Tory council paid comic £500k to ‘have interaction’ with public throughout Covid

An ‘anti-Tory’ comic was paid almost £500,000 by a cash-strapped Conservative council to ‘have interaction’ with the general public on-line throughout the pandemic.

Simon Harris was handed the large sum of cash to offer ‘digital consultancy and supply through social media channels’ on behalf of Essex County Council.

In 2021 alone, the web prankster was acquired £279,000 – £117,000 greater than the prime minister’s wage on the time.

Details emerged on Thursday, two days after the native authority introduced it was elevating council tax by 4.99 per cent to ‘shield and develop important providers’ at a time that it’s battling ‘vital monetary pressures’.

It can also be ‘reluctantly’ making £32 million of cuts to providers to assist pay for a ‘spike within the necessities for kids’s providers’.

Harris rose to fame with the satirical information web site ‘Southend News Network’, launched in 2015

Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson, who has typically been the topic of Harris’s jibes on social media, turned the tables on the comic.

Writing on X, previously Twitter, he stated: ‘Is this the identical Simon Harris who has been trolling me on social media for the previous yr? Sending my finest needs to Simon at this troublesome time.’

Joe Ventre, digital marketing campaign supervisor for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: ‘Wasting taxpayers’ cash like that is no laughing matter.

‘While residents paid the worth of the pandemic, the very last thing they anticipated their hard-earned money to be spent on is lining the pockets of a comic.

‘Essex County Council owe it to native households to crack down on waste and focus funds on frontline providers.’

Essex taxpayers voiced their anger on Facebook concerning the six-figure pay day for the entertainer, who seems to have since deleted his social media accounts.

One wrote: ‘Half 1,000,000! What a disgusting waste of our council tax, needs to be made to pay it again.’

Another stated: ‘Wasting taxpayers’ cash as traditional.’

An on-line biography of Mr Harris described him as a 40-year-old ‘stay-at-home dad, blogger, web persona and freelance social media supervisor’ who ‘spends all day on Twitter ranting into the void’.

It provides the father-of-four, who is predicated in Southend, Essex, and is married to Rachael, had 110, 000 followers on Twitter and 200,000 on Facebook earlier than he deleted his accounts.

His ‘likes’ are listed as together with ‘Harry and Meghan… bathroom humour… Gary Lineker’, whereas ‘issues he does not like’ embrace ‘The Tories… GB News… Brexit’… Nigel Farage’.

He was paid a complete of £393,000 by the county council between 2020 to 2023, with 34 funds ranging between £500 and £100,000.

Council tax for a mean Band D residence in Essex will rise by £72.36 to £1,522.53 because of the close to 5 per cent hike.

The county council stated it had an ‘established relationship’ with Harris earlier than the pandemic as he offered ‘digital consultancy and supply through social media channels’ to them.

When the Covid-19 outbreak started, he was employed to ‘have interaction with communities’ on vital points affecting the native inhabitants.

These included sharing info referring to authorities restrictions, help for susceptible people and volunteering alternatives at vaccination centres.

Harris had helped to ‘amplify’ what the council revealed by itself social media channels permitting them to ‘have interaction with a a lot bigger’ viewers.

Councillor Kevin Bentley, Leader of Essex Council

A spokesman stated: ‘The engagement ranges the council achieved by ECVA (Essex Coronavirus Action) and different social media channels managed by Simon Harris throughout the pandemic interval have been far in extra of what the council would often have anticipated throughout a ‘regular’ interval of operation.

‘It is vital to notice the funds lined extra than simply social media content material and included exercise to straight help others doing related work throughout the nation.

‘Such funds have been additionally made by Simon Harris for expediency.’

Mr Harris stated the Facebook web page he ran initially offered details about ‘serving to to forestall the unfold of Covid-19’ however later developed to turn into a recruiting instrument for volunteers. One publish was considered by a couple of million individuals, he claimed.

‘The nature of the work meant that in essentially the most severe levels of the pandemic, I used to be offering providers seven days per week and at a wide range of instances of the day and night time.’

Pictured: Essex County Council headquarters. A Southend comic acquired nearly £500,000 from the council over three years for ‘group engagement’ throughout Covid

He took down his social media accounts after reporting to police the way in which allegations surrounding his funds had been shared with different organisations, he added.

‘There have been severe penalties on a private stage past social media and the web and so for my very own security I used to be compelled to report it as a police matter,’ he stated.

Essex Police have been contacted for a remark.