Reform appoint a teenager to lead Warwickshire Council and its £500 million budget

George Finch was one of the many Reform councillors elected in the last local elections. However he is relatively unique in terms of his age, having been only 18 when he took up the position in Warwickshire council.

Photo taken from the BBC.

The elected leader of the council at the time in Warwickshire was another, somewhat more aged, Reform gentleman; Rob Howard. But not for long. Howard was one of the many, many Reform councillors that quit or were fired after a few weeks of doing the job.

He left Finch in place as the temporary cover for the position of council leader. More recently, Mr Finch though, was appointed to take the position up permanently. This final appointment was the a result of a vote, although one that he won only because the race was so tight that the rules allowed the council’s chairman – who also happens to be from Reform – to cast an extra vote to break the 23:23 tie.

This means Mr Finch becomes the permanent head of Warwickshire County Council. He’s now in charge of £1.5 billion’s worth of assets, managing a budget of around £500 million, responsible for over 5,000 employees, on behalf of his 600,000 constituents.

Quite the responsibility!

Now, perhaps this is a slightly tough topic, because young people getting engaged with politics is undoubtedly a good thing. The more young people that take an interest in political matters, the better, at least in general. Aside from such engagement being a public good in general, their views often can of course be at least as informed and reasonable as those of older adults. often moreso (although I’m not so sure that’s self evident in the case of Mr Finch; see the section of “socialist wokeism” below).

And I can see the attraction for a certain type of youngster. It’s not hard to see several recent governments, local and national, as having totally let down the younger generations in many, many ways.

All I can say though is that it wouldn’t have been remotely advisable to appoint me, or anyone I have ever known, to a position of such complexity and responsibility at the age of 18, just after completing my A-levels. Or even at 19 for that matter, giving Finch the benefit of the doubt as having had a birthday since his election.

In general, to me it seems probably best for basically your first ever job post-school to not to involve being the boss of an institution very much in the public eye that involves managing millions of pounds and making decisions that could be literally life or death for some folk at the receiving end of the council’s offerings.

This is not to blame Finch. He’s a right to apply for the job. He’s clearly a very adept and impressive young man in certain ways. Good for him for taking such an interest in civic life. But it feels like the height of irresponsibility to both the area’s constituents and to George Finch himself to put him in harm’s way like this.

Modern-day politics can be cruel and damaging – especially when Reform, who trade on conflict and hatred, are involved. He’s already had to have Reform’s standard waste-of-time argument about flags. To put a necessarily-inexperienced teenager into the position of being the figurehead for a deliberately divisive party, managing a half-billion pound budget and making critical service decisions seems an absolute abdication of responsibility; almost abusive.

A local Labour MP appears to have reservations:

Rachel Taylor, the Labour MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, said she was “deeply concerned” that Reform was “proposing that an eighteen-year-old with no previous work experience should be running our county council”.

And another:

Preet Gill, has criticised the decision, saying the people of Warwickshire “frankly deserve better”.

“This is not work experience,” she told the BBC. “This is not about learning on the job.”

The Deputy Leader of the local Labour group does give Finch respect for being an extremely mature 18-year old, but still notes that:

Making these very far-reaching decisions about the lives of our Warwickshire residents – I don’t want to criticise 18-year-olds – but it does need people with experience

Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK thinks that “Reform is trolling democracy” with this appointment. He says that it’s simply too much to ask of a 19 year old who just left school (or, more accurately, might be on his summer holidays)

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.

They’re treating us with contempt. They’re making a mockery of the whole system of local government. They are undermining democracy and public services, and they’re doing so deliberately. These people are not to be trusted. They’re not serious about meeting our needs.

A resident of the local also thinks it’s a bad idea:

Geoffrey Manion labelled the appointment “crazy”. He said: “He hasn’t lived long enough to know what’s what. At the end of the day, he’s just not old enough. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy.”

Another says:

I have no problem with him being a councillor, but I have a big problem with him being the leader of the council. I just think you need more experience of life before you can take on such a position of responsibility. It wouldn’t happen in any other walk of life, would it

Although to be fair that’s not the universal opinion of local residents – some are perfectly happy with the situation. For their sake let’s hope their optimism is well-placed.

In the recent past Councillor Finch has written articles for “The New Reformer”, a Reform-allied website, producing such compelling articles as “Richard Tice – The Cool Cat of Politics“, of which I promise to only share a few words:

Above all the great mannerisms, fashion sense, intelligence and integrity Mr Tice showed the people of Boston and Skegness that he meant business…
…
Many, many constituencies in the UK would love an MP as strong, brave and somewhat indestructible as the man the cool cat himself Mr Richard Tice.

On his profile page he describes his own principles as being “integrity, honesty and respect”. A less charitable person than me might applaud the sentiment but note he probably joined the wrong party. To be fair he wasn’t always a Reform guy; in the past he was a Conservative, having had since then some (presumably childhood) conversion experience.

When asked to sum his politics up in a few words though, George iss back on familiar Reform territory, expressing the highest degree of love for the abjectly failed experiment that more than half the country wish they could largely undo that is Brexit:

If I was to be politically summed up in a few words it would be; Brexit, sovereignty, strong military and most importantly a strong and united family unit.

Workwise, the teenage Mr Finch apparently isn’t satisfied with just running an entire council.

The Byline Times discovered that he’s also listed as an online tutor for a company called SuperProf. Hire him for just £15 an hour!

His sales pitch:

I’m 18 turning 19, I have just finished A-Level and I know what you need to pass your exams, the Knowledge is the most important area of A-Level or GCSE’s.

[I] specialise in Tudor History, Cold War, USA politics, UK politics and many other areas in history too

They note that he hasn’t declared this on his council declaration of interests. If someone actually paid him the £15 an hour then concealing it from the said declaration is of course another example of a Reform councillor breaking the rules.

One rule for them; another for the rest of us.

Being a councillor wasn’t necessarily his original dream career. In fact, his ambition until recently was to become a history teacher. But his dreams were thwarted by nothing less than “socialist wokeism”:

I loved history and I loved teaching but the problem was the curriculum, especially history. Universities and colleges are a conveyor belt for socialist wokeism.”

Nonetheless, it seems like, the Byline Times was led to believe that Finch plans to go back to university in September.

He’s got a lot going on.

Finch, who as we’ve seen is quite the history fan, has previously noted that there is a precedent for extraordinarily young politicians in the UK. William Pitt the Younger was elected at the age of 21 -and in fact became Prime Minister at 24). However it will still be a couple of years before Mr Finch reaches that particular ripe old age.