Nigel Farage slams council's pothole policy and provides Trump update in Aylesbury Vale interview

The MP visited the Bell Hotel in Winslow on Wednesday and gave a speech to Reform candidates standing in the Buckinghamshire Council elections on May 1 next week.

During his appearance on the Bucks campaign trail – on a day that would normally be St. George’s Day – he wore a red rose in his lapel and claimed his party could make gains in Bucks.

Following his speech, Farage told the LDRS he was in favour of creating a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at Bucks Council to enable the unitary authority to save more money.

DOGE is an advisory body for the US government led by Elon Musk and created by President Donald Trump to make efficiencies, reduce spending and cut jobs.

Such a model could benefit Bucks Council, according to Farage, who claimed the authority was among those blowing ‘way too much money’ on consultants, agency staff, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and decarbonisation.

Farage told the LDRS he and residents wanted to know who the council’s road maintenance contract was with.

In 2022, the council awarded an eight-year £176 million contract to Balfour Beatty Living Places for highway maintenance, including pothole repairs.

Farage said: “What county councils have done, and unitaries like Buckinghamshire, is to sign up long-term contracts, often with inefficient providers.”

The Reform leader claimed his party would ask ‘some very serious questions’ about such spending and ‘put a bit of grit in the oyster’.

“That is why I say that every county needs a DOGE,” he added, “Every county needs somebody – the auditors – to come in and say, ‘This works, this doesn’t’.”

The Reform leader said he had not spoken to Trump recently but would do next time he cross the Atlantic, saying he ‘very much hoped’ the UK signed a free-trade deal with the US soon, following the US President’s recently announced global tariffs.

He added: “I think we have got every chance of doing so. There are many things he has done I agree with.

“The tariff thing has been a bit over the top. But in the end, it is all about doing deals and this is the way he operates.”

In his interview with the LDRS, Farage was also asked if any Reform councillors elected in Bucks would enter a coalition deal with the Conservatives if the Tories lose their majority on the authority.

He said: “There would have to be a very big swing for it to happen. We would have to do one that guaranteed that no one works from home anymore, people have to turn up at the office and be more productive and that the council taxpayer gets better value for money.”

The Reform leader also said his party would ‘fight as hard as it can’ and that his message to Bucks Council leader Martin Tett was: “We are on your tail.”

Last week, Farage slammed the Conservatives’ record of running Bucks Council, claiming roads ‘look like the surface of the moon’, bins are ‘overflowing’ and schools are ‘struggling’.

But the Reform leader’s claims, which he made in a letter published by the Bucks Free Press, received pushback from Councillor Tett, who said his county’s schools were ‘outstanding’ and that residents were ‘satisfied’ with waste collections.

Farage was asked whether he had exaggerated his claims, but replied: “I don’t think the pothole satisfaction would please Mr Tett particularly.”

Asked again about his bin claims, after dodging this part of the question, he said, ‘Well it’s not Birmingham’, referring to the ongoing strike by the city’s bin workers.

He added: “To have one party with a majority as vast as the Conservatives have in Buckinghamshire is never a good thing for open debate and democracy.”

The Bucks Conservative group currently enjoys a majority of 105 on the 147-member council.

In response to his latest comments, Councillor Tett said Farage ‘knows nothing of Bucks and is talking total nonsense’.

He told the LDRS: “Buckinghamshire Council is a prudent, well-run council. We are a leading council in delivering cost savings and efficiencies, with over £120m saved since 2020 and plans to save a further £117m in the next few years through cutting back-office costs and using new technology.”

The council boss claimed resident satisfaction with most services was ‘high’ and that Reform had ‘nothing of value to offer to local people’.

On Wednesday, Farage faced a question about racism from an audience member during his opening speech to activists gathered in the back room of the Bell.

To applause, she said: “I feel that I am a one-man band campaign to fight the misconception that Reform is a racist party.”

In response, Farage said Reform vetted its candidates properly and got more votes from the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community than the Liberal Democrats at last year’s general election.

He added: “The only people that every call me racist are upper middle class snobby civil servant-style Remainers. And do you know what… They can go to hell.”

The Reform leader was also asked by the LDRS whether his party had a problem with racism and for his take on the suspension of local Reform candidates.

Miriam Thomas in Aylesbury East was recently kicked out of the party after calling Islam a ‘false religion’ on Facebook, as was Oxfordshire’s Steven Hartley, who called paedophile Jimmy Savile an ‘innocent man’ and a ‘working class hero’.

Farage said there was the odd suspension in party ‘here and there’, but that Reform had ‘done its utmost to vet candidates’ and that claims the party was racist were ‘wrong, unfair and diminishing’.