Reform UK's teenage hotshot is Britain's youngest council leader in charge of £500m budget despite being aged only 18
BRITAIN'S youngest council leader is in charge of a £500million budget — at the age of 18.
Reform UK councillor and university student George Finch got the top job at Warwickshire county council for the next fortnight after leader Rob Howard quit after just 40 days.
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But last night fresh-faced George, who has a poster of former US president Ronald Reagan on his bedroom wall, insisted the council was in 'steady hands'.
Keen rugby player George was elected in May, when Nigel Farage's party had local election victories across the country. He was made deputy leader and put in charge of children's social services.
On Wednesday, he was named interim council leader after Mr Howard resigned on health grounds.
A full-time leader for the council, overseeing assets worth £1.5billion, will be chosen in the next week.
George said in a statement: 'As interim leader I will ensure that this council is in steady hands until a new leader is elected by the group so that we can deliver meaningful results for Warwickshire. Our mission to deliver for residents remains unchanged.'
Ambitious George has said online that he wants to be an MP by 2029.
He cut his political teeth as a contributor for pro-Reform UK magazine site The New Reformer.
In a TikTok video for it, he says he had previously been a Tory Party member but quit within months when he saw Nigel Farage ally Lee Anderson speak at an event in his hometown.
Another clip appears to have been shot last September in his student bedroom on his first day at his university, which he does not name.
He says he is 'baffled' by employers' diversity quotas.
With the Reagan poster on the wall behind him, he tells the camera: 'Should we take people on based on the colour of their skin, their religion, if they like a boy or a girl, if they want to be a boy or a girl?
Nobody who enters UK illegally should EVER be allowed to stay – it's totally unfair on law-abiding, taxpaying Brits
"Shouldn't it be if you can do that job, if you're going to do it best? If you're going to make this business thrive?
"To me that is the only answer.'
George is the youngest of Reform's new wave of councillors in top council jobs.
Joseph Boam, 22, was put in charge of adult social care at Leicestershire county council while fresh-faced Charles Pugsley, 19, was made cabinet member for children and family services.
They are just the latest in a long line of teen politicians. The first 18-year-old elected was Tory William Lloyd, from Brentwood, who got on Essex county council in 2007 while still doing his A-levels.
Labour's Violet Bonetta was studying for her politics exams when she was elected to East Devon district council last year.
And Daisy Blakemoor-Creedon won her seat on Peterborough city council last May, a week before she was due to sit her A-levels. She claimed she was bullied out of the Labour party a year later after her calls for CCTV to be installed in minicabs saw her branded racist.
In 2024, Sam Carling became Britain's youngest ever MP when — aged 22 — he was chosen by voters in North West Cambridgeshire.
The youngest Prime Minister was William Pitt the Younger who was just 24 when he took office in 1783.
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Times letters: Fixing the amateur way Britain is governed
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As Mike Tyson said: 'Everyone has a plan until I punch them in the mouth.'Lucian CampLondon NW1 Sir, Emily Fabricius says that 'grateful patients' are surely the biggest reward for doctors (letter, Jun 26). As a consultant diagnostic histopathologist in NHS labs for 39 years, diagnosing 5,000 patients' diseases/pathology each year, I received a total of two letters from grateful patients. Both were consultant colleagues. My motivation was nevertheless for patient welfare, even though their gratitude may not have been explicit. Diagnosticians are the hidden and unrecognised back-room doctors but are nevertheless John McCarthyRet'd consultant pathologist, Newcastle upon Tyne Sir, I couldn't agree more with Phillip Alderman about the importance of continuity of care (letter, Jun 25). Training to be a doctor, of whichever chosen speciality, is an apprenticeship — one in which the value of watching, absorbing, asking questions and being supervised by senior members of the 'team' should not be underestimated. The sense of belonging this brings, together with ownership of the patient and their journey, has been lost in the change to a shift pattern with reduced working hours and therefore the exposure to pearls of wisdom that you cannot glean from a book. The issue of continuous 'handovers' occurs not only in a hospital setting but also in GP practice, where almost exclusive part-time working contributes to loss of information and the inevitable Siobhan CarrollConsultant anaesthetist, Guildford Sir, Phillip Alderman correctly links continuity of medical care with patient safety. Two systematic reviews have found that continuity is associated with lower patient mortality. Given the usual emphasis on patient safety, the policy blindspot on continuity is Sir Denis Pereira GrayFormer chairman, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges; Exeter Sir, As a relative, friend and former nurse I have had the great privilege of sitting with people of many ages who are dying. Just being able to alleviate some of their distress and discomfort; holding their hand, moistening their lips and wiping their forehead. Praying, if it helps them, reading and softly playing their favourite music, remembering that hearing is the last sensation before consciousness is lost. And frequently reminding them how loved they are by everyone. That is my interpretation of assisted dying. 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