Cllr David Wimble Suggests Pulling Turner Contemporary Funding After MP Challenges Kent County Council ‘Savings’ Claim

When a senior politician is accused of inflating a headline “savings” number, there’s a simple, boring remedy: publish the workings, explain the language, and let residents judge. Cllr David Wimble chose something else. He went online and floated pulling public funding from a major cultural institution in an MP’s constituency.

The row began after the media reported East Thanet MP Polly Billington’s FOI-driven challenge to Kent County Council’s £39.5m claim. Her argument, as reported, is that the £39.5m relates to projects that were “unfunded and unapproved” and a “blatant lie” — in plain English, money that wasn’t actually allocated — so presenting it as a “saving” is misleading. KCC disputes that framing and says it did not promote a £39.5m “saving”, describing the figure instead as future cost avoidance / reprofiling potential future spend.

That’s the political dispute: what the number meant, how it was presented, and whether the public was sold a flattering headline without the caveats.

Then Wimble – p[ictured – escalated it. Replying in the same online thread about Billington’s criticism, Wimble suggested KCC could “pull funding” for Margate’s Turner Contemporary and added a taunting message aimed at the MP. That is the moment the story stops being about definitions and becomes about power. A cabinet member didn’t just defend the council’s language; he publicly dangled the idea that a cultural institution could become collateral in a partisan spat.

If you want to change a grant, there is a process: papers, scrutiny, debate, a vote. If you want to review cultural spending strategically, there is a legitimate argument to have. But doing it as a social-media flourish — “perhaps we pull your funding” — is governance by heckle. It also invites an obvious question: is this a serious budget intention, or is it a threat-shaped tantrum?

When challenged on that, Wimble didn’t properly close it down. He leant into grievance politics, arguing (in his own words online) that KCC “own the building” and have put “hundreds of thousands” into it, and that the MP should be “a little more grateful”. That “grateful” line matters, because it exposes the mindset: public money as leverage, and gratitude as the expected return.

And the funding is not theoretical. KCC’s own published grants list for 2023/24 shows multiple payments to Turner Contemporary adding up to £717,500 (including an annual grant plus other programme lines). That’s serious public subsidy — precisely the sort of decision that should be discussed in daylight, not waved around as a political warning shot.

There’s a national echo here too. The instinct to reach for funding threats in response to criticism has cropped up elsewhere around Reform: different institution, different argument, the same underlying tactic. If you don’t give us what we want, we start talking about your money.

So why does Wimble’s involvement sharpen the controversy rather than calming it? Because this isn’t occurring in a vacuum. The Shepway Vox Team has spent years documenting what it says is a pattern of inflated claims and loose handling of facts around Wimble; such as – committing fraud and a 2018 post about an Advertising Standards Agency complaint regarding a promotional audience claim that was removed and the case closed after amendment. Wimble is possibly a fantasist, or a liar or both potentially. Separately, The Shepway Vox Team has published a copy of a default County Court judgment dated 16 August 2023 showing “Mr David Wimble” as defendant and an order for £1,171.13 (debt plus costs). And in 2025, ShepwayVox reported him saying at a council meeting: “Numbers have never been my big thing…”, They’ve too noted his close friendship of a known paedophile – Russell Tillson; and a man interviewed under caution for electoral violations.

None of those points, on their own, decide today’s argument about Turner funding. But taken together, they explain why residents don’t read Wimble’s “pull funding” hint as harmless banter. They read it as a glimpse of how power might be used when scrutiny bites: don’t answer the substance — change the subject, and start pointing at someone else’s budget line.

If KCC wants to cut or reshape Turner Contemporary funding, it can propose that openly, justify it, and own it through the democratic process. If it doesn’t, then cabinet members should stop flirting with the idea in public as if public money is a tool for political obedience. Because once funding starts sounding conditional on staying in your lane, that’s no longer a budget debate. It’s a warning.

The Shepway Vox Team

Discernibly Different Dissent