Nice Tice
Reform are trying to clean up
“Cleaning Up Britain,” proclaimed the natty logo at Richard Tice’s press conference on Wednesday. And let’s face it, if that was what you wanted to do, there are few better places to start than Reform Headquarters, funded as they are by payments from overseas-residing cryptocurrency millionaires.
Sadly, it turned out that this wasn’t the kind of cleaning up that Tice had in mind. “Littering, fly tipping has become the norm!” he declared. “We all want to be environmentally friendly,” he went on, taking a brief break from his usual demand that the country burn more fossil fuels. Next month, he revealed, the party will organise a day of litter-picking.
What was going on? Reform is too young a party to have traditions, but I think we know what the party is — and isn’t — broadly about. If you’d asked me that morning what Reform’s approach to recycling was, I’d have told you the party thought that separating paper from glass was for losers. Now Tice was earnestly discussing bottle deposit schemes. I couldn’t have been more surprised if Nigel Farage had stuck his head round the door to warn about the risks of daytime drinking.
Hehe.