During the 2019 general election, when Boris Johnson bizarrely claimed that he unwound by making and painting model buses out of old wooden wine crates, a sinister theory went around that it wasn’t just the then prime minister talking drivel as usual.
The claim was that Johnson was under instruction from campaign guru Lynton Crosby’s team to get any kind of mention of a bus into an interview so that internet search engines would take people away from stories about the infamous Brexit bus, and this was the best he could come up with on the hoof.
It probably wasn’t – but Rats in a Sack was reminded of it at the weekend when a Reform councillor went viral for a car-crash Newsnight interview in which he insisted two senior party figures had been cleared of any wrongdoing in a sting over illegal foreign donations – by an internal party inquiry.
Suggested Reading
Reform launches own newspaper: here’s what to do with it
Jaymey McIvor, who represents Ongar on Essex County Council, told the programme that Nigel Farage’s aide Dan Jukes and the party’s head of policy James Orr, who were filmed by Channel 4 News apparently discussing potential ways to secure foreign donations in an alleged breach of electoral law, had been fully exonerated, having read the 27-page report written by the party itself.
“I think that actually the 27-page report, which I’ve personally read in full – it’s very, very thorough, it clears the two individuals in question of any illegal wrongdoing, no laws have been broken,” McIvor said.
The claims invited mockery from fellow guests, with TV presenter Richard Bacon saying “imagine getting arrested for stealing and then you say to the police, tell you what I’ve done an internal investigation” and Conservative peer Ruth Davidson adding: “My mum says I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Suggested Reading
Is Farage’s big boat bash a diversion from his standards probe?
But explaining the robustness of the investigation, McIvor insisted: “It was our party’s secretary and general secretary who conduct investigations all the time – by the way, they are two individuals I would trust to independently look into something… they are very, very respected people of the utmost integrity, of professional, legal background and I have absolutely no doubt that when people read that report as I have, as I would invite your viewers to read it and, in fact, when people do read it they will see that, what I concluded when I read it was that the entrapment and the behaviour of Channel 4 and Verbatim is unacceptable and I really do hope the party does process with legal action against them.”
A pretty robust defence then! But possibly not enough for the police who, despite Reform clearing its own staff, continue to investigate potential offences under electoral law.
Still, if he invited widespread mockery, at least McIvor has managed to do something which will rank high on internet search engines when his name is looked up. Prior to his Newsnight appearance, that would have predominantly brought up news stories from January 2025, when he was accused of being expelled from the Conservative Party the previous year over allegations he sent an unsolicited picture of his private parts.
Most popular
Suella Braverman’s book has sold only 106 copies. This is why
Zack Polanski’s moment is over
Emily Maitlis’s diary: My deep dive into Jeffrey Epstein’s hidden empire – and the network that let him get away with it
I was at Eton with Charles Spencer – this is how it explains his battle with the royals
