I wrote in this space not long ago, in the context of Nicola Sturgeon, about how incuriosity can, when taken to extremes, be a sort of superpower. So it appears to be, too, with Nigel Farage. First there was this crypto zillionaire stuffing the pockets of his red corduroy trousers with cash. Did Nigel at no point wonder whether there was any agenda beyond rewarding him personally for being a smashing chap and a real laugh to have a pint with? If he had wondered that, and the thought had crossed his mind that the whole thing might look a bit iffy to the voting public, he would surely have thought it best to make a note of it in the register of Members’ Interests – y’know, just to be on the safe side.
The Reform party machinery seems to have shared Nigel’s lack of interest in the small stuff
It might have occurred to him, too, that there was a bit of a public-relations risk in the way Reform’s unusually well-developed policy on cryptocurrency aligned almost exactly with the interests of his great benefactor Christopher Harborne. As well, come to that, of his pal Posh George Cottrell.
Nigel knows in his heart that the alignment I describe is a matter of the purest coincidence: that it’s only natural far-sighted men of the world like him and Harborne and Cottrell would see the wondrous potential of this new technology in similar terms. His conscience, he knows, is clear. But it might also have occurred to him that his many political enemies would try to paint it as something different. Nigel knows that correlation is not causation, that post hoc is not the same as propter hoc – but the voting public can be obtuse about these things.
Anyway, it didn’t occur to him apparently. None of it. Not our Nigel. His curiosity was not piqued. He’s a big-picture guy, after all. And now, here, having done absolutely nothing wrong, he’s forced to defend his honour as a man of the people against the moneyed uniparty elites – except the moneyed uniparty elites have chickened out of even taking the field of battle so he’s facing off against a comedian with a big silver dustbin on his head. The Deep State has many faces.
The incuriosity also runs all the way through the story of Nigel’s relationship with Posh George Cottrell. Why, an ordinary person might think, is this thirtysomething so keen to be best friends with me?
When the American cops yanked him off the plane while we were travelling together a few years back, an ordinary person might have wondered, what was that all about? Good lord, an ordinary person might have thought, how come this chap who my colleagues assure me is an ordinary volunteer has a desk right next to mine, access to my email inbox, and business cards with my name and number on them? How come his old mum has found half a million quid to bung us no strings attached, an ordinary person might have wondered. Was it in her mattress, the sly thing?
The Reform party machinery seems to have shared Nigel’s lack of interest in the small stuff. Yesterday we learned that Nigel’s great chum not only donated substantially to Reform in all sorts of ways while (this part isn’t clear) possibly resident in Montenegro, but he was also apparently in the habit of buying office supplies for Reform – “computer tools and software” were mentioned – out of his own pocket.
This is the thing that really jumps out at the reader. I don’t know about you, and perhaps it reflects poorly on my tight-fistedness, but I have never been remotely tempted to donate office supplies to the company I work for. As colleagues will testify, I’m quite punctilious about whacking in an expense claim when I’ve been to the Post Office for printer ink. One can see why the rich and politically ambitious like to donate directly to the coffers of a political party – they want to change the world for the better or, possibly, snag a knighthood in some future resignation honours. But buying office supplies without mentioning it to anyone is just peculiar.
We can’t, in fairness, expect Nigel himself to have been across the details of printer-ink procurement or Office 365 subscriptions. But you’d expect, somewhere in the machinery of the sort of political party that considers itself ready for government, there to have been somebody paying attention. That, say, someone would notice that there was a convicted crimbo swanking around handing out business cards and, what’s more, sitting right there in the office and occasionally coming in with an armload of office supplies alongside his Pret sandwich. Was he just a really, really, super-enthusiastic believer in British sovereignty and the moral imperative of creating a new style of politics? Or could there have been something else going on?
Here is a group of people which, on most days ending in the letter y, sees the serpentine plots of the deep state everywhere. Yet when it comes to the possibility that any of their own benefactors could have a hidden agenda of any sort whatsoever, the thought never crosses their collective mind. Call it the Panglossian Style in British Politics.
Speaking of Panglossian, let me say here and now: it is perfectly possible that the criminal investigation into George Cottrell and Ma Cottrell comes to nothing. George Cottrell’s lawyers have said he had no comment to make on the allegations. In a letter to the Guardian, the lawyers said that “his mother’s donations have been entirely her own decision, and are a matter for her”. They added that suggestions he “has donated impermissibly to Reform UK are unfounded”. Fiona Cottrell has not commented on the allegations.
It is perfectly possible that the failure to register Cottrell’s donations was an administrative oversight, just like the previous administrative oversights that have brought Mr Farage into trouble with the authorities.
It is perfectly possible that neither Posh George nor Christopher Harborne wanted anything in exchange for their association with Mr Farage beyond the friendship of a great man and the chance to help him change the world for the better.
And it is perfectly possible that in this heroic “people versus the establishment by-election”, the honest people of Clacton will turn out in droves to stick two fingers up to the corrupt political elites and send Count Binface off with his lid between his legs.
But I can’t help feeling that all this awkwardness could have been avoided had Mr Farage and his colleagues shown a little bit more curiosity about what was going on around them.
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