It was a busy week for on-again off-again Reform chair Zia Yusuf, whose job over the past 11 months had been to reform Reform. (I know.) Zia quit on Thursday. Had his job split on Friday. Returned on Saturday. Chilled on Sunday. The job split seems to have endured though, as Yusuf will now run a UK version of Doge – as we know, the perfect role for highly emotional men – while this very morning, Nigel Farage was unveiling a new chair: Dr David Bull. David brings extensive experience with witchcraft, ghosts, spirits and beasts from his time as presenter of paranormal reality TV show Most Haunted Live, where he packaged the wailings of reekingly obvious charlatan/compelling spirit medium Derek Acorah for a studio audience. I can’t imagine what this CV could do for Reform, but Nigel Farage must have seen something in it.
Derek Acorah crossed permanently to the spirit world in January 2020, but it would be nice to think that shouldn’t be a bar to his being selected as one of those Reform candidates credited with being able to make deep connections with a public that is desperately searching for something beyond the ordinary. It would certainly be a less mad development than some other of the party’s activities this week. On Monday, Farage could be found in Wales promising to reopen Port Talbot steelworks, a plan so nutso that it could only really be believed by conspiracy theorists. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams – and Nigel Farage can re-melt steel furnaces that have cooled solid. Sure thing! Also, he might very well win the next election, so make of that what you will.
