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Nigel Farage arriving on a JCB digger at last year’s rally in Birmingham
Photo: Jacob King/PA

The Lure of the Politics of Passion

As Nigel Farage and Reform UK lash out under scrutiny, Jay Griffiths considers their year of riding on hatred

Birmingham, spring 2025. Nigel Farage fronts a Reform rally.

I spend the early evening in the pubs and bars, looking, listening, and sniffing.

Every woman around me has over-powering perfume, thick make-up, high heels, and dyed blond hair. Not quite natural Aryans. The older men are loud and beery, balancing pints on their bellies, loving the sound of their own voices; pub bores watching footie and criticising the management.

previous article Edition 88 – August 2026 next article

Mandrake – Clubbing Together

When the country was in the grip of Brexit fever, and Theresa May was frantically trying to sever all ties with the European Union as soon as possible, Baroness Brenda Hale, then President of the UK Supreme Court, hardly endeared herself to the then Prime Minister when she and her fellow justices decreed that formal withdrawal from the EU would first require parliamentary approval.
Tim Walker

Zeitgeisters – Mark Booth

‘Jonathan Black’ was revealed to be the successful publisher Mark Booth, and much was made of his insider’s knack for finding an intelligent and accessible way of presenting material of cosmic weirdness and obscurity.
John Mitchinson