{"id":469029,"date":"2026-03-11T05:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469029\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T05:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:13:08","slug":"farage-delivers-energy-sermon-at-the-pump-just-dont-mention-the-war-john-crace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469029\/","title":{"rendered":"Farage delivers energy sermon at the pump \u2013 just don\u2019t mention the war | John Crace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s try to look on the bright side. At least Nigel Farage<\/a> wasn\u2019t personally out of pocket. There again, he seldom is. The whole point of being Nige is to never pay for anything if you can help it. Unless you fancy buying a few shares in Kwasi Kwarteng\u2019s \u201cget rich quick\u201d crypto scheme. Ordinary punters would be well advised to think twice before doing the same.<\/p>\n

But Nige can\u2019t escape the humiliation. The dawning realisation that he\u2019s not quite as important as he thought he was. That the novelty has worn off and people are not so quick to be taken in. On Thursday, Farage had boasted to anyone who would listen that he was off to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend to have some me time with Donald Trump. To do his patriotic duty of keeping the US president up to speed on the British response to the war in Iran. And how he would have done so much better.<\/p>\n

A round trip of the best part of 9,000 miles later, not to mention hanging around Trump\u2019s Florida resort in his shiny suit for two days, and Nige had nothing at all to show for his sycophancy. No invitation to hang out with the Orange Manchild for even 10 minutes. Farage had checked his phone constantly. Maybe it wasn\u2019t charged. Maybe the wifi was down. But no. Not even a WhatsApp to say thanks but no thanks. The Donald had better things to do than hang out with The Nigel.<\/p>\n

There was only one thing for it. Pretend it had never happened. That Farage had always intended to go to Florida for the weekend to spend quality time with himself. Nothing to see here. And so on Tuesday morning Nige and Robert Jenrick were up in Derbyshire at a garage for a 25p a litre fuel-cut stunt. Yet again you can rest assured that Nigel would not be forking out for this one either.<\/p>\n

Nor should I imagine was he paying for the coach that Reform had laid on for any journalists travelling from London. This would have been one of Nige\u2019s wiser investments as all London journalists had either decided to make their own way or that they could give the 5am start a miss. So the coach turned up in Derbyshire completely empty apart from one Reform press officer. I guess Reform have to spend their money on something.<\/p>\n

Half an hour later than planned \u2013 maybe Nige was hoping for a couple of stragglers to make up the numbers \u2013 Farage sent Honest Bob up some scaffolding to alter the prices. Diesel down from \u00a31.68 per litre to \u00a31.43. Unleaded down from \u00a31.46 to \u00a31.21. And that was that. Stunt over.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t Rob good at that?\u201d smirked Nigel. Brilliant. At least we\u2019ve finally found something he is good at. He could make a living going round petrol stations changing the prices. And he would do so much less harm. Nige continued. Petrol prices were a con. The government was threatening to phase out the 5p price cap. It was politicians who didn\u2019t pay for their own petrol or \u2013 far worse \u2013 rode bicycles around north London who were doing this.<\/p>\n

Nige was going to get rid of grants for heat pumps and abandon all commitments to net zero. We would be drilling and fracking everywhere. He seemed to think he could fix the country\u2019s energy security in a matter of days. Somehow he manages to be reckless and halfwitted at the same time. He even thought that Britain having two days of gas was a crisis. Rather than a normal situation.<\/p>\n

What we didn\u2019t get from either Nige or Honest Bob, whose role appeared to be to repeat everything his leader had just said, was any understanding of why oil and gas prices were of such particular concern at this time. It was almost as if it was a total coincidence. Don\u2019t mention the war! Don\u2019t mention the war!<\/p>\n

Come the questions, the war was mentioned. By Sky News and most other media organisations. Wasn\u2019t it a bit much to complain about the price of oil and gas when Reform\u2019s positioning on the war was all over the place? Last week, Farage had been all in favour of bombing Iran. Whatever the Americans wanted, Nige would give it to them. Never mind the cost. Never mind the bodybags.<\/p>\n

Likewise Richard Tice. He was everyone\u2019s useful idiot so he had been saying much the same. Like the halfwit he is. Andrea Jenkyns just wanted to kill somebody. She wasn\u2019t sure who. She makes Dicky look like a genius. Meanwhile, Honest Bob had been saying that maybe war wasn\u2019t quite such a good idea. But he didn\u2019t want to offend Nige or his colleagues, so if they were dead set on bombing he would happily defer to them.<\/p>\n

Nige\u2019s various replies came across as deranged. Snippy and short-tempered. As if irritated that he had been found out. His Special Power used to be that he could read the mood of the country. Plug into their desires and grievances. But that is no longer working for him. While Nige has been brown-nosing Trump with his warmongering, he has missed that most of the country doesn\u2019t want to follow the orange narcissist into an illegal war with no fixed objectives other than continue till The Donald gets bored. We\u2019ve been down that route before.<\/p>\n

Typically Farage tried to have it every which way. We didn\u2019t have any troops, planes or ships in any case so we couldn\u2019t get involved if we tried. Odd \u2013 we appeared to have enough for Nige to do what he liked less than seven days ago. Those cuts must come faster than you think. Keir Starmer had humiliated us, he said. Before saying that on balance we probably shouldn\u2019t get involved. Er \u2026 run that past us again. You\u2019re actually saying that Starmer has been right all along. And that it\u2019s you who has embarrassed the country by making up foreign policy on a minute-by-minute basis. Just imagine the chaos if Nige had been in Downing Street. He\u2019s just not a serious politician for serious times.<\/p>\n

Nige ended by trying to claim he and Trump were as close as ever. \u201cWe are really lucky to have a president who likes Britain so much,\u201d he said. Really? It wasn\u2019t long ago that he was trash-talking the record of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan. And insulting our prime minister. God help us, if he didn\u2019t like us. But most Brits can see Trump for what he is. A bully with no sense of history. A man who is utterly unreliable. A president to be kept at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n

And that was that. Farage looked fed up and bored. He could sense his reflection fading. The disappearing man whose Midas touch has deserted him. A man of whom there are now more questions than answers. Nige\u2019s pressers usually go on for well over an hour. This one was done and dusted in just 35 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s try to look on the bright side. At least Nigel Farage wasn\u2019t personally out of pocket. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-469029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}