Meet the new boss – 'remarkably like the old boss'
'The Insider' has spent years inside Suffolk's corridors of power. Anonymous by necessity, unsparing by choice. In his first piece, he opines about the first 100-ish days of the Reform administration at Suffolk County Council.
What began as Reform UK's Suffolk summer of optimism is beginning to look suspiciously like a Grey October Day.
There is an old rule in politics. Politicians rarely lose elections. They simply disappoint enough people that somebody else wins the next one.
Reform UK's first 100 or so days running Suffolk County Council have not been a complete disaster. Nobody has accidentally privatised the A14. Endeavour House remains upright. And 806 more solar farms have been granted planning permission – in the last week.
But for a party elected on the promise that it would do politics differently, there is an increasingly awkward question hanging over Reform HQ.
Different from what?
Back in May, Michael Hadwen inherited something every politician dreams of. Expectation, and a socking great majority.
Reform UK were not simply another administration. They were, according to countless national campaign speeches, the people who were going to sweep away the old ways of doing politics. More transparency. Less establishment. More openness. Less bureaucracy.
Curiously, most of Suffolk's Reform UK candidates seemed rather less enthusiastic about discussing any of that with the local press – or, remarkably, the voters. Detailed policy was scarce. The campaign was largely left to Nigel Farage grandstanding before thousands at Portman Road while the county candidates kept their heads down.
Oliver Rouane-Williams
It was, though, an effective campaign. It just was not much of a local one.
Three months later, that lack of detail is beginning to matter. Because campaigning is one thing. Governing is another.
The biggest surprise is not what Reform UK have done. It is what they have not.
Where are the Reform UK policies for Suffolk? What has actually changed?
The answer, so far, appears to be... not very much.
The council continues with the same propositions inherited from the previous administration. The committees still meet. The officers still write the reports. The agenda rolls on. Still, all the logos have changed, and fewer flags are flying. So there is that.
The machinery of local government appears largely untouched. Apart from one, some will say, critical matter.
Nothing illustrates that better than the constitutional flea-pit pantomime surrounding Suffolk's Local Government Reorganisation.
For those fortunate enough not to spend their evenings reading statutory guidance, Suffolk is due to disappear, replaced by three new unitary councils.
Councillor Hadwen does not like the proposal. Reform UK does not much like devolution either. He decided Suffolk should challenge the government in the courts.
The awkward bit is how that decision appears to have been reached.
Opposition leaders Cllrs Cook, Rout and Stringer have all tabled detailed questions, but are still waiting. The legal advice remains unpublished, the disquiet continues to rumble, and the answers have not come.
Which feels remarkably like the sort of politics Reform UK spent years criticising.
Then comes my favourite bit.
The monitoring officer (the council's lawyer) – whose job is to make sure the council follows its own constitution – has concluded that the constitution may not have been followed. The arbiter of this decision was the council's lawyer. But this cannot now be discussed at Cabinet until October because... reasons.
Oliver Rouane-Williams
It is a farce in the best British tradition of St Trinian's and Will Hay, who undoubtedly influenced the writers of The Thick of It via black-and-white reruns in the 1980s. Tellingly, those same scribes would be unlikely to accept this story because it is simply too implausible. Yet this is where the good folk of Suffolk find themselves today.
This esteemed publication, along with others, is searching for answers. It is a bit like trying to find own-brand bottled water in the supermarket – a surprisingly tough ask.
Then there is the legal challenge itself.
Reports suggest taxpayers could ultimately be asked to fund it to the tune of £500,000.
Let us imagine Reform UK wins the case and...
A judge agrees the process was flawed.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham corrects the procedural error, signs the paperwork again, and arrives at exactly the same destination. After all, is he not also promising to do politics differently? The cancellation of devolution under the new prevailing political doctrine of "Manchesterism" seems extremely unlikely.
The only obvious difference? Time.
And, perhaps entirely by coincidence, enough of it to push the 2027 county elections back to 2028.
Politics is full of coincidences. The problem is, I just do not believe them.
The irony writes itself.
Reform UK came to office promising openness. Promising transparency. Promising straight answers. Yet here we are.
Legal advice nobody can read. Questions nobody can get answered.
It is beginning to feel less like a political revolution and more like continuity with a fresh coat of gloss.
Endeavour House increasingly resembles the Titanic. No, not because it is sinking.
Because Councillor Hadwen and the council's lawyer appear to be arguing about who authorised the lifeboats ("Land ahoy! Destination: Restore!") with themselves – and probably, occasionally, each other.
Politics has been careering downhill ever since the morning after the Brexit referendum. This is not a comment on Brexit itself but, come on, who had ever heard the phrase "small boats" before June 2016?
Public trust has steadily gurgled down the plughole ever since. Every new administration promises to change something.
The trouble is... here we are. Again.
Suffolk voters did not elect Reform UK to administer yesterday's agenda more efficiently. They elected Reform UK because they wanted tomorrow's agenda to look different.
So far, tomorrow looks remarkably like yesterday.
History offers one final lesson. When the great ocean liners were launched from Britain's shipyards, engineers famously underestimated the wash they would create. The ship floated perfectly well.
It was the curious spectators watching the launch who got caught in the wash.
Councillor Hadwen may be discovering the political equivalent. His administration has created quite a noisy, dramatic cascade of Suffolk's most precious commodity – water.
The difficulty is that the water now appears to be flowing back towards his remote-controlled door, in his command deck.
He may soon find himself needing a rather large umbrella. Let us hope he buys a transparent one.
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