On the basis that you’re never too cooked to get a new catchphrase, Keir Starmer has repeatedly warned this week that we are in a “battle for the soul of our nation”. I wish he’d stop saying it. The thought of your very soul being fought over by Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer, Zack Polanski, Kemi Badenoch and the others is like something out of a sealed section in Dante’s Inferno. If it was on an underworld menu, I think I’d choose the Satanic Flaying instead. Anyway: enter Andy Burnham.
Plus, we now have coordinates. The battle for the soul of the nation will take place not in the tenth circle of hell, but in Makerfield. Local MP and appalling little footnote Josh Simons has stood down so that the King in the North has a route to King’s Landing, where – I think? – he has to kill his auntie after accidentally shagging her. Labour party procedures are very arcane.
As is this entire byelection, where the dynamics are so nuts that they could very possibly tear open some kind of gate into the political upside down that only a preternaturally gifted individual could shut, and probably not for a decade. Voters who absolutely can’t stand Starmer will have to vote Labour to give Burnham a shot at him – as will voters who are satisfied with Starmer’s performance or at least don’t want a change of prime ministership. Or would those latter voters be better off voting Reform? Along with the voters who absolutely can’t stand Starmer but in a fundamentally different way? Yet even these inputs are arguably less erratic than the potential outcomes. Simplest would be a coronation once a victorious Burnham has arrived in Westminster, meaning the country’s prime minister had effectively been chosen by the above small pool of dysfunctionally motivated voters. Then again, if Burnham loses, Wes Streeting might finally put his Venmo where his vibes are, sparking a fight between himself, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband, and urban legend Al Carns. The chief beneficiaries of this would probably be Nigel Farage, and the benzodiazepines black market.
More legitimate markets such as the bond market don’t love the idea of any of it, but apparently there are easy solutions to all that. Burnham supporter Paula Barker – who is an actual member of parliament – explained this week that “the markets will have to fall into line”. You tell ’em, Paula! Can you have a word with gravity, too, because I’m sure it would behave differently if you just explained that it had to because of “progressive policies that do speak to our communities”.
Talking of things that won’t stay still, however, let’s take a look at wild fluctuations in the Nigel Farage excuses market, as the Reform leader seeks to become a full-time resident of the swamp he’s supposed to be draining, by just butching out the fact he accepted a £5m secret gift from a Thai-based crypto billionaire weeks before announcing he was standing in the 2024 election and shortly before buying his fourth current property for £1.4m in cash. When the Guardian first brought this to light, Farage insisted the money was specifically for his personal security. But Thursday found Nigel telling the Sun that it was “given to me as a reward” for campaigning for Brexit, adding self-reverentially, “it’s very unusual for someone to give up 27 years of their life to campaign for something”. Which is a fairly grotesque take on supposedly public service. It’s not as if Farage lacked other income streams. As an MEP, he once boasted of claiming £2m in expenses alone in just over 10 years – though is now keen to stress that he has not claimed expenses since becoming an MP. Expenses for what? Not to imply a lack of generosity in the people of Clacton – I’m sure it would have been their honour to pay for 40 bottles of claret and a load of steaks off the Mar-a-Lago patio menu.
“I can’t be bought,” Farage was insisting yesterday. “I can’t be bought by anybody.” Strong words from a guy who literally spent years saying any old shit on Cameo at about £85 a pop. Elon Musk tried buying him, he implied next, offering money in exchange for what Farage would only term “this and that”. Musk has swiftly accused Farage of “lying” about this – so the precise reasons for their fallout are not clear. Although I suppose you could say that Musk and Farage have demonstrably different views on middle-aged British men who move to Thailand.
A few weeks ago I saw an American online laughing about what he saw as the smalltime nature of British political scandals, which – while always bad! – tend to involve things like a too-fancy holiday choice or a prime minister using a helicopter during a general election campaign. Even Boris Johnson’s gold wallpaper feels low-rent when you consider the hardcore boot-filling you can see in some other countries. But the £5m gift to Farage is of a different order to all those. Finally, an amount of money that everyone can agree is a big amount of money – and yet, honked Nigel yesterday: “NO ONE CARES!”
And maybe he’s partly right. Green stans don’t care that Zack Polanski was weirdly evasive about where he lived (and apparently didn’t pay council tax), Starmer defenders had some nonsense zealotry about all his freebies – the list goes on. The pathetic tribalism of which this is one facet has the potential to be the biggest cancer of all in our politics. No one caring about this stuff is a sign a country is truly beaten – but only caring about it when it’s not your lot doing it is a sign of a country that’s well on the way there.
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Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist