Reform UK’s ‘Doge’ unit yet to carry out any council audits

21 comments

1. Nor can they with any shred of credibility after the news from Nottingham and its Union flag budget.

2. >Deputy party leader Richard Tice, who was announced as the unit’s new head on Wednesday, told the Financial Times that Doge is “a philosophy of saving money”. He did not deny that the unit itself had carried out no audit work in councils to date.

   >Of Doge’s approach to councils, he said it was never the “intention to audit them because audits are expensive. The point was to sort of . . . it’s just different ways of identifying where you can save money.

   So it was all for shiny headlines that the usual suspect deep throated without gagging.

   Edit

   Deep throating in normal circumstances without gagging is awesome👍. No shame intentioned.

3. If anyone wants to know how much of a shit-show Reform UK actually are, I highly recommended following @reformexposed on Twitter/X. Everyday there’s another scandal and/or calamity being reported on that account.

4. Reform UK has not grasped that sacking people in the UK is a lot more difficult than in the US, and it’s not even as easy in the US as Trump hoped.

5. It’s pretty simple.

   Where’s the money? There is no money.

   There. Where’s my cheque?

6. So it’s all performative bollocks then?

   There’s a shock and surprise….

7. I can imagine instead of audits, it’s just suggesting cutting all decorations and events especially any related to LGBTQ

8. I literally couldn’t trust ANYONE who votes for reform. The fact they’re so easily convinced about things that are just down right lies would be very concerning to me.

9. Uncosted unsubstantiated sound bites from Reform PLC?

   Fuck me – someone will say the world is round next.

10. These people are even more mediocre thsn their American familiars. I hate to imagine what would happen if they got Farage into no 10.

11. It’s a packed field but I think the ‘British DOGE’ thing is the most embarrassing thing in British Politics this year. 

    Copying an American thing wholesale is bad but copying an American thing that didn’t work at all is just shameful. 

12. I get lots of people are rightly going to take the opportunity to dunk on Reform UK, but I think this is actually more emblematic of the underlying problem of local government in 2025.

    The logic behind having local authorities is that they are meant to tailor and decide local services based on their understanding of the local area. They are meant to focus on what really matters to local people, and the theory is that they should be able to do so more effectively because they are working at a level far closer to the citizen.

    That is self evidently not happening in 2025. Between social care costs, all of the statutory requirements, and all of the centrally managed funding pots councils need to bid into, there is no real democracy actually taking place.

    Instead, councils are given less money than they need by the central government predicated on them raising council tax, they are given no real choice about what they spend it on because of all the centralised rules and bureaucracies, and there are no real opportunities to streamline and improve processes.

    If an opposition party can be elected promising to make efficiencies and then doesn’t find any, yeah, it means they are incompetent, but it also means the entire structure is a lie.

13. Populism getting smacked with reality when they get into governance. It is never not funny because it always ends with the people that voted for them getting shot in the back of the head, arse, and each toe.

    At least I have the qualification to say I voted for Kodos.

14. Almost if voting for a party who only excels at sound bites and racism isn’t a good thing to do.

15. Reform – all talk and no trousers? Who would have thunk it?

    Best off spending £75k on flags right before increasing everyone’s council tax bills.

16. Where are the bots? Key words not triggered you?

    Who’d have guessed reform would be utterly useless and the dog whistle of ‘saving money’ and ‘wasteful spending’ but councils dont have any money to save they are on tight budgets.

    Yet these charlatans think they can run a country.

17. Mainstream media in the UK all have egg on their faces yesterday. All the reform folks in daytime tv all clearly subdued due to their little fantasy mini Trump cutting all their taxes and the unwashed masses blaming poor people, unemployed, disabled and immigrants. Didn’t work out so well in Wales? Polls in Scotland good for SNP.

    Farage isn’t worthy of the air time given. He’s failed as a politician for decades.

18. I work for councils. Councils do have things going on which seem to waste money. However it is not a simple matter of noticing the expense and cutting it out. They can’t easily do that without loss of service, That takes structural changes with the projects and investment it takes to make them. It’s not something a quick, top-down DOGE style programme will be able to improve. I think most people feel their council’s services need improving, not disrupting.

    Also I highly suspect that the inefficiencies I notice happen in large private organisations too.

19. well bluster and hyperbole is their policy!

    say much do nothing unless it enriches them is how they operate?

20. linking a website that requires a paywall is so annoying.

21. They’re copying so many of Trump’s methods whilst denying the want Trump’s result.

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