It has been 50 days since the last Reform press conference. In Nigel Farage time, that is at least five Californian marriages. He has been known to hold two, sometimes three, press conferences in a week. Not because he has anything important to say, but because he is impossibly needy. Farage is a man who usually only knows he is alive if there is a camera recording his every movement and utterance. His narcissism demands constant attention.
Yet, for reasons that are assuredly not related to his unwillingness to answer questions about his £5 million donation, birthday present, or bung from Thai crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, Farage has recently become publicity averse. Fluttering his eyelids, mouthing “I want to be alone,” and only doing interviews with media organisations that promise not to ask anything awkward.
So it was with a rising sense of anticipation that I received an invitation to Wednesday’s Reform press conference. An excitement that was only slightly tempered by the announcement that the participants would be “Richard Tice and Special Guests.”
Tice, it has to be said, is the kiss of death for almost any occasion. The ultimate beta male who exists only as a satellite of Farage. A man with the air of a long out-of-work actor whose career highlight was making the longlist for the bloke in the Gold Blend adverts. Or a pop singer who had one minor hit that reached number 83 in the charts in 1975 and now plays it on repeat to an audience of bored children at Center Parcs. The simpleton’s simpleton.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained. The hastily erected stage had a backdrop with “Cleaning Up Britain” blazoned across it. This sounded promising. Maybe Reform were about to announce a new era of financial transparency. An end to politicians trying to conceal millions of pounds from benefactors who sought anonymity. Taking the crypto out of cryptocurrency. That would be a policy we could all get behind. One that was long overdue.
As ever with Tice, the reality was more prosaic. Disappointing even. Tice had dragged the TV cameras out to inform us he had noticed there was a great deal of litter on our streets and in our fields. So his big plan was to have a day out picking up rubbish on 4 July with a promise to increase penalties for fly-tipping.
Nothing wrong with this, but hardly the stuff of a new era of Reform press conferences. You would have thought they would have preferred to kickstart the pressers with Farage or Zia Yusuf getting angry about illegal immigrants after the Belfast attack on Monday. Whipping up hatred under the pretext of calling for calm. The classic Reform playbook. Only what we got was Tice cosplaying David Cameron in his “big society” “Hug a Hoodie” years. Just not very convincingly. Because no one does insincerity better than Tice.
Still, there was always the special guests to look forward to. Or perhaps not. The guests were only special in the sense that they were not especially special. This is Tice’s trademark. To always let you down. He is only happy if everyone goes home with a lingering sense of disappointment. First up, we got John Read, the head of the Clean Up Britain campaign. A man who does what it says on the tin. He took 10 minutes that no one would ever get back to say that he wanted to clean up Britain. Though he was still more entertaining than our second special guest. Step forward the 14-year-old Reform leader of Warwickshire Council, George Finch. He too took 10 minutes to say his boy scout group wanted to clean up Britain.
The questions from the media were rather more entertaining. The first was to point out that Suella Braverman had been home secretary and Robert Jenrick had been immigration minister at the time when the Sudanese man accused of the Belfast attack had been granted asylum. Tice thought about this one for a while. That had been the fault of the Tory government. Nothing to do with Suella or Honest Bob as they had not been Tories at heart. Sometimes you despair. It is fair enough for Tice to be not that bright. But he could at least try not to make it so obvious.
Tice also got extremely agitated when it was pointed out that Farage’s call the previous week for “pure, cold rage” might possibly have been a catalyst for the riots in Southampton and Belfast. It was a revolting accusation, he said. The journalist should be ashamed of himself. So much so that Tice was not even going to grace it with an answer. It was quite clear to everyone that “pure, cold rage” was really the same as “pure, cold calm.” Farage only ever wanted what was best for the country.
That just left the riddle of why Farage had recently come over all shy and was refusing to be seen in public. Tice was baffled. Completely baffled. There again, he is easily confused. Farage was not in hiding because he had nothing to hide. No one championed transparency more than him. He was just exhausted from not answering questions on his £5 million windfall.
The key to transparency was a total lack of curiosity. Then everything worked just fine. Live and let live. Farage had shown he could not be bought. Only he could. For a lot less than £5 million. All those cameo videos at £80 a pop. In any case, he was determined Reform should not be a one-man band, so he was giving people a chance to see the breadth of talent within the party. Sadly for him, he had done that only too well. He was the only talent. Everyone else was a liability.
This was not the last we were to hear from Tice on Wednesday. During an entirely forgettable prime minister’s questions in which Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch had tried to outdo one another on who had done most to cut defence spending and increase the welfare bill, Tice stood up to make his contribution.
Reform condemned all violence, he insisted. MPs from both sides of the house registered their disbelief at that. When a person of colour attacks a white person, it is time for pure cold rage. When a white person attacks a white or black person, it is just one of those things. Starmer spoke for everyone when he called Tice out for stirring up fear and division. Also suggesting he might like to pay some of the tax he had avoided on policing the borders. Tice tried to front it out. But he looked beaten. All in all, this had not been his finest hours.
