.
🐣 39 curlew chicks have been born at Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey as part of an initiative to protect them from local extinction.
🍺 Two Kent brands have come together, with brewer and pub chain Shepherd Neame signing a deal to stock Kent Crisps in venues across the southeast.
📺 A new Channel 4 documentary about the Port of Dover started this week.
🏹 Could you be a descendant of a 1525 uprising near Tunbridge Wells? If so, English Heritage would love to hear from you.
📰 It’s been a big week for media outlets looking at our county:
The Telegraph visited Ebbsfleet and branded it a “disaster” before heading down to Ramsgate to spend time in Wetherspoons.
Christie’s auction house decided to look at what art-led regeneration has done for Margate.
Cosmopolitan got very excited about Deal.
More Currents
Our wonderful paid supporters received two extra editions of the Kent Current this week. On Tuesday, we explored some of the stranger place names in Kent and looked at what they can tell us not only about the past but our present as well.
Between Ham and Sandwich
Kent is a county rich in history and character, but some of its most curious mysteries aren’t found in its castles or churches. They're displayed openly on road signs and maps, captured in place names that provoke a second glance and, often, an involuntary laugh. These unusual names tell stories about Kent’s past that can be equally strange, amusing, human, and revealing.
Over the weekend, Steven interviewed prolific artist, musician, and poet Sexton Ming, who was a founder of both the Medway Poets and the Stuckist art movement.
“People creating inspires me to create”
Sexton Ming is an artist, musician and poet. In the late 70s, he co-founded The Medway Poets, and in the late 90s, he was momentarily a Stuckist. Steven chatted with him about where he got that name, his brief time in the Stuckists, what he’s working on now, and lots more.
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Footnotes
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