No show on Clacton pier will ever be as funny as Nigel Farage making a complete clown of himself with the pointless £250,000 by-election only he wanted.
Beating a bin at the end of the week may speed the wheels coming off a spluttering Reform UK bandwagon by exposing the greed and misjudgement of Mr Hissy Fit rather than saving the skin of this political fraud. What has changed is the wealthfare bungster unwittingly reinforced how he no longer sets the agenda and, given advisers incorrectly believed the futile contest would scupper a parliamentary inquiry into his personal £5million bung and Reform’s dodgy loot, Farage lost the plot.
Sleaze and criminal inquiries into the dictator’s secret booster to join the global financial elite, Posh George and his aristo mam’s favours and cash, crypto donations, Reform deputy Richard Tice’s bank accounts plus much else continue.
And details of the Farage chum and Brexit co-conspirator, Arron Banks, hiring private investigators to spy on a Sunday Times journalist, Gabriel Pogrund, suggest this mob is not so much rattled as terrified of scrutiny. The transformation of British politics this summer since Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer is astonishing, with Labour back from the dead and often neck-and-neck or ahead of Reform in polls.
Of course, it may not last, the Burnham bounce will flatten unless he delivers on improved living standards, in particular. But a Reform recovery looks less and less likely, Farage is history as a Downing Street shoo-in.
Bashing migrants is all he’s got and chasing even more extreme Restore risks alienating voters concerned about levels and boats but revolted by racist bigotry. And we may have a proper, second by-election should Farage be suspended for 10 days or more over that pocketed £5m before contemplating, and I’ll put it no higher than this, possible criminal charges against Reform.
Tory bigwig David Davis, an independent-minded Tory I admire, never fully recovered calling a by-election on himself in 2008, similarly boycotted by rival mainstream parties, despite hailing his empty triumph a “stunning victory” over 25 mainly oddball candidates including the Church of the Militant Elvis Party and Miss Great Britain Party. Davis picked up 72% of votes and Farage finishing with a similar share against three Monster Raving Loonies, Everyone is God Party and entertaining Count Binface in a record 34-weak field would be equally pyrrhic.
Declaring his own stunning victory, pitching himself as St George slaying an establishment dragon, will be to sustain Nigel’s spirits when he knows the wheels are coming off Reform. The une scapable fact is Farage lost ground, respect and command of events.
He’s a joke figure rather than dictating the national conversation. It’s why opponents will be laughing loudest on Friday.
‘Reform tribute act won’t save Tories’
Of all the ditches to die in, championing a former neo-Nazi jailbird illustrated why there is no Kemi-naissance for the Tories under leader Badenoch. To defend a Conservative council candidate in Somerset, the convicted criminal Joshua Bonehill-Paine, right, behind bars as recently as 2018 for the ugliest anti-Semitism, including racially harassing the Jewish former Labour MP now peer, Luciana Berger, was Kemi-kaze politics.
Finally relenting as he stepped down and trying to save face by appointing so-called Crewkerne Man as an anti-extremism adviser only reaffirmed Badenough’s tin ear. I’m all for redemption and second chances, and those sucked down vile rabbit holes subsequently popping up remorseful can usefully help stop others becoming monsters too.
But it wasn’t only too soon or inappropriate for her retired neo-Nazi to stand for election. When Badenough’s simultaneously booting out moderate Tories to create a Reform tribute act, any Kemi-naissance wouldn’t benefit Britain.
Small boat crossings down
Small boat crossings were down 43% compared with January to mid-July last year and the fewest since 2021 as the Labour Government begins to get on top of another issue bequeathed by the Conservatives. Not that you’d know that from frothing Reformers, Tories responsible for the problem including Robert “Honest Bob” Jenrick and Suella Braverman who jumped ship to Reform, or Hard Right propaganda TV channels, newspapers and social media liars.
Because good news is bad news for reactionaries who sell disasters instead of answers and deliberately ignore the fall from 21,690 people last year to 12,469. Yes, the crossings aren’t stopped completely, and probably never will be when desperate folk are prepared to risk their lives for a fresh start.
But keeping voters ignorant, a majority wrongly believing the total’s still going up, is the deceitful tactics of Right-whingers who should never be trusted.
Net-zero revolution is happening
Solar powered 36.4% and wind 14.3% – that’s more than half of Britain’s electricity – at 11am on Sunday. The greener, cleaner, renewable net-zero revolution is happening, with hydro supplying another 0.5% and nuclear 13.7%.
Biomass contributed 7.0% with dirty gas down to a low of 6% but use of that expensive, price-fluctuating carbon-polluting fuel soars at peak times and hit 29.8% at 8pm Saturday. British Electricity Tracker updates also reveal a vulnerable dependency on imports by cables from Europe, particularly French nuclear, to keep a fifth of lights on.
Yet, Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh can boast that Britain is powering ahead, as she wrestles with balancing bills and saving the planet too. Going green will be cheaper in the long run, and leave the flat-earthers boiling their brains, as Europe has scorched with summer.