ONLY one leader is smiling this Christmas: Nigel Farage.
Reform has been on everyone’s lips this party season in SW1 as ministers, MPs and assorted hangers-on shuffled between bashes.
While publicly both Nige and his new prey Kemi Badenoch both talk down any idea of a pact at the next election, how they could lock out Labour has been everybody else’s party game of choice.
With Sir Keir Starmer continuing to tank in the polls, the logic of uniting the right is obvious even if actual negotiations are some years away.
But the very fact the conversation is dominating over anything the new Tory leader has said yet, is a win for Reform in itself.
Those hoping Farage would get bored by the rigmarole of Parliament only need to look across the terrace to see their grinning tormentor revelling in his afternoon sharpener as they cry into their beer.
Attempts by Labour to outlaw second jobs to cancel Farage’s well-paid GB News show will likely backfire and only give him a bigger foghorn.
Any talk of Farage skipping Clacton for some big job in America remains wishful thinking, and some of his band of MPs are starting to make an impact.
Great Yarmouth’s Rupert Lowe is doing a sterling job in winding up ministers with a sustained campaign for them to release secret figures showing just how many migrants are drawing the dole, and a breakdown of crime by nationality.
And a little birdy tells me that conversations with Elon Musk about how he can help both financially and tactically — as he did for Trump in the key swing state of Pennsylvania — are very advanced.
Streams of direct messages on X have flown between the politically charged billionaire and Farage himself, as well as his new money man, the property tycoon Nick Candy.
Channelling cash through the UK arms of Tesla, SpaceX or any other of Musk’s collection of companies is likely to cause a major stink.
But I understand if a legally waterproof way of donating to Reform can be found the offer of money is on the table.
Yet the party is not short of domestic donors, and even the theoretical conversation about Musk getting involved has added to the downbeat mood amongst Conservatives this Christmas.
And that’s all part of Farage’s plan: Make the next 12 months as uncomfortable for Tory MPs and add to the sense of inevitability that the future of the right lies under Reform’s populist banner.
One that is untainted by 14 years of betrayal over immigration and Brexit delivery failure.
Meanwhile, the Tories face a daily battle just to keep the lights on.
Badenoch’s team insists the tide is beginning to turn and donors are returning to the fold, but privately shadow cabinet ministers lament the lack of resources to beat a wobbly government round the head.
Taxpayer funding for the opposition — distributed on the make up of the Commons — will fall far shorter than what Labour got with their 203 seats in 2019, compared to the Conservatives’ pitiful 121 showing in July.
The new leadership were so desperate to shake the tin that guerrilla tactics had to be deployed on Monday evening to give Badenoch more face time with potential backers.
She was addressing a donor dinner at the eye-wateringly expensive Raffles hotel on Whitehall, while 500 yards away in the Commons it looked like a vote on the Terrorism Bill was going to come early.
Backbenchers were sent in to waffle on for as long as possible to delay the vote, to give Badenoch — who already has a bad rep with Tory donors for being disinterested — longer with the begging bowl.
And the more Farage is the centre of the conversation, the harder it will be for the new Tory leader to establish her position.
Jokes about sandwiches being for wimps may get headlines, but not exactly the right ones.
While she had a better PMQs last week, winding up Starmer about his love of open borders and hiring Shamima Begum’s defence lawyer to his Cabinet, No10 was delighted she went on immigration again.
They see any chance to remind voters that nearly a million arrived last year legally, and that Badenoch personally cheered Boris’s border liberalisation policies, as an early Christmas present.
And Farage wasted no time in turning the screw, taking to Musk’s X to say: “I am watching the Tory backbenchers . . . There is almost no enthusiasm for her at all.”
This weekend Badenoch sharpened her attacks on Reform — with Farage’s barbs clearly hurting.
However, dismissing its members as simply part of a “fan club” is risky, given quite how many of them she needs to coax back to her fold if she’s ever going to succeed.
And while there is an air of weary unity around the Tory party, MPs put it down to exhaustion rather than a genuine enthusiasm for the state of things.
Text messages informing them that the new leader would be blessing them with her presence in the Tea Room have landed badly.
“She could just turn up and talk to us without demanding an audience,” one grumbled.
A few weeks back there was a feeling amongst Tory MPs that like Joe Biden, Starmer could be made a one-term leader.
Yet as the festive grog flowed, acceptance that will only be possible with some sort of non-aggression pact with Farage loomed heavy.
That’s not to say a well-armed Reform is not a headache for Labour too.
Reform came second in scores of seats with paper candidates and in many cases not spending a farthing more than the £500 deposit required to be in the seat.
With injections of cash and the promised professionalisation of their campaigning, they could be running Labour very close in at least 100 constituencies next time.
No wonder they seem to be losing their heads already, with Labour grandee Harriet Harman carping yesterday that Reform’s very existence is a “threat to democracy.”
A word of warning to all sides: That nonsense didn’t work with Trump and there is no reason to believe it will work over here.
LABOUR is refusing to exempt spooks from its working from home for all policy, leading to a telling Commons exchange.
Tory Greg Smith posed the scenario of “Moneypenny saying, ‘I’m sorry, M, Bond is flexibly working today. The nuclear warhead has reached its destination.’”
The dreary response from the minister?
“Would M’s HR adviser not say, ‘That might have a detrimental impact on your performance, Mr Bond?’ That flexible working request could therefore be reasonably denied.”
The fact Labour thinks HR is the first port of call in a nuclear war, says it all.
