Ruthlessness. And luck. You need a bit of both to be a successful leader, especially in politics.
Andy Burnham certainly showed more of the former than I expected in the way he set about defenestrating Keir Starmer and, without a contest, became Labour leader and prime minister. It is quite something to carry out said defenestration, yet still have people saying that one of the reasons it happened is that he is a nicer and more personable chap than his predecessor. He was ruthless, folks.
He is enjoying a fair bit of luck too. England doing OK in the World Cup is always good for the national mood. Above all, though, the fact that his rise to the top coincides with what looks like the full-on implosion of Nigel Farage, shortly after Burnham cemented his leadership credentials with a by-election win that showed he was the man to beat Reform UK.
I claim no special powers of prediction in saying it has not entirely surprised me that Farage has landed himself in the mess he is now in. One of my New Year predictions was that he would peak, and might not see the year out as leader.
“Wishful thinking,” many shouted. Perhaps, given the damage he has already done to the country, and his undoubted skills as a campaigner and communicator for the populist charlatan age. But I also felt that as his ratings rose, so would scrutiny, and that he would not stand up to it well. I felt even more strongly that as he began to be seen and described as a possible PM, conceit, hubris and ill-discipline would lead to error.
Part of his shtick is that he doesn’t take himself, or indeed politics, too seriously; that it’s all a bit of a game, a bit of fun, so even if he was PM, he would make sure there was plenty of time for boozy lunches and parties. The shtick works to some extent when the rest of the country doesn’t take you that seriously either. But it ceases to work when the country thinks you might end up leading it in such dangerous and difficult times.
Ah, but Donald Trump, they said… yes indeed, Trump showed that you can be unserious, unpleasant, unhinged, scandal-ridden, up to and including conviction for crimes, and still get to the top. But Farage should have learned from the fall of Boris Johnson… we are not the USA.
Both he and Johnson got away with far too much for far too long, but there came a tipping point… for Johnson it was his defence of a sex offender; for Farage it is his defence of himself in thinking the country might accept that someone gives you five million quid and expects zilch in return. Yeah, right. They might if it’s Trump’s America; they don’t in Brits’ Britain.
The stories that have turned “Posh George” into an overnight near household name have been around for ages. In the many years when Farage was cheeky chappy commentator getting an easy ride from the media, editors yawned as journalists tried to generate interest in the murky world of Reform financing. The £5m bung changed that. Tipping-point time.
And George Cottrell must surely be regretting giving his book the title How to Launder Money. Probably seemed a good wheeze at the time. Like Arron Banks with his Bad Boys of Brexit.
Bad boys indeed. It was fun while it lasted, Nige. But when you have the cops taking a good look at one set of donations – from Posh George’s mum; the public now pretty much universally thinking there is something seriously dodgy about another – the £5m crypto bung; the cops also looking into the funding of one of your high-profile Tory defectors; the media mood around you has shifted to where it should have been years ago, and your great “Me v the Establishment” stunt has turned into you versus a bin, it might be time to get back on the reality TV circuit, before Count Binface beats you to it.
I say no to most interview bids, but couldn’t resist appearing on Count Binface’s podcast last year. Do check it out if you have a spare 45 minutes, YouTube best for full binnery.
You might think it is impossible to take seriously a man with a bin on his head. But one thing that was absolutely clear to me is that he has a very smart political mind. If I were Farage, I would not underestimate him. And if I were Binface, I would promise to hold regular constituency surgeries and reply promptly to letters and emails. Clacton people say Farage does neither, and for that alone deserves to be kicked out.
Like Farage, Rupert Lowe was over in the US to celebrate the Americans taking back control from the Brits 250 years ago. What is it about these great British patriots?
Also like Farage, the Restore Britain leader has a hubris problem too. Lowe has replaced Farage as Elon Musk’s pet MP. It must be quite a buzz to have gone so quickly from basic political nonentity to having your inane golf-club-bore tweets algorithmised so that tens of thousands of bots pump them in front of millions. Quite a buzz, too, that Joe Rogan wants to have you on the world’s most listened-to podcast. It all shows that Lowe is well plugged in to the internationalised right wing politics network.
So what happens as he and Rogan chat? He gets carried away. He shows up his lack of basic political nous. He goes along with the American rather than the British view on guns. He ends up being utterly dismissive of one of the most horrific events in modern British history, the 1996 killing of 16 children and a teacher in Dunblane.
I was there the day after with John Major and Tony Blair. I will never forget it and never resile from seeing the subsequent handgun ban as the right thing to do. It was not because of “one murder”, as Rogan and Lowe put it. It was about making sure we did not go down the American road on guns.
Lowe – so much in common with Farage – has refused to come on The Rest Is Politics, apparently because he thinks I am a traitor (reasons unspecified, but probably immigration-related.) If he had, however, he might have been more on his guard than when having smoke blown across his buttocks by Rogan, leading to him making a complete arse of himself back home. Another prediction … it won’t be the last time. He is not as bright as he thinks he is, and instead of learning from Farage’s implosion, is likely to emulate it.
“Roger is a God,” Anna Wintour told me more than once in describing tennis legend Roger Federer.
I met him at Wimbledon last week, with my daughter Grace. We met loads of people, from Queen Camilla to the actress Elle Fanning.
On the train home I asked Grace what the highlight was. “Federer holding his hand out to me, and saying ‘hi, I’m Roger.’ He is a God,” she added.
