Just three days in and 2024 is shaping up to be a golden year for political comedy. The closer we get to an election, the more Westminster resembles the theatre of the absurd. You couldn’t create such hapless characters if you tried. Weak, vain narcissists scrabbling around for any attention they can get. Seemingly unaware of the ridicule in which they are held by most of the country. How unforgiven they are for the destruction they have wantonly caused.
On Tuesday we had James Cleverly and his technicolour truths. On Wednesday we had a press conference for Reform UK. To all intents and purposes a party that exists purely for the glorification of Nigel Farage. Without Nige, the party is a waste of space. Dead in the water. Of no interest to anyone.
Only for this presser there was no sign of Nige. Despite the briefing note promising we would get the party leader, Richard Tice – leader in the sense that he isn’t really the leader at all, just an interim presenter on the Shopping Channel; confused? You soon will be – and special guests. Which the 50 or so hacks who had made the trip to a Westminster hotel had assumed meant Farage. Only the special guests turned out to be even more anonymous than Dickie Tice. Imagine that.
You might have expected Reform UK to call the presser off once they had realised there was no chance of Nige showing up to take command of the party that had been formed as his own vanity project. To say “Soz and all that” to everyone who had made the effort to show up.
After all, without Farage, there was nothing of any interest they could possibly say. Because Nige was quite capable of contradicting any announcements at a later date. And Reform UK would just lie back and take it. Because that’s what they are there for. To bend to Nige’s will. To fulfil his fantasies.
But narcissism and megalomania are the lifeblood of those close to the Reform UK project – Nige doesn’t get to monopolise its entire gene pool – so the press conference went ahead as planned. And politics was at its most meta. A press conference taking place purely because a press conference had been announced. Not because anyone had anything of interest to say. An exercise in collective time-wasting. Time that no one would get back.
First a brief introduction from the GB News presenter Alexandra Phillips – almost everyone connected with Reform UK has their own show on GB News these days. “You’re here because you want change,” she said. Er, no, we’re here because we hoped Nige might turn up. Instead Tice took centre stage. And promptly lost the entire audience. Because Dickie is no communicator. He looks and acts like a charisma-free 1980s time-share salesman. Someone you instinctively mistrust. Someone extremely easy to dislike.
Dickie was adamant that people were here for his optimism. Just as he was convinced that he – a multimillionaire from the Isle of Wight – was the authentic voice of the British working class. Like it or loathe it, Farage has a sense of vision. A mission. Even if it’s no more than recycled populism. Ideas without responsibility. The thought of being in power terrifies him. Then he might have to deliver. Shouting from the sidelines is all he can manage.
Tice can’t even manage that. Instead he babbled, only intermittently lapsing into coherence. Rishi Sunak’s Tories had betrayed the country and had failed on almost all their promises. So far, so good. You won’t find many people arguing with that. Which was why Reform UK would definitely stand candidates in every seat at the next election. Yawn. If it’s all the same to you, Dickie, I’ll speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey. In 2019, Nige promised to do the same, only to change his mind to give the Tories an easy ride. So we’ll see how this one plays out.
Then things got really deranged. The Tories were basically Communists in disguise. And the real threat was Starmergeddon, with Labour culturally pillaging the country. Whatever that means. Just as bad, Labour would bankrupt the UK. By investing in the NHS and worrying about climate change. Net zero was just for woke pussies. Instead, Dickie was offering tax cuts on a scale unimagined even by Liz Truss and a 5% cut to all public services. In other words, he was going to wreck the country. All immigrants would be kicked out. We could get people currently on disability benefits to work as doctors and nurses.
“It’s my great pleasure to introduce our special guest,” bawled Dickie. “Ben Habib, our candidate for Wellingborough.” Ben who? Ben stepped forward. His was a tale of Brexit betrayal. The people of Northern Ireland had been duped “without a shot being fired”. It’s unusual to hear a politician lamenting the absence of armed conflict in Northern Ireland these days, but it takes all sorts, I suppose. Ben loves the sound of gunshots. I doubt we’ll be hearing much of him again.
The pointlessness ended with a few questions. Wasn’t it inevitable that Reform UK would end up with at most one seat? Much like Ukip had in 2015? Definitely not, said Dickie. Because in 2015 Britain had not yet been broken. Unlike now. And what could have been that thing that broke Britain? Round about June 2016? These fuckwits don’t even think before speaking these days. They literally campaigned for the very thing they are now campaigning against. Their sole cry is that it hadn’t turned out as they hoped.
Come the end, Tice was begging – make that sobbing – for Nige to come back. To make a second, third or fourth coming. There have been so many, we’ve all lost count. Farage has fought and lost seven general elections now. To MP, or not to MP? Always not. This was surreal. A nominal leader of a party pleading for a man who could do the job better than him. The man who was nothing without Nige. Perhaps, he mused, Nige could come back as president. That’s King Charles out of a job then.
Nige was thinking, said Dickie. Considering his options. You could see the smile starting to form on Keir Starmer’s face. This was all working out rather nicely. Let Reform UK and the Tories fight it out for the far-right vote, each inflicting damage on the other. In the meantime, Labour could slide down the middle.
• John Crace’s book Depraved New World (Guardian Faber, £16.99) is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
