TL;DR

Suffolk County Council has removed Reform UK’s Chris Hudson from its cabinet over a sexualised AI-generated picture of colleague June Mummery, which he put on X on Monday 2 November, the BBC reports. He says he meant it in a “girl power way” and that she was “definitely on board”. In our view, it shows AI imagery becoming a conduct question for local politics, not only an online safety one.

The post, since deleted, pictured Mummery wearing a sequined bra under a slogan crediting her for saving the county’s school nurses. It went up at 15:44 GMT, and other people then copied it to platforms including Facebook. Council leader Michael Hadwen confirmed the decision “with regret”, thanked Hudson for his service, and named Patti Mulcahy as his replacement in highways and transport.

Two accounts of the same image

Hudson told the BBC the picture was “not obscene” and apologised to anyone who felt offended, saying “there was no intention to deceive”. Mummery’s view is not in the report: the BBC says it has approached her for comment, so his statement that she approved remains his own account.

Opposition councillors were less forgiving. Green deputy group leader Annette Dunning called it “non-consensual and sexualised AI deepfakes” and asked what message it sends “to women in public life, council employees and of course, all our female residents”. Conservative Debbie McCallum wants him investigated and sanctioned further, and Labour’s Martin Cook has challenged Hadwen to say whether such a post is acceptable.

A county already at the centre of this debate

The BBC links the story to Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, in Suffolk, who has said she will take xAI to the High Court over fake images of her created with Grok. We reported her claim in June. The two cases are very different: hers concerns images she says Grok was used to create, while this one concerns a named politician using an image generator himself and defending the result.

In our view, that difference is what makes it useful for other UK public bodies and employers. Image tools now let anyone produce this kind of picture in moments, so a dispute can start with one person’s sense of humour rather than organised abuse. Organisations with a code of conduct should check that it covers synthetic images of colleagues, including ones the creator considers flattering, rather than waiting for a post to force the question. New survey research published on 3 November suggests the wider problem is not confined to public figures.