Champagne breakfast with Nigel Farage, four bottles of fizz delivered to the stand, chauffeur service so the permanently inebriated don’t drive and a porter on tap are merely a few reasons why a corporate £250,000 “accelerator package” at Reform UK’s weekend national conference in Birmingham this September is one of the most, ahem, unusual to be offered by a political party aspiring to power. Which, if any, companies and organisations buy access to the leader and book exhibition space will be a pointer to where the wind is blowing. Whether any executives recall who they met after unlimited complimentary drinks in a platinum bar is another matter.
Not exactly short of advice, Keir Starmer’s right ear is to hear more. Labour’s fledgling red wall group of MPs is to launch as a formal Brexity, migration-hostile faction at the party’s conference. Head insurgent Jo White revealed details on Politics Inside Out, a new podcast by Gloria De Piero and Jonathan Ashworth. The Bassetlaw MP’s most startling disclosure was that her mother was a communist which means so too was the mother-in-law of White’s hubby, hammer of the left Lord John Mann. Harry Pollitt would be wondering where it all went wrong.
Herculean seed sower Boris Johnson’s one-man campaign to reverse Britain’s declining birth rate may exacerbate big daddy’s strained family relations. Baby number four with third wife Carrie, his ninth in all (that we know about), arrived shortly before a daughter with second wife Marina marries this weekend. Invitations and the seating plan would be a challenge for the diplomatic corps.
After guest editing last week’s New Statesman, Gordon Brown made his successor as Labour Prime Minister appear a little smaller by delivering a 60-minute mesmerising John Smith memorial lecture without notes. The son of a preacher man reeled off stats, cracked jokes and recited poetry. Hair-shirt Broon expressed contempt for fees charged by Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon. His quip that Liz Truss should pay to be heard, prompted a Tory to scoff so should one-gear Keir. The current PM is monotone even talking of subjects he loves like Arsenal.
Twice-divorced Nigel Farage returning early after the bank holiday to float tax breaks for married couples triggered ridicule after he’d been caught playing hooky, missing Starmer’s European deal to sneak away on holiday before the parliamentary recess started. One Labourite wondered aloud whether a self-styled man of the people, registering nudging £1m from outside interests on top of his £93,904 MP salary, booked ahead to beat school holiday surge prices. With 10 “second” jobs Farage could afford any £80 fine for unauthorised absence.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor(politics) of the Daily Mirror
[See also: The economic fantasies of Reform UK]
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