Kemi Badenoch has fallen for Nigel Farage’s membership trap – hook, line and sinker
The IndependentIt was a classic Boxing Day publicity stunt, so you can see why Kemi Badenoch is suspicious of Nigel Farage’s claim – on a quiet news day – that his party has overtaken the Conservatives in members. She called Reform’s automated online ticker “fakery”, thus falling effortlessly into the trap that Farage set. This dispute could run for days if there isn’t much other news, with Farage offering to get an accountancy firm in to verify Reform’s figures, and counter-challenging the reliability of the Tory numbers. The manifesto, called “Our Contract with You”, proposed huge tax cuts for small business, a cut in stamp duty and inheritance tax, as well as tax relief on private school fees and private health care – all to be paid for by the magic money tree of a tax on banks that would put up interest rates, a tax on online shopping, and some made-up numbers about cutting government waste.