🎄 Flags spark as a festive stand-off, with one village claiming it can't put up Christmas lights until flags come down 🗣️ A chaotic Kent County Council meeting ➡️ What else is happening at KCC this week? 🗞️ News in brief, and more

Kent County Council is getting underway. Slightly odd arrangements in place where usual press seats have been closed, leaving us in the public gallery, which has 14 seats. Far more than 14 people are here, leading to several journalists and others being left outside of the room. But we’re in.

Another one gone in Kent. Cllr Isabella Kemp, elected for Reform in May, is now listed as an independent. It is unclear at this point precisely why Cllr Kemp has exited the party. This means Reform has now lost 9 of the 57 councillors they saw elected only six months ago.

Characteristically excellent local reporting from @edjennings.bsky.social today. "Kent has said for years that it cannot cope alone. Geography turned the county into the UK’s de facto reception service for unaccompanied children, and capacity has repeatedly buckled."

Reform is still in charge, at least on paper, but much of its authority now exists only in theory. If this is Reform’s model for government, Kent may have provided Britain with a warning. ✏️ @edjennings.bsky.social

This is fantastic. Well worth reading to get a glimpse of what a Reform government might look like.

St John's, Tunbridge Wells by-election result: Joe Dore (TW Independents) - 20 Kit Hawes-Webb (TW Alliance) - 105 Chris Hoare (Reform) - 177 Ukonu Obasi (Lib Dem) - 629 - ELECTED Kate Sargeant (Green) - 160 David Sumner (Conservative) - 90 Turnout: 28.4%

The catastrophic mess at Kent County Council shows what happens when a populist party, with no idea how government works, gets into power ✏️ @edjennings.bsky.social

So, er, I have the main story on the front page of the @thenewworldmag.bsky.social. Not bad for a random guy with a blog that got out of hand.

Three more Kent Reform councillors have been expelled from the party. Cllrs Brian Black, Oliver Bradshaw, and Paul Thomas have all been kicked out for showing "a lack of integrity" and "a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour."

Two Kent Reform councillors have been formally expelled from the party. Cllr Robert Ford and Cllr Bill Barrett have been kicked out after being suspended over the last fortnight for "bringing the party into disrepute."

We've shared lots more photos from Saturday's UKIP march and counter-protest in Rochester over on our Instagram:

Yes, Medway is doing just fine, thank you very much. Why do you ask?

Four Reform councillors in Kent have been suspended following a leaked video of internal disagreements over the weekend. Paul Thomas, Oliver Bradshaw, Maxine Fothergill, and Bill Barrett have all lost the whip this morning. Reform in Kent have now lost 7 of the 57 councillors elected in May.

Turns out basing your entire business model around Substack isn't necessarily ideal when Amazon decides to break the internet.

Essential - maddening - reading from @kentcurrent.news: open.substack.com/pub/kentcurr...

Really enjoyed doing this!

Tonight! I'll be speaking at @mediacomgold.bsky.social at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social alongside Jason Gibbins of the BBC and @davidfloydnews.bsky.social of Social Spider on why local journalism matters.

Another one falls in Kent. Reform has suspended county councillor Robert Ford after a complaint was made about him by 'several female members of staff.' The party said that Cllr Ford refused to engage with the complaints process, so he has had the whip removed pending a disciplinary process.

Another one falls in Kent. Reform has suspended county councillor Robert Ford after a complaint was made about him by 'several female members of staff.' The party said that Cllr Ford refused to engage with the complaints process, so he has had the whip removed pending a disciplinary process.

Looking forward to speaking at this tomorrow!

Forcing people who want to open pubs to pay over the odds to zombie local news outlets to publicise their licence applications does not support pubs, it supports the corporate owners of zombie news outlets.

Curious that the KM believe local people can only know about licensing changes if the KM is paid to feature them as opposed to just, you know, writing about them as news stories.

Multiple Conservative councillors in Kent are defecting to Reform today. Cllr Robbie Lammas in Medway, a former staffer to Richard Holden, has jumped. Cllr Gary Harding, Cllr David Beattie, Cllr Emma Elliott, and Cllr Aaron Elliott in Gravesham defected en masse this morning in Gravesham.

Phenomenal for fans of Mark Reckless' current adventures. A Reform camera apparently glitched and replaced him.. with a walnut.

"You don’t fight the politics of violence by quibbling with the details. You stamp it into a million pieces! You draw a f*cking line!" If Keir Starmer won’t even make a moral case against deporting our friends and neighbours, then what is the point of him?

Thrilled to be speaking at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social again next month on why local journalism matters. Come for the PowerPoint, stay for the drinks reception!

Delightful to see the party currently leading in the polls front and centre across the news today, with plans to remove the right to live and work here indefinitely from hundreds of thousands of people, including my own partner. Really lovely way to start the week.

Utterly grim.

The Medway school at the centre of an argument over awarding a Nigel Farage t-shirts to a student winning an essay contest has u-turned and will no longer offer the prize. They told this to the Daily Mail, which does at least reference our original reporting. What an odd couple of days.

Arrived at Kent County Council’s full meeting today to find climate change protestors clashing with climate change denials outside of the building.

Thrilled to see my story about the Reform shirt being given away at a Medway school featured in Playbook today!

Pretty hard to do that when the covid one has been withdrawn from those of us with chronic respiratory conditions, though.

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off (FREE TO READ!) takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-is-en...

This is a pretty remarkable story that seemed to get weirder with every person I spoke to.

We were mentioned in the House of Lords with other brilliant indie news people by Lord Lucas. The Eastbourne peer is helping the public interest news sector push for reform of how public notice ads are placed. Legacy media corporates get nearly all the £50 million a year spent on these ads.

Niche local content, but this morning, I am mostly trying to figure out who submitted this utterly deranged proposal for local government reorganisations for Kent.

It's all getting a bit much in Kent. The politics stories we're chasing this week: A (Labour!) MP celebrating flags on lampposts. A Reform councillor defecting to UKIP. A school running an essay contest on Reform 'smashing the system' to win Reform merch. KCC leader pushing anti-vaccine misinfo.

Another one falls in Kent. Cllr Amelia Randall, elected as a Reform councillor for Birchington in May, has defected to... UKIP. Cllr Randall was posting in support of Reform on X on Thursday. It is unclear what happened between then and now to send her to 2015.

If everyone in Kent could stop doing newsworthy things, I'd very much appreciate it. I have enough content to fill out about eight newsletters this week.

Feel like it’s gone under the radar how few people are eligible for a covid vaccine anymore. I’m no longer eligible, whereas I’m still eligible for flu jab. Can anyone smarter than me make it make sense?

If free speech in this country is under threat, it is from thugs like this.

Really hard to imagine why when it costs me £52.50 to take a 34 minute train journey from here to London.

KentOnline: 'Protestors descend on hotel housing asylum seekers.' That descent in full:

We've somehow ended up in quite a remarkable position where Reform-led KCC are telling people that hanging flags on highways is unlawful but Kent Police say it's fine.

It's a Kent bonanza in James' links roundup this week, with features from both @kentcurrent.news and @localauthority.news featured, alongside an excellent long read on wtf happened with those spiders in Ebbsfleet.

So grateful for the uptick in new paid subscribers on the @kentcurrent.news this week. We literally couldn't do this without them.

Most reporters on local papers are basically making minimum wage. This would be funny if it wasn't so depressing...

@edjennings.bsky.social excellent Local Authority via @jamesomalley.co.uk. The publication interviewed one of the Reform party’s local councillors in Medway, John Vye: “What book have you read recently you would recommend? I don’t read books.” open.substack.com/pub/jamesoma...

Suspect most local media outlets have got so used to the traditional way of doing things that they won't know how to handle this at all, in the same way US outlets seem utterly unprepared for Trump, even the second time around.