Lights, cameras, Farage: Nige just couldn’t bear
to be left out
John Crace
These are the moments he lives for – right at the
centre of things, all stardust and no responsibility
Mon 3 Jun
2024 19.46 BST
Alas, poor
Dicky, I knew him well. Richard Tice and Nigel Farage had already given two
press conferences in the previous week. Both times they had been given equal
billing. Even though everyone but Dicky T knew who the real star was. On Monday
all pretence had been pushed aside. Out came the op note. Nigel Farage was to
make an “emergency election announcement”. Tice wasn’t even mentioned as an
afterthought. Even though he was probably paying for the pleasure.
Dicky was
determined not to be left out, though. The man with no charisma or personal
warmth relegated once more to Nige’s warm-up act. The man on the downward
trajectory. Soon he will be relegated to doorman. I’m not sure if Tice even
convinces himself. His patter is all third-rate Farage. The sort of thing you
might get if you typed “write me a bad Nigel speech” into ChatGPT. Reform was
“moving into eighth gear”, he said. Really? Some of us were losing the will to
live.
Then the
ultimate humiliation. Dicky tried to sound upbeat as he revealed that Farage
was to take over as leader of the Reform party. Most people outside Westminster
probably assumed he already was. In reality if not in job description. Just
watch the body language. You couldn’t miss the pathos. A boardroom coup as Nige
realised Tice wasn’t up to the job. Deep down even Tice knew he wasn’t. People
just don’t like him. Don’t warm to him. He even had to hand over his debit
card.
Moments
later, Farage took to the stage. Lights, cameras, action. These are the moments
he lives for. Right at the centre of things. He’d be lost without them. Imagine
going to a pub and no one recognising him. The unbearable lightness of his
being. Nige began by doing a reprise of the speech he had given at the same
venue last week. The election was boring. Labour was going to win. He hated
them. The Tories were useless. He hated them too. Most kids didn’t know what
D-day was. Like he would have ever enlisted. His patriotism has its limits.
Time for
the reveal. The worst-kept secret. He was going to stand as a candidate in
Clacton after all. So what had changed? “I felt guilty,” he said. Guilty that
he was letting down all the little people who couldn’t survive without him. Who
had been begging him to get involved. Guilty that he had left the Reform party
in the hands of a bunch of charmless nonentities. He was the talent. The
celebrity. The star of his own movie. Lie back in the warm bath of his
narcissism. He just couldn’t bear to be left out. To be ignored.
Thereafter
his speech rambled somewhat. He didn’t have any more to say but he wasn’t going
to let that stop him. Every media outlet was waiting on his every word. He was
going to spin this out for as long as possible. Nothing worked. Everything was
in decline. Curiously, he never mentioned how he would kickstart the economy or
fix the NHS. Other than stopping immigration and being unpleasant to Muslims.
That should do it.
But Nige
was in his happy place. All stardust and no responsibility. He’s quite happy to
break anything, less keen to mend it. Happy to channel the disaffection with
empty promises. He would be the official opposition in the next parliament. The
biggest party in five years’ time. Yup, with Dicky as chancellor and David Bull
as foreign secretary. The men in orange. Can’t see the problem. Though Rishi
Sunak could. This was his worst nightmare. A Reform party with Nige at the helm
was a far more worrying proposition. A Tory meltdown was now on the cards.
From one
narcissist to another. What is it with Kemi Badenoch? What makes her so angry?
Even the smallest challenge sends her spiralling into an uncontained fury. Put
her in front of a mirror and her reflection will start yelling “what are you
looking at?”. It can’t be any way to live. Where are the beta blockers when you
need them?
Kemi is
something of an outlier. Where other MPs inevitably at some point reluctantly
comes to terms with their limitations, Badenoch never gives an inch. She has
never met anyone whom she didn’t think to be much stupider than her. And never
hesitates in telling them. She has yet to be wrong about anything. Hers is a
binary world.
Like almost
everyone with a massive ego, Kemi has very little self-worth. Her arrogance is
her shopfront, set up to conceal her insecurities. Because she’s not nearly as
bright as she thinks she is. So her default communication is talking down. To
belittle people in a one-way conversation. She can’t help herself. She does it
to other MPs in the Commons. Presumably she also does it to cabinet colleagues.
She certainly does it to the little people. Charm school is a foreign country.
Unbelievably,
though, Badenoch is the favourite to replace Sunak as party leader after the
election. There again, of late the Tories have had something of a love affair
with psychologically damaged leaders: Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and
Rish! himself. Mr Tetchy. The ultimate abusive, codependent relationship. So
maybe Kemi will fit in just nicely. Though it will make a change to have a
leader whose natural talent for winning over voters is to insult them.
Like so
many of her cabinet colleagues, Badenoch had been sidelined for the first week
and a half of the campaign. Whether this was because Rish! couldn’t stand the
competition or because he was dimly aware of her toxic reputation is anyone’s
guess. But whereas most have been happy to let Sunak be the fall-guy for the
inevitable disaster, Kemi has been raging about being sidelined. Deprived of
her chance to seek out new ways of being rude.
Come Monday
morning, Badenoch was unleashed on to the airwaves to talk about the latest
Tory promise. A change to the Equalities Act. And the unfortunate person on the
receiving end was Mishal Husain on Radio 4’s Today programme.
It got
combative from the start. Kemi seemingly furious that Husain had actually done
her homework. Badenoch did not want to be engaged on the details of the
proposed changes. She appeared not to have given them a moment’s thought. Of
more interest to her was a quick soundbite in an ongoing culture war. To create
a wedge with Labour. Though in reality Labour and the Tories are not so far
apart on trans issues these days.
Kemi got
angrier and angrier, Husain never less than polite. “You’re trying to be
difficult,” Badenoch snapped. She wasn’t. She was just curious how the law was
going to be enacted without any legal paperwork. Were people going to be able
to determine sex solely on the basis of their personal prejudices? They were.
We finished with Kemi calling Mishal “trivial and unserious”. Code for “I’m out
of my depth and I can’t admit I’m wrong”. Husain sighed and ended the
interview. She had taken one for the team.
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