Politics: it isn’t fair

By Richard North - July 13, 2026

A man gets into his car in Rotherham, apparently with a murder weapon tucked into his pocket. He drives 270 miles directly to a remote village on the flanks of Dartmoor, parks up and walks to the house of a prominent politician, where he murders her. He drives back to Rotherham where, a few days later he is arrested by counter-terrorism police.

Local plod (Devon and Cornwall) then complain bitterly that speculation about the murder is “unhelpful and distressing”. Detectives had airily declared that there was “nothing to suggest” political motivation, after Farage had suggested that this might be the case.

There is good sense in avoiding speculation – it minimises the risk of egg on the face when theories – however plausible they might seem at the time – prove to be wildly off-beam.

From a tactical point of view, it also serves to give the authorities enough rope to hang themselves when they come up with even less plausible rationales for the murder than the average conspiracy theorist could have dreamed of.

That said, if plod are genuinely seeking to suppress speculation (something of a forlorn hope in these days of social media), then they need to come up a little more detail if they wish to convince us that the murder of a politician under the circumstances described was not a political act.

Maybe, with the suspect in custody, they may know a great deal more than we do about his motivation (the man has local links – which may be relevant), but at the very least they need to improve their communications skills if they want to be taken seriously. We need more than unsupported assertions before we dismiss what, at this stage, looks eminently plausible.

Inevitably, Farage is being accused of exploiting the murder of Ann Widdecombe, using her death as “political propaganda”. But while it has undoubtedly been helpful in distracting attention from other issues, it is hard to see how any actions on his part could avoid the accusation. As leader of the political party for which Ann was Justice spokesman, he has – as they say – locus in this matter.

Nevertheless, that does not mean that Farage is getting a free pass. As an example of political craftsmanship, it would be hard to beat the Mirror for the greatest number of sneers in one short headline as it declares: “Binface-battling Nigel Farage faces fresh claims about fraudster ‘who calls him daddy’”.

Reported somewhat less graphically by LBC, we learn that “convicted fraudster” George Cottrell is reported to have made undeclared donations to Reform UK by paying thousands of pounds in party office costs that were not declared to the Electoral Commission.

Cottrell is said to have had access to Farage’s e-mail account – one of only two people with permanent access, alongside his private secretary – and worked from a desk next to his private office at the party’s Westminster headquarters. While so engaged, his reported payments included computer equipment and software bought using Cottrell’s personal bank card, which was made available for use by Reform staff.

Under electoral law, we are reminded, donations worth more than £500, including goods and services provided free of charge or at a discount, must be declared to the Electoral Commission.

There is also uncertainty as to whether Cottrell met the legal requirements to be a “permissible” donor when he made direct cash payments to the party and to Farage.

Only certain individuals are allowed to make donations to political parties, including those registered to vote in the UK, under electoral law. Cottrell is a tax resident of Montenegro and, according to The Sunday Times (paywall), was not added to the UK’s overseas electoral register until December last year.

The way additional detail on Farage’s nefarious financial affairs keeps popping up indicates that the Widdecombe murder is only going to afford temporary relief. Even now, The Times (paywall) is reporting on a YouGov survey it commissioned which has six in ten voters believing Farage has behaved incorrectly over undeclared gifts from wealthy benefactors, with only half of Reform UK voters backing him.

That links back to a survey last week which had Farage seen unfavourably by 65 percent of Britons. Only 39 percent thought he was doing a good job a Reform leader while 48 percent thought otherwise.

On the plus side, Farage was seen to be decisive by 50 percent of Britons, but majorities saw him as incompetent and unprincipled (54 percent) and dislikeable (62 percent). Just 16 percent believed he was trustworthy, including a mere 54 percent of Reform UK voters.

In a continued (but entirely predictable) drip of unfavourable analysis, the Guardian has its columnist John Harris comment on the Right’s love affair with cryptocurrency.

I for one (showing my age, perhaps) see this as “funny money” but Harris argues that there is a dark agenda attached as the Right see in “crypto” a means of privatising money.

It is easy to think that Farage’s political stock is plunging, Harris writes, but whatever happens, the new British right will survive in some form, and its ties to the crypto world point to the kind of UK it would try to create, given the chance.

Particularly on matters of finance, he asserts, the state would hugely shrink, and the reinvention of London as a crypto capital could threaten to erode the barrier between crime and business.

If it all ever happens, he predicts, it will make right-wing Brexiters’ visions of London as “Singapore-on-Thames” look like the dream of moderate centrists. And crypto donations, if they were ever allowed, would make that kind of country much more likely.

This may be nothing but a lefty fever-dream, but there must be many who are concerned about Farage’s close association with crypto billionaires and the fact that the only draft legislation his party has produced came in a seven-page policy paper entitled the Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill.

First unveiled by Farage himself at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, the document was framed as a post-Brexit “statement of intent” to turn the UK into a global “crypto powerhouse” through aggressive deregulation, mandating HM Treasury to create and manage a “Bitcoin Reserve Fund” as part of the UK’s official financial reserves.

Even then, Farage didn’t have the courage of his convictions. In May of this year, Reform UK quietly removed the draft bill from its official website, the removal coinciding with heavy public and parliamentary scrutiny over Farage’s personal finances, specifically a Parliamentary Standards investigation into a £5 million “personal gift” he had received from Christopher Harborne – a Thailand-based crypto-billionaire and major stakeholder in the stablecoin Tether.

If this all looks a bit seedy, it is probably because it is – and underpins the political attacks on Farage which, to a very real extent, amount to self-inflicted wounds. If Farage could not see how his behaviour might be seen by the wider public, then he has no business calling himself a politician.

It may seem unfair – and certainly is the subject of much complaint by Reform UK supporters – that Farage is being singled out for a media “pile on”, when other politicians are equally venal – if not more so. But there is an element of Caesar’s wife in this, where more is expected of the challenger than the incumbents.

Thus, while The Replacement seems to be getting a free pass from the media – for the moment – Farage will continue to take the flak as he goes to war with a man with a bin on his head, while The Times lifts its paywall to make freely available a critical piece on the Reform leader headed: “Nigel Farage can’t wish away questions with needless by-election”.

Farage, the paper says, wished to make this by-election a referendum on what he sees as the establishment. Instead, it argues, he has succeeded only in making it a referendum on himself.

But the Reform leader, it goes on to say, has created a much bigger problem than tarnishing his reputation. Voters who supported the party because it was not like the others will be disappointed at his recent conduct. The greatest damage of this affair is to an insurgent political force that asks voters to believe that it will sweep away a self-serving political class.

Reflecting my “Caesar’s wife” argument, the paper asserts that Reform cannot credibly make that case while treating elementary disclosure rules, or basic press scrutiny, as an intolerable intrusion. A politician who built his appeal upon mistrust of the political system must submit himself to a higher degree of scrutiny, not less. Until he realises this, his party’s standing will continue to falter.

It isn’t fair that Reform should be held to a higher standard than the rest, but anyone who ever thought that politics was fair is in the wrong business.