𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

By Arthur Reynolds

Nigel Farage never stops talking about how much other people should work. At Reform-run North Northamptonshire Council last year, he made his feelings clear, declaring “if people are working and being paid out of the public purse and not delivering, they should be accountable”.

I quite agree. So let’s take a brief look at Farage’s record as an MP. In 23 months, he’s asked written questions – a useful way to hold the Government to account and draw out uncomfortable information – only 20 times. By way of contrast, his mortal enemy, Restore leader Rupert Lowe, has asked nearly 2,500 questions. Some work ethic, that.

But, anyway, let’s get back up the M1 to North Northamptonshire. Before the 2025 local elections, Martin Griffiths, who now leads the council, put out leaflets with the rallying cry, “vote Reform UK on May 1 to smash tax hikes and demand real change”.

Since taking power, he’s increased council tax by the maximum of almost 5%, introduced a brand-spanking-new tax – the second homes premium – and recruited an extra executive director who’ll trouser £120,000 a year. Depressingly for taxpayers up and down the country, this is straight out of Reform’s playbook for local government: promise the world and deliver the square root of nothing at all.

Then there is the small matter of the council’s chairman, Maurice Eglin. Last week, he resigned after local journalists discovered he’d reposted the far-right Britain First leader Paul Golding – a man who’s been behind bars for religiously aggravated assault – and praised Tommy Robinson for “standing up for all of the British nationals”. So much for the “vigorous” candidate vetting Farage promised.

In February, Farage – who in another life turned up to the European Parliament less than any other British MEP – told a packed rally Britain needed “an attitudinal change to hard work, rather than work-life balance”. He followed up with a stark warning to staff at Reform-run councils: “either work from the office or you’re gone”.

That message seems to have passed the bureaucrats of North Northamptonshire by. New FOI data shows that almost 200 of Kettering’s finest are working under what’s known in government lingo as “compressed hours”.

The arrangement sounds simple on paper: council staff work a few extra hours a day in exchange for an extra day off every week or fortnight.

You might think this is common sense, giving staff more time for childcare or looking after their parents. But, if my experience in Whitehall is anything to go by, it is completely and utterly inefficient.

People working compressed hours end up logging in when everyone else is at the gym or sitting in front of the telly. You can’t help other people or bounce ideas around, so you are by definition, less productive.

Then on their regular days off, no one in your team can reach them. Anyone with an urgent question has to wait until tomorrow. Vital projects are delayed, so staff can have the work-life balance Farage rails against.

And it’s the same story across the land. North of 1,300 staff across six councils Reform has controlled since the 2025 local elections work under compressed hours. This is nothing more than a four-day week by the back door – the kind of self-defeating inefficiency voters put their trust in Reform to stop.

Farage once argued “local government has gone under the radar for too long”. Now, I bet he wishes it would stay that way.