Reform investigating candidate who ‘hates’ the NHS

On 14 April, we reported that Reform UK were running a candidate who wanted to “salt the earth” upon which the NHS stood. Surprisingly, they are apparently now investigating said candidate:

Reform investigating candidate @TheBembridge over alleged posts he 'hates NHS' and thinks nurses eat too muchhttps://t.co/R34o7HipV6

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) April 18, 2026

We don’t say ‘surprisingly’ because we agree with his comments; we say it because Reform have turned a blind eye to much worse candidates than this guy.

Reform — Death to the NHS

The candidate in question is James Bembridge — deputy editor at Country Squire magazine. The following comment is the one which has attracted the most controversy:

As it turns out, Bembridge had some other choice comments. In March 2021, he said:

I’m not sure why applause is so readily given to NHS nurses who claim to be driven to using food banks when, looking at them, they are presumably eating them out of business

The “applause” reference is because this comment was made during the pandemic.

That’s right.

While you were celebrating nurses, Bembridge was ridiculing their weight and income.

While nurses were saving lives, he was writing about being whatever the fuck a ‘country squire’ is.

If you’re wondering how his writing reads, by the way, the following is from an obituary he penned in 2022:

At 5 pm on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Isobel Weber died much as she lived: dressed in high fashion, sipping champagne and surrounded by no one.

Turn the clock back two years, and I’m sitting with her in the Kronenhalle restaurant, Zurich, struggling to make sense of what she’s saying. Her lips are moving, but they’ve just had about 5 vials of filler pumped into them.

What use, I am moved to ask myself, does a wheelchair-bound sexagenarian have for lips like those? I suppose younger women do it to swell out their CVs for the job that men’s wives no longer perform. But Isobel?

So Bembridge was pondering why the deceased had got lip filler when she presumably wasn’t angling to suck his dick.

If this is Bembridge’s job, we can say with absolute certainty that the people of Britain will never gather en masse to applaud him for performing it.

Bembridge was most recently seen campaigning with London mayoral hopeful Laila Cunningham:

Hi @policylaila, see @TheBembridge is there with you.

Any comment on these? pic.twitter.com/DLtnHUbxDc

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) April 18, 2026

Cunningham hasn’t answered the above.

This isn’t surprising, because she’s famous for not answering questions:

"If the Tories are so bad, why is Reform UK filling themselves full of them?"

Laila Cunningham: I can't answer that. pic.twitter.com/fxdPli1XKY

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) January 10, 2026

Investigation

My London report that Reform are now looking into Bembridge:

Reform UK has confirmed that it is looking into the allegations. Mr Bembridge has not yet responded to the LDRS request for comment.

They added:

At the June 2024 general elections, Reform UK pledged an extra £17 billion for the NHS. It said that the NHS needs a new funding model and that it must use the private sector to relived pressure on the over-stretched service.

In other words, Reform have pledged to give a £17bn bung to the private sector.

We doubt the Bembridge investigation will result in a suspension. After all, Reform suspended campaign manager Adam Mitula for holocaust denial, and we recently learned he’s still managing campaign business – now as an election agent.

Reform don’t keep attracting candidates like the following by accident: