Cllr Adam Kent is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Worcestershire County Council.

Worcestershire residents are now facing a confirmed 8.98 per cent council tax increase.

At the same time, the County Council has committed £500,000 to consultants from PwC to deliver “transformational change.”

That combination alone should raise eyebrows. Together, it demands scrutiny.

Because this is not speculation. The Council’s own budget papers confirm that the Strategic Leadership Team has been working with PwC to produce a transformation plan, grounded in activity and spend analysis, to deliver savings at scale.

Half a million pounds. On advice.

In an organisation where senior management is already paid millions collectively, the obvious question is:

What exactly are we paying them for?

The justification offered in the same report is stark:

“Limited capacity to deliver change alongside growing day-to-day pressures.”

This is not just an explanation. It is an admission.

An admission that:

• The organisation lacks internal capacity.
• Senior leadership cannot deliver change at pace.
• Consultants are required to fill the gap.

That is not transformation.

That is dependency.

And it goes to the heart of a serious issue: if those paid to lead cannot deliver, outsourcing their responsibilities is not a solution—it is a symptom.

Against this backdrop, the Conservative Group put forward a £14.4 million recurring savings programme, focused on:

• Reducing organisational overhead
• Management rationalisation
• Recruitment control
• Procurement efficiency
• Cutting reliance on consultancy itself

Crucially, it protected statutory frontline services, targeting inefficiency rather than delivery.

It offered a route to:

• Limit the tax rise to 4.98 per cent instead of 8.98 per cent
• Restore financial discipline
• Refocus the organisation on delivery

It was dismissed.

The official reason was that the proposal was “not detailed enough.”

But what does that actually mean?

It means elected members are now expected to:

• Identify specific roles for deletion
• Design staffing structures
• Produce operational delivery plans

That is not scrutiny.

That is management by councillors.

And if councillors are expected to do the job of senior officers, then a very obvious question follows:

Why aren’t they being paid like them?

Because the current reality is this:

• Senior officers are paid six-figure salaries to manage and deliver
• Consultants are paid £500,000 to design transformation
• Councillors are told to produce operational detail—or be ignored

That is not accountability.

It is institutional confusion.

Responsibility for this sits squarely with Reform UK.

They came to power promising:

• To cut waste
• To reduce bureaucracy
• To deliver better value

Instead, they have overseen:

• A £500,000 consultancy contract.
• A confirmed 8.98 per cent council tax increase
• A political arrangement that raises serious questions

Because the budget was secured at a £21.2 million price of abstention paid to the Liberal Democrats.

If £14.4 million of savings could have limited the tax rise to under five per cent, why was £21.2 million committed instead?

Why was more spent than necessary?

Why was this about political arithmetic rather than financial discipline?

And why, having secured that outcome, did the Liberal Democrats abstain, walk out of the chamber, and then proceed to call for the heads of those who had just paid that price?

Residents are entitled to draw their own conclusions.

What has unfolded in Worcestershire is not a single mistake.

It is a three-part failure:

• Senior officers, unable—or unwilling—to deliver transformation without external consultants
• Reform leadership, abandoning its own principles on waste and tax
• Liberal Democrats, accepting the price of abstention and then distancing themselves from the consequences

Each has played a role.

Each shares responsibility.

Strip everything back, and the position is clear.

The Council’s own documents confirm:

• Transformation is essential
• Capacity is lacking
• Consultants have been brought in

At the same time:

• A credible savings plan was rejected
• Council Tax has risen sharply
• Millions have been committed to secure political support

This is not reform.

It is a failure of leadership—managerial and political—funded by residents.

Six-figure salaries are not symbolic.

They are paid in exchange for delivery.

And after £500,000 on consultants, a £21.2 million price of abstention, and an 8.98 per cent tax rise, Worcestershire residents are entitled to ask:

If those in charge cannot deliver—why are they still in charge?

“These stronger school outcomes do not automatically translate into equal outcomes later in life”

Why don’t girls’ higher grades appear to lead to better pay?

Jews in Hastings, Sussex, took to the streets on Saturday, 21 March, to protest the planned execution law currently going through the Israeli parliament, which targets Palestinians only.

Hastings sees a powerful protest

A video showing the silent, powerful action has now gone viral, viewed tens of thousands of times on social media:

Veteran British artist Annie Lennox, who shared the video, praised the action as a ‘moving example of how local activism can be incredibly powerful’.

She wrote:

Speaking up about what the Israeli government is doing is not antisemitic! It never was and it never will be. When your government is carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity it is a moral right and obligation to speak up and challenge it.

Dressed all in black with T-shirts that read ‘Not in our Name’, five members of the group Hastings Jews for Justice wore a noose each around their necks and blindfolds to denote the ‘condemned’ while others held placards that read:

As Jews, we condemn Israel’s planned racist ‘death penalty’ law that targets Palestinians.

Palestinians in Israeli prisons are already tortured, abused, starved and raped.

They will be hanged. There is no appeal.

This is state-sanctioned murder say human rights groups.

As Jews we call on all MPs to condemn this vile law.

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They handed out leaflets explaining that the bill had passed its first reading in November with Amnesty International stating that this amounted to the Israeli government ‘brazenly granting itself carte blanche to impose death sentences on Palestinians.

‘Any death sentences imposed under these amendments would constitute a violation of the right to life and, when imposed by a military court, may also amount to war crimes.’

‘Shamefully silent’

A spokesperson for Hastings Jews for Justice said:

Our representatives have so far remained shamefully silent about this law.

But this new death penalty law fits right into the existing brutalization of Palestinians – it is a racist, apartheid law as it applies only to Palestinians.

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Israel is an apartheid state, according to most human rights groups and the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion of 2024. Israel is also committing genocide in Gaza and has now launched an illegal and unprovoked war on Iran.

With policies such as these, we cannot continue to pretend that Israel operates as a democracy. We cannot continue to sell arms to Israel that are being used to kill Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

It is worth remembering that in 1969 our government finally abolished capital punishment in the UK, arguing such punishment was a ‘barbarous penalty’. How much more barbarous then to enact this policy in a discriminatory system that targets just one group of people?

We call on the British government condemn this appalling apartheid law, to end all arms sales and other military cooperation and to impose sanctions now.

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Green Party leader Zack Polanski just got serious on the economy.  Not just on substance.  His 32-minute speech at the New Economics Foundation on Wednesday 18 March saw a change in tone.

“Our fiscal framework is hypersensitive to market movements, and this creates policy uncertainty that then fuels the very market jitters it was there to supposedly prevent” is one phrase that stood out for me.  There was lots of talk of productivity and fiscal multipliers.

This was Zack answering his critics.  He can do the heavyweight economics.

Zack Polanski: a shift

Is this a shift away from insurgency?  Kind of.  It had to happen.  To hold power in this country, especially with a media that is equally hostile and banal, you have to talk money.  The vast majority of the British people agree that the Iran war is terrible and the Gaza genocide is criminal.  But they feel the cost-of-living crisis every day.

I’ve been advocating that we need to appeal to the “Green Curious”.  The people who would like to see a government serious about climate action, on poverty.  On restoring crumbling infrastructure and creaking public services.  There are millions of Green Curious people who see the benefits of compassion and long-term investment.  But they want reassurance that their taxes will be spent wisely and their mortgages won’t shoot up.  If you want their cross on the ballot paper, you have to look like a safe pair of hands.

Polanski still communicates clearly in everyday language.  Rents have gone up by £3300 per household since 2022, he said.  That’s £18 billion countrywide.  That could have been an extra £18 billion people spent with local businesses.  The bakery on the way to work.  The local pub at the end of the week.  That’s why we’ve got hollowed out high streets.  He’s right, and that’s a clear way to explain it.

It’s a welcome change from the long shopping lists the left often recite.  We want more money on schools, colleges and universities.  Hospitals and care homes.  Trains, buses, metros and trams.  Of course we do.  But unless you answer the question “how?” the public are justified in being sceptical.  They’ve been let down by too many politicians too many times.

This speech gets us into the territory of how you actually fix things.  Something I’ve been banging on about for years.

Fixing

A wealth tax is a day one priority.  Not because it can fund everything, said Polanski.  Although £15 billion a year will buy you quite a bit.  But because it’s far better for society to spend that on productive infrastructure and long term investment in energy, housing, health and education than it is sitting in private equity funds.  The billionaires will still be mega-rich.

There was detail on equalising Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax.  That’s another £12 billion.  This is bleeding obvious and it’s a scandal that Labour haven’t done it.  We should not tax people more for working for a living than we do for owning things.  Unlike Income Tax, it’s only taxed on the profits made, anyway.

There was detail on replacing the Office of Budget Responsibility.  Established in 2010 to bring down the debt and the deficit, it has obviously failed. I’ve written about it before.  It makes unfounded assumptions and always, and I mean always, gets its forecasts wrong.  So let’s have an Office for Fiscal Transparency whose job it is to publish the hidden assumptions in Treasury and Bank of England forecasts.

Instead of assuming that all investment has no benefit after five years, let’s get the real evidence.  And let’s stop obsessing over GDP as the only measure of economic success.

Polanski is working for everyone

Let’s have a wellbeing measure than includes health, education, and economic security.

I was the first Mayor to introduce one.  We used it to guide policy decisions.  We still smashed the job creation target, beating our 15 year target in just four years.  Every £1 we invested in job creation returned over £3 to Treasury in payroll taxes alone, above and beyond the economic benefits of people having money in their pockets.  This stuff works.

And yes, we’d look at borrowing for investment, and when there are adverse economic events, we’d look at quantitative easing.  “I’m not an ideologue,” said Polanski, “I’m a pragmatist.”

I liked it.  You could deliver it all in the first term of a government.  Realistic.  Effective.  It would make life better for everyone.  Even the billionaires would live in a safer country.

Featured image via the Canary

From where I’m currently sitting, Keir Starmer’s “we will not be drawn into a wider war” bullshit is looking more and more like bullshit by the day.

I’m only fifteen minutes away from a very noisy RAF Fairford. It is quite clear we have already been dragged into a conflict that a vast majority of the British public wants absolutely nothing to do with.

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

Starmer: flip-flop, flip-flop

This masterclass in spineless triangulation echoes Tony Blair’s Iraq catastrophe note-for-note.

Keir Starmer initially told us he ‘refused’ Trump’s demand to let US bombers use British bases for offensive strikes. He knew it wouldn’t fly with the Parliamentary Labour Party and he is fully aware what voters think about fighting other people’s wars.

While Starmer called it a “deliberate” decision, rooted in British national interest and legality, he was simply looking for a way to repackage and deliver Britain’s involvement in Trump and Netanyahu’s war of terror.

Let us be absolutely clear: Keir Starmer isn’t “playing a blinder”, folks. He may as well be loading the missiles on to the Stealth bombers himself.

So, the Prime Minister that said we won’t be dragged into the Zionists’ war on the Middle East is said to be “working with allies” on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Once again, Keir Starmer has folded like cheap cardboard.

But this isn’t really a sudden escalation. The facts speak for themselves, loud and clear.

On March 1 — mere hours after his apparently defiant stance — Starmer flip-flopped, and granted the US permission for “specific and limited defensive” strikes from UK bases.

By March 5, Starmer was sending four extra Typhoon jets to Qatar. By March 7, US forces were actively using British bases for these defensive (LOL) operations.

How can we be drawn into a wider war that Keir Starmer has already drawn us into?

Ignoring lessons, then invoking them

Donald Trump is already raging, calling him weak, nothing like Winston Churchill, and threatening the mythical special relationship with all sorts of very, very terrible things.

Why bend over backwards for someone that really hates your fucking guts, Mr Starmer?

Starmer’s response to being trashed by the fascist American despot? No parliamentary vote. No exit strategy. Just mission creep dressed as defence.

Britain has seen this film in Iraq and Afghanistan before. Limited support becomes full entanglement, dead British military personnel, dead civilians, and a generation scarred. We cannot go back there.

Millions of us warned against Iraq. We’re warning again now. Keir Starmer isn’t listening — because listening would mean ultimately defying Washington, and that’s the one red line that Keith the invertebrate will never cross, despite the bluster.

Keir Starmer invokes the lessons that have been learned from Iraq in one breath, then repeats the same disastrous pattern in the next.

Keir Starmer has urged for de-escalation — as if anyone would actually listen to the irrelevant wooden plant pot — but his own actions quite clearly undermine this apparent plea for peace.

Starmer may well be delighting the easily-pleased liberal media with this fake stance of defiance, but it’s not making the slightest bit of a difference to Labour’s horrendously bad polling.

And whilst Starmer is laser-focused on delivering death for Donald, the domestic Labour revolt is well underway.

A revolt is afoot

Former Deputy PM Angela Rayner tore into Labour’s immigration crackdown as “un-British” and warned the party is “running out of time”. I didn’t even think it was possible to agree with Ange these days, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan wants Labour to campaign to rejoin the single market and push for full EU membership at the next general election. I voted Remain, I would vote Remain again, but Labour is not the vehicle for progressive EU membership.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar still wants Starmer gone yesterday. Unite’s Sharon Graham is predicting “decimation” in the May 7 elections — and she’s really not wrong.

That’s the membership, the unions and the mayors all saying the same thing. This cautious, centrist, craven Starmerism is electoral suicide.

Starmer says he loves our country, apparently — just not enough to deliver the change people voted for. No wealth taxes. No green new deal. No public ownership. Just more austerity-lite, more deference to Trump, more sleaze tolerated until it explodes.

Starmer: finished?

The left inside Labour must stop pretending this disaster is salvageable under Starmer. Demand a full, warts-and-all independent inquiry into the Peter Mandelson appointment — no more grubby cover-ups. Force a binding Commons vote on any further Iran escalation and stop writing blank cheques for imperialism.

The May elections loom as judgment day for Keir Starmer. If he clings on with this record — Epstein-enabler, Iran flip-flopper, and utterly tone-deaf on the base — Labour faces a widespread wipeout.

Featured image via the Canary

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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is ‘monitoring’ the situation at the Dimona nuclear plant in Israel, after Iran hit the towns of Arad and Dimona, despite Israel refusing inspections and safeguards since 1969.

IAEA noticed a “nuclear research center” in Dimona! Tomorrow they will notice that they’ve no permission to inspect it. On Tuesday they will notice that it’s expanding since many yrs. On Wednesday they’ll notice that some🇮🇱ministers proposed the use of nuclear bombs in Gaza&co. https://t.co/Pk24S8aTVF pic.twitter.com/yAC449RD4d

— Lorenzo Kamel (@lorenzokamel) March 22, 2026

Non-proliferation treaty

Experts estimate that Israel possesses around 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads. It has produced enough plutonium for between 100 and 200 weapons.

Israel produces the plutonium for its nuclear program at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre, also known as Dimona.

Additionally, Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is an international agreement which was designed to:

prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote cooperation between states on peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and advance nuclear disarmament.

Only four other countries have not signed the NPT: India, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Sudan.

Israel also refuses inspections and IAEA safeguards on its nuclear activities.

Despite all of this, the world seems to have collectively agreed to ignore the fact that Israel has nukes.

Because noticing them, let alone inspecting Israel’s nuclear weapons facility, would of course be ‘antiseptic’.

Noticing is antisemitic. https://t.co/G5uD5MnPD2

— The FIX Collective 🔻🔻🔻 (@ThatTylerPopp) March 22, 2026

Meanwhile, Israel has spent the last 30 years telling the world that Iran is only two weeks away from building Nukes.

Arad and Dimona

Now, Iran has bombed the towns of Arad and Dimona.

IAEA has always been a total joke, serving the Western empire https://t.co/NKJHDjfVAE

— M Silvennoinen 🇨🇺 (@mrSatias) March 22, 2026

How funny!! As Israel supposedly doesn’t have nuclear weapons!
And lol and behold!! A nuclear centre in Israel!
Well what do you know!! https://t.co/7rpx8Wa0YT

— convencia (@convencia) March 22, 2026

But Iran issued an evacuation notice a few days ago for the same area. By Israel’s standards, that makes it a valid target, and anyone who stayed in the area was probably a terrorist.

Didn’t Iran issue a warning to evacuate a few days ago? By your logic doesn’t that make it okay? You said that warning people in advance of firing missiles on their homes makes you the most moral army in the world. Well, Iran did the same thing. I guess they’re the moral army… https://t.co/e3O3zMgqtf

— susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى (@susanabulhawa) March 22, 2026

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Israelis living near Dimona should have evacuated to the US, or Europe, or wherever the hell their second passport is from.

Absolutely zero sympathy for Israel! Iran gave warning so the civilians could have escaped back to the US or Europe or wherever they came from! #IranWar‌ #Dimona #Israel https://t.co/rsqHNdUGty

— Yip82 (@yipmann82) March 22, 2026

You know who can’t escape with their second passports? The native citizens of Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. We would need them to count back from 1 million — twice — while balancing on one leg in order to give them visas anyway.

Additionally, why were Israeli citizens living so close to an undeclared, uninspected nuclear site?

Sounds a little bit like, erm, human shields to me?

Why were there civilians shielding the Israeli undeclared uninspected nuclear programme, (producer of at least 200 weapons) which Iran warned would be bombed after Israel bombed Iran’s declared, regularly inspected nuclear enrichment site which has produced no weapons? https://t.co/gsiDR0pbTM

— maura (@curlymo_99) March 22, 2026

Then again, Israel’s conscription means that most Israeli citizens have served in the IDF. Again, by Israel’s standards — who hit military targets once they were home at night, while their families slept — that makes them valid targets.

The irony is that Israel has banged on and on for years about Iran’s nuclear enrichment site, which has been declared, regularly inspected, and has produced no weapons.

Meanwhile, they’re producing nukes and using Israeli citizens as human shields. Something they also accused Gaza of. Funny how all of the things Israel accused Gaza of are actually just their guilty conscience, or lack thereof.

Feature image via Al Jazeera English/YouTube