Call it a Christmas miracle. For this was the day when Richard Tice sent in his application to become a fully paid-up member of Woke. The day the Reform deputy leader tried to break free from his role as the perennial sidekick. An insignificant blot on the Nigel Farage landscape. When he tried to show he was able to think his own thoughts. Be his own man. Release the closet liberal inside. No longer have to apologise for his existence at the posh dinners he enjoys so much.
Yet Dicky will always be Dicky. Unable to escape The Unbearable Lightness of His Being. When he looks in the mirror, even he has to agree there is less than meets the eye. So it was inevitable he crashed and burned as usual. There are just too many contradictions that he can’t reconcile. A lifetime of trying to be loved has left him unsure of who he really is. A neurotic narcissist with a large ego and next to no self-worth.
But in this festive season, we should try to be charitable. Give Dicky some credit for trying to be his better self. He can’t help it if he’s not very bright.
This was the second Reform press conference in as many days. Perhaps they will be having one every day throughout the festive season. Our cup overfloweth. On Monday we had Danny Kruger announcing he welcomed in a non-judgmental way the support of the pornography star Bonnie Blue.
It didn’t seem entirely probable that Danny the Blunder Dog, a devout Christian who despairs of the country’s cultural and moral decline, should welcome a woman who is best known for having sex with more than 1,000 men in a day. I guess he couldn’t fault her commitment to a one-in, one-out immigration policy. An example to us all.
Come Tuesday, the law of diminishing returns inevitably kicked in. Reform had hired a large room in Church House, only a tiny bit of which was used. There were just three rows of chairs laid out, and even then, not all the seats were taken. Dicky’s reputation precedes him. In the front row sat a stony-faced Lee Anderson. He was clearly there under duress. Or maybe he owes Tice £50 and was hoping to get the debt cancelled. He would look even more miserable by the end. He hadn’t joined Reform to be nice to children with special educational needs.
“I want to begin with an apology,” said Dicky. And for once he sounded almost genuine. Sure, he wanted to gloss over things a bit but this wasn’t one of those “sorry, not sorry” apologies we often hear from politicians.
For the last two weeks, Reform have kept Tice locked up for saying that disabled children wearing ear defenders in classrooms was insanity. It turned out that some Reform supporters also have children with special educational needs and were unimpressed that the party leadership could have so little understanding of what was required.
Tice wanted to make amends. When he had said disabilities were being overdiagnosed, what he had really meant was he was pleased that children were getting the help they needed. Most of all, he wanted to be loved. This wasn’t so much a press conference as a vibes conference. He needed the two dozen or so people in the room to know that he cared. That he was on their side.
At times he went so far as to make you wonder if he was actually in a hostage video. Was being forced to say stuff against his will. But you must never underestimate the power of Dicky’s neediness. For him, it’s so much more than merely being noticed on TV. It’s the approval he really craves. Something he is unable to give himself.
“We need to stop thinking of children as disabled,” he said. “We need to think of them as differently abled.” Dicky paused to let that sink in. Hoping for some applause from Lee that never came. The rest of the room just cringed.
This was so on-brand from Tice. Desperate to say the right thing but getting it helplessly wrong. His bid for Wokedom in tatters. Because if he had known the first thing about special educational needs, he would have known the words “differently abled” were considered patronising and condescending.
Tice continued. He was going to turn every church into a special school and there would be Send provision in every village. It was time to end the era of private-equity-funded schools. Things would cost less and a whole lot more. Profit was both very bad and very good.
By the end, Dicky had descended into total incoherence. It was almost as if he was ad-libbing the whole speech and had no idea what he wanted to say next. As so often, he wanted to have it every which way. Woke and Anti-Woke. Not all his listeners were impressed. In the YouTube comments, one person wrote: “Eugenics will sort out Send.” Charming.
The inconsistencies carried on mounting when Dicky invited questions from the media. The previous night, he had attended a vigil for the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack but now he was unwilling to retract his comments that those who had heard Farage make racist and antisemitic remarks were liars.
“That’s old news,” he said. As if there were a statute of limitations on such matters. That antisemitism by the teenage Farage was somehow acceptable. Not worthy of further comment. If Nige was not going to apologise, then why should he?
Dicky couldn’t even bring himself to condemn Chris Parry, the Reform mayoral candidate who had said David Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean” where his “loyalties lie”. That was just part of the rough and tumble of daily politics, he insisted. Just a way of holding the government to account.
Sure it is. There’s nothing like a racist insult to kick the day off with. Presumably, disabled children are also there to be both helped and abused. Give with the one hand; take with the other. A way of keeping everyone on their toes.
Come the end, Dicky looked like a man collapsing in on himself. Entropy in action. Crushed by the weight of his own contradictions. The BBC was both brilliant and useless, fit only to be destroyed by the Trump juggernaut. It was as though he had no idea what he really thought. Just a desire to please. It could just be that he’s merely another chancer who doesn’t really believe in anything but himself.
The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
