Even the losers get lucky sometimes. This hasn’t been the best few weeks for the prime minister. Headlines dominated by the winter fuel allowance and the Chagos islands deal. Little credit for his trade deals with India, the US and the EU. An economy that still feels as if it’s on life support. All reflected in the latest YouGov voting intention polls, which put Reform on 29%, eight points ahead of Labour. Hold an election now and Nigel Farage could be heading for No 10.
Or not. Because on Tuesday, Keir Starmer was handed a lifeline. By Farage himself. Quite what Nige thought he was doing is another matter. Maybe he just wanted everyone to know he was still alive. Had bothered – briefly – to return to the UK from his holiday, reportedly in France, not realising he could have spent an extra week on the sunbed as parliament is now in recess.
But even if no one had been missing Nige, Nige had been missing himself. He only truly feels alive when there is a camera to record his presence. If he speaks when there is no microphone to record his words, has he actually said anything? It’s a major philosophical and existential dilemma for any narcissist. So Nige did what he always does on such occasions. He announced he would be giving a press conference.
That was the start of it all unravelling. Normally, Farage just likes to talk about himself, immigration and all things woke. These are his safe spaces. The ones where he indulges himself and is, in turn, indulged by his audiences. Only this time, Nige decided to stray off-piste by talking about the economy. Quite why he did this is anyone’s guess. Maybe he felt invincible with such a large lead in the polls. Maybe he has convinced himself he is now an expert on anything on which he pronounces himself expert.
Either way it was a big mistake. Because while Nige thought he was parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn – the city trader turned man of the people – what he was actually doing by pledging an end to the two-child cap on benefits and a new basic rate tax threshold of £20,000, was revealing a policy portfolio costing £50bn to £80bn. The sort of thing that wipes out a politician’s hard-won credibility in an instant.
Back in No 10, Team Keir couldn’t believe their luck. Could Farage really have been this halfwitted? They played back the recording of the press conference several times, hardly believing what they were seeing. But it was there in front of them. They hadn’t been mistaken. It was time to arrange their own entirely pointless press conference to point out the fault lines in Nige’s own entirely pointless press conference.
First find a location. “We need a factory,” said Morgan McSweeney.
“What kind of factory?” a junior member of the comms team asked.
“A factory that makes something. It doesn’t matter what. Just so long as it is about three hours from London. Preferably somewhere the train services are usually delayed. Be good to get a quick plug in for nationalising the railways at the same time.
“That will be the west coast mainline then. Can’t go wrong. How about Glass Futures in St Helens? There’s bound to be an hour’s taxi ride involved once the train is stuck at Crewe.”
“Glass Futures sounds ideal. Just the right degree of pointlessness.”
One phone call to Glass Futures later, to assure them the press conference would indeed be entirely pointless and wrapped up in under 20 minutes including questions, and all was agreed. Thursday morning would be a day to remember.
Keir began his speechlet by trying to remember where he was. Ah, yes! Glass Futures. When he found out what they did, he was sure he’d be impressed. “I’m thrilled to see what you are doing here,” he said, “because when you see what you are doing, you can see what you are doing.” One day, Starmer might learn to talk human, but this wasn’t that day.
Then on to the main substance. Farage was a bad man. Someone not to be trusted. While Starmer had fought to save jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, Nige wanted the company to go bust. Just because he had taken a dislike to one of their adverts.
More than that, Nige couldn’t be allowed near anyone’s mortgage. His policies were fantasy economics. He would crash the economy. No wonder he was planning to make his next speech from a casino in Las Vegas. Farage made Liz Truss look positively sane. That took some doing. So stick with me. I might be boring. I might sound like faulty Amstrad software. But your jobs and futures are safe with me.
Just time for a handful of questions. Most of the unhelpful variety. Centred on why he had arranged for so many Westminster journalists to travel to Merseyside for what was essentially a five-minute party political broadcast. Wasn’t this all just a bit weird?
A government with 403 seats running scared of a party with just five MPs, four years out from the next election. Keir shook his head. It was vital the whole country be informed of the damage a Reform party could do as soon as possible. There wasn’t a moment to waste.
A couple of journalists tried to ask whether Starmer had any plans to lift the two-child benefits cap himself, but his memory went hazy at that point. The Guardian’s Peter Walker then wondered if it was not answering questions on the cap that made Starmer less popular than Farage, who could at least approximate sentient approachability. That “approximate” was damning. Both for Keir and Nige. Starmer thanked the Guardian for reminding him of the two-child limit before taking a minute or so to not answer it for a third time.
Perhaps the most telling line came from ITV, who asked about the Tories. Starmer could barely stay awake. They were nobodies. Out of road. Sliding into the abyss. They were no longer a credible opposition. Losers. The real battle was between Labour and Reform. And this time it was personal.
