Reform’s plans to once again dominate the summer’s political coverage are at least, technically, going to plan – even if perhaps not in the way the party intended.
The weekend saw yet another slew of awkward headlines for Nigel Farage’s mob, this time centring on the leader’s relationship with a convicted criminal and crypto-gambler who goes by the name of ‘Posh George’. George Cottrell – or Cotrell, depending on his fancy – was reported by the Sunday Times to have given Farage security, drivers, staff and accommodation in an apparent breach of parliamentary rules.
While Farage did his usual submarine routine in the face of awkward questions, Reform’s initial response was some spectacular whataboutery as Robert Jenrick took to X to insist the real story was Louise Haigh pleading guilty to fraud by false representation in a case involving a stolen work phone 12 years ago.
“Andy Burnham is about to give a convicted criminal, Louise Haigh, a plum job in his government,” he fumed. “You don’t get to play these silly games.”
Haigh received a conditional discharge; Posh George spent eight months in a federal prison in Arizona and would likely have served another 20 years had he not brokered a plea deal.
Bobby J then went on GB News where he faced an unexpected ambushing by presenter Camilla Tominey, normally expected to give Reform figures an easy ride.
“This is a very old story which has been dredged up by the left wing press to try and do Nigel down,” insisted Jenrick of the story on the front page of that day’s not very left wing Sunday Times. “If the Telegraph had published this would you have said that?,” asked Tominey.
“Well, sometimes even people like yourself, Camilla, who writes in the Telegraph, do have an agenda,” said Jenrick. “And it is often to try and drag Nigel down because they don’t want change.” The Telegraph with its left wing agenda!
Tominey also asked Jenrick if it was true Farage owned five homes. “Camilla, you’re now anti people owning homes, are you? He has to live somewhere. It sounds like Camilla Tominey, GB News presenter, Daily Telegraph columnist, has drunk the Kool Aid of the left wing press, is now mocking a man for the fact he’s managed to buy himself a holiday home.” Are you ok, Bobby?
Farage is now apparently mulling legal action against the Sunday Times for what Reform deems its “hit job”, but Rats in a Sack readers will know the paper’s lawyers are safe not to cancel their summer holidays just yet. Farage has form for threatening action for defamation and never going through with it.
He has yet to instigate threatened legal action against his former deputy Ben Habib after he made allegations about the £5 million donation he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, nor against Kemi Badenoch, who Farage said he would take to court if she did not apologise for accusing him of publishing a “fake” ticker on Reform’s website showing its membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.
It is also more than a year since Farage said he had engaged expensive law firm Carter-Ruck over a Mail on Sunday story that quoted Ukraine’s President Zelensky condemning him. That action has yet to begin, along with the legal action he announced he was taking against the Guardian over a series of reports last year about his supposed schoolboy antisemitism. He has also yet to call in the police on the same paper after appearing to accuse it of hacking him in order to obtain information over his £5 million gift, despite saying he was going to do so two months ago.
The Sunday Times, meanwhile, is understood to still be waiting on the legal action Farage’s current deputy, Richard Tice, said he was taking over a story about his tax affairs back in March.
Finally, might there have been a clue Posh George was a wrong ‘un by the title of his recent book – How to Launder Money (which he claimed was a guide to law enforcement on stopping the methods he had become familiar with)?
The book was launched at an event held in February at London’s swanky OWO, where hotel suites go for up to £70,000 a night. Among those in attendance were Farage, Tice, Reform treasurer Nick Candy, adviser James Orr and London mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham.
Given that Reform insist Cottrell’s links to the party are tangential, any hacks present might have wondered why so many of its top brass attended the launch of a relatively obscure book by the convicted criminal. But given that the three journalists actually there – Christian Calgie of the Daily Express (now Mail), the Mail on Sunday’s Glen Owen and the Independent’s David Maddox – are among the press’s most reliable Farage cheerleaders, probably not.
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