Nigel plays ‘Mr Nice’ in yet another comeback act

Are you sick of reporters going to some provincial town with a boarded-up Primark and declaring it “Broken Britain”?

Well, when we told the cab driver we were visiting the Gurnos estate, in Merthyr Tydfil, it was a local who gave it the negative review.

“That’s f---ing rough,” he said in a thick Welsh accent.

“And what makes it rough?” I asked.

“They’re all f---ing mental.”

Trust Reform to prove how hard it is by launching its manifesto in one of the most run-down bits of the country. But while a snobby London hack would call it “the circus visits the zoo” – people can be so cruel – I loved every minute. Better than Keir Starmer talking about tools on a wind farm.

The taxi dropped us at the Gurnos social club, nestled among tired maisonettes, and sped away fast. Prams and hoodies gathered to watch. The press looked nervous. Yet the weather was glorious – and inside, Reform had laid on a generous spread of sandwiches and Tunnock’s tea cakes.

The bar was manned by two very fun ladies, all lipstick and eyebrows, who fell into fits of laughter when Nigel arrived. It was the most exotic act the club had hosted since, I’m guessing, Danny La Rue?

“I’m baaack!” he said from the stage. “Back again.” No kidding, love – you’ve had more comebacks than Barbra Streisand. But one can’t keep a star down. He warmed us up with gags (the Tories are “split… over me!”), hit us with pathos (we’re “broken socially”), and terrified us with the spectre of knife crime (the media started booking Ubers to avoid a walk home).

Most interesting to those who’ve followed his career from a small part in Ukip to big time in the Brexit Party, Nigel has become admirably pro-poor. Don’t moan about benefit scroungers, he said – many of them are trapped and need the money. He lashed out at corporations. He hates the banks. And though he is “unashamedly patriotic”, Britain must change if its qualities are to endure. “You can be traditional and radical,” he said.

The closest Rishi has come to being this deep was admitting that he wasn’t against assisted suicide, which at this stage in the campaign sounds less like philosophical inquiry than wishful thinking.

“I’m Mr Nice today,” said Nigel, “Mr Nasty is Richard Tice.” As he handed over to his second-in-command to explain how Reform would pay for the revolution, he disappeared into a side room, declining to listen.

The manifesto features a pic of Nigel and Richard, the man he stole the party from, walking side-by-side with angry faces, as if heading into a divorce court. The media questions were predictable: your sums don’t add up, you haven’t thought this through…

But Reform voters probably care as little for policy detail as they care to know how many ferrets Ed Davey can stuff down his trousers in a bid to get 30 seconds on TV. Nigel is a weapon. He is a cudgel, a means of protest, a howl of rage evacuated in a blast of humour.

A sign at the glamorous Gurnos club reads: “Anyone caught selling or taking drugs will be banned.” Better call the police. The punters are high on rebellion.