I'VE COME BACK TO WHERE I BELONG, SAYS THOMAS

DAN THOMAS told journalists he grew up in Blackwood and went to Blackwood Comprehensive.

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He said he joined the Conservatives in his late teens when, in 1997, he was a Conservative candidate in his school mock election.He has lived in London for 20 years and said his professional background was in “financial services, retail banking”.

Mr Thomas said he was not from a political family but when he was a paperboy delivered the “Express and the Daily Mail and I agreed with those more than The Guardian. I think it was a more obvious fit for me”.

His miner grandfather was, he said, unusual for being a Conservative voter.

He was a longstanding Tory councillor on Barnet council, He was first elected as a councillor in 2006 and became deputy council leader from 2011, which was a post he held until 2019 when he became the leader of the authority.

He held the position of Conservative council leader until 2022 when the party lost the local elections in the area in what was seen as a major upset. Barnet includes the constituency of Finchley, which was famous as Margaret Thatcher's seat and a bedrock of Conservatism.

Mr Thomas only defected to Reform last summer. He finally resigned as a councillor in December and said he was quitting his role as Reform UK representative for the Finchley Church End ward having moved away from the borough to bring up his young family in south Wales.