ROTTEN BOROUGHS
AWARDS 2025
SHIT OF THE YEAR
North Northamptonshire councillor Matt Binley was binned by the Tories after admitting he had group sex with a 14-year-old girl and her 16-year-old friend who he picked up on the way home from the pub in 2009, while a serving police constable. In 2010 Binley received a four-month prison sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice after getting pissed at a wedding, crashing his car and claiming his mother was driving (she corroborated his story). In 2008 he faced allegations of assaulting a taxi driver. While the Tories finally expelled Binley in 2025, perhaps his comeback kid status was because his father was late Northampton South Conservative MP Brian Binley?
PREMIER PUGILISTS Councillors’ behaviour at Lib Dem-controlled Teignbridge meetings was, said consultants Grant Thornton, “unlike any they had seen”, with physical confrontations, swearing and shouting, members muting each others’ microphones and storming out. The “standards” committee did not meet for 18 months… because its members fell out.
SPACE CADET OF THE YEAR
Cornwall Conservative councillor Louis Gardner was such a cheerleader for Spaceport Cornwall he clinched a £70,000 job as its “head of future air and space”, while still Cornwall’s cabinet member for the economy. The ex-Royal Navy officer’s appointment was surprising given his lack of spacecraft skills, but he had run a shop in Newquay (closed after a visit from bailiffs). Cllr Gardner quit the cabinet after the job announcement but had attended a council economic prosperity board meeting which agreed £200,000 of government funding for the spaceport – during his recruitment. Gardner had not declared an interest. He apologised for breaching Cornwall’s code of conduct. Inspector Knacker concluded there was no further action to take. Gardner left the spaceport and Cornwall council. A hard landing!