The email invitation arrived shortly after 7am. Nigel Farage would be making an “address to the nation” an hour later. The grandiosity. The self-importance. An address to the nation is something usually delivered by the monarch or the prime minister during an emergency. Not from a leader of a political party with just eight MPs.
There again, pomposity is now Nige’s last resort. A few months ago, we would all have been invited to a press conference in central London. Now he is a virtual prisoner in his own home. Afraid to subject himself to awkward questions about the £5m he says he was “gifted” from a Thai crypto billionaire. So Reform is effectively leaderless. All we get to see of Nige is the occasional video from an indeterminate location. He is a man determined not to be found by anyone.