After they limped through four failed leaders in quick succession, only to be wiped out in the general election result, it is hard to believe a new leader will solve the Tory existential crisis. For one thing, whoever finds themselves …
How will the Ukraine war end?
How will the war in Ukraine end? In an election overshadowed by a grim climate of international instability, it is remarkable that the only candidate to seriously address this question so far has been Nigel Farage. Laying out Reform’s foreign …
Why none of these charlatans gets my vote
“We won’t change anything, but we’ll be less corrupt, look after your money better and not rip you off so much — at least in our first term.”
This, essentially, is Labour’s message going into the election, and what passes …
The populist battle for Ashfield
Something doesn’t seem quite right about Nigel Farage. We’re in the backseat of a car parked outside the Rifle Volunteer, and he’s just spent a solid hour in his element: shaking hands, grinning and taking selfies with supporters in Ashfield. …
The populist battle for Ashfield
Something doesn’t seem quite right about Nigel Farage. We’re in the backseat of a car parked outside the Rifle Volunteer, and he’s just spent a solid hour in his element: shaking hands, grinning and taking selfies with supporters in Ashfield. …
Farage’s army is on the march
What a difference a week makes. This time last Saturday, I was watching Nigel Farage’s ragtag rebel army in Great Yarmouth struggling to rouse themselves for one last attack on the fortress of Westminster, somehow knowing in their heart of …
Nigel Farage and the futility of British values
Why did Nigel Farage change his mind and decide to once again stand for election? What could possibly compel him to return to British politics? He dropped a hint only last week: he was concerned, he said, that young Muslims …
Clacton: the birthplace of Brexit
Clacton-on-Sea is a funny old place. To reach it one has to drive through the smart commuter villages of the Tendring peninsula, the farthest extremity of north-east Essex, between Colchester and the North Sea. These villages have more than their …
The village that made Nigel Farage
In almost all respects, life for Reform UK’s “honorary president” couldn’t be any better at the moment. About to turn 60, Nigel Farage is earning more than ever, drinking less (a third of what he used to, he told me), …
The Nigel Farage of Edwardian England
Horatio Bottomley was never taken very seriously by political commentators. Even his “remarkable conjunction of names is quite enough to create mirth”, mocked one newspaper. But for 15 years or so, either side of the First World War, he was …
Nigel Farage’s plan for power
Every other week, Reform party leader Richard Tice and his “shadow cabinet” meet in central London to go through party business. The party’s deputy leaders David Bull and Ben Habib are usually there, as well as Ann Widdecombe, who comes …
Nigel Farage is a gameshow king
In all the hue and cry over Tory civil war, the scotching of the populist experiment, and — some say — betrayal of a once-vaunted political realignment, the week’s other political bombshell was buried. As 2015’s last great Blairite returns …
The West and China share the same fate
A simple and easy narrative is often provided to explain our present moment: a new Cold War, we’re told, is dawning between the United States and China, complete with a global ideological “battle between democracy and autocracy”. The future of …
Digital oligarchs have weaponised the banks
The debanking of Nigel Farage demonstrates the power of a law that is already being enforced without having been formalised. Found guilty of crimes by state censors, secret committees of bureaucrats, or inscrutable algorithms, individuals can be disconnected and de-personed …
How Coutts destroyed capitalism
It began, as crises tend to, with the promise of convenience. Say you will make someone’s life easier, at no apparent cost to them, and you will win their attention. Fulfil that promise, and you will win their favour. Over …