Although I bow to nobody in my admiration for the political skills of Nigel Farage, I do not embrace his policy of accepting boatloads of senior Tories into Reform.
The reason Reform has been an outstanding success is two-fold. 1) It’s a one-man band, and if you don’t like the tune, you’re out. Ask Rupert Lowe how it’s all going? In that respect, Farage reminds me of Thatcher, and I don’t want to see his leadership personality watered down by outsiders.
2) Reform policies don’t come out of polling; they come out of the heart. A simple question: does it make sense to allow millions of migrants from around the world to enter the UK when we neither have the money, the homes, nor the desire to accommodate them?
The answer is clear to Reform, but for a decade or more, the Conservatives were torn by their response, leading to that idiot Boris Johnson letting in one million migrants in a year. That we don’t want.
Nigel Farage needs to turn back the boatload of Tories clambering aboard. This is bad news - Kelvin MacKenzie
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Nor does the nation want professional politicians running the joint. Look at the state of our country after 14 years of the Camerons, the Osbornes, and the Johnsons being at the top table. Let’s be honest, Danny Kruger comes from that tree.
The way Shadow Minister Kruger’s move was greeted within the Whitehall beltway was frankly ridiculous. He’s no messiah. Unknown to voters, and he’s not even the most famous person in his own family- his mother is the Great British Bake Off judge Pru Leith.
I‘m not suggesting he’s not an engaging chap, but his CV hardly makes him a leader. His main boast is that he wrote the "hug a hoodie" speech for Cameron twenty years ago. In that speech, Cameron called for more "love" to be given to adolescents.
That speech was prompted by the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, which banned the hoodie, saying teenagers were using them to shield their faces from CCTV cameras while they committed crimes.
Cameron, to my mind, was a totally useless Prime Minister whose liberal view of Conservatism set the party down the route which led to them having only 17 per cent of the vote today.
There may be an argument for taking the odd Tory aboard, but the danger is what happened when Nadine Dorries joined Reform a couple of weeks ago and promptly announced that Boris Johnson should be invited as well.
Farage now makes it clear, quite rightly, that there is no room in the lifeboat for Johnson. The argument seems to be that Reform needs the Tories because there aren’t enough good people within their ranks to fill all the posts.
I don’t buy that. There is no particular genius to being a Tory. If you didn’t believe that before 2010, you would certainly be convinced by 2024. A dreadful legacy for both the people and the Conservative Party.
Why would you want any of that shower running the country? I would take my chance with Reform councillors who, by the time of the election, will have had three years of running things.
In any event, Farage has already said that he plans to bring in big business types to run quite a lot of government. That I approve of.
The reality is that the Tory MPs secretly texting Farage today are chancers. They can see that under Badenoch, they are heading for electoral disaster and can’t be sure she’s going to be kicked out.
Therefore, Reform is the only game in town. My advice to Farage is to change your number, but don’t change your style.
This is Nigel Farage’s party. Disgruntled Tories should try the Lib Dumbs.