The purpose of the presser was supposedly to highlight Reform\u2019s latest \u2013 unfunded, natch \u2013 promises to small business. Though as no one was really listening and were instead wondering what sins they had committed in a previous life to have to endure 45 minutes of a burbling, fantasy-driven Honest Bob, this was really a public demonstration of the sort of waste of time Reform was trying to save businesses from. Though its possible that someone in Reform HQ has recently developed a meta-brand of existential humour and is now actively toying with the media to see how long it is before anyone realises the party has nothing to say and no longer bothers to show up.<\/p>\n
Honest Bob raced through the sell. A relaxation of the rules on data protection. Who cares if Big Tech get their mitts on your personal information? They will mine your data one way or the other, so we might as well make it as easy as possible for them. The VAT level for business would be raised to \u00a3150K and anyone kept on hold by HMRC for 30 minutes would be entitled to a \u00a330 tax credit. Cue the whole country ringing HMRC at the same time just to save a bit of money. You don\u2019t even have to listen to the music when you\u2019re put on hold because no one is ever going to answer. Do this several times a day and you might never have to pay tax again.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to First Edition<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n This is personal for me, said Honest Bob. Look into my eyes. Trying to sound sincere. Though it\u2019s hard to trust a man with a track record of betrayal and dishonesty. Nige, Dicky, Zia and Bob. All working-class boys from the wrong side of the tracks. It\u2019s as if he had never read this speech before, passing it off as his own. The whole point of Reform is that everyone at the top of the party is posh and has absolutely no idea of what it\u2019s like to have no money. Nor are they even on each other\u2019s side, let alone that of small business. Zia can\u2019t stand Honest Bob and Nige seems to hate everyone at the moment.<\/p>\n Then the final giveaway. Grandparents and parents would be able to invest \u00a3250k in a child\u2019s business tax free. Because everyone has a quarter or a mill to spare. It was just delusional. Honest Bob doesn\u2019t understand himself, let alone the average Brit. And don\u2019t worry about where all the money to pay for all these giveaways would come from. Just offset them from the imaginary savings they had made from last week\u2019s nonsensical pressers. Dicky Tice extolling the virtues of marital fidelity was quite the moment.<\/p>\n There was just time for a few questions. More out of habit than genuine inquiry. All of which merely exposed Honest Bob\u2019s limitations. Like trying to pretend that the energy price increase had nothing to do with the war with Iran that Nige had insisted the UK would be better off joining. Then there were the polls which really, really didn\u2019t show that the Reform surge had long since peaked. But there were moments of light relief, such as Jenrick going for Kemi Badenoch<\/a> over her invented conversations with Giorgia Meloni. It takes one delusionist to spot another.<\/p>\n It took the reporter from the Press Association to mention the elephant in the room. The crushing sense of ennui. Please could Reform get around to talking about defence, foreign affairs and health, because they had long since exhausted all the topics for which they had spokespeople. Honest Bob hesitated. Reform not having any MPs it could trust on defence, foreign affairs and health should be taken as a sign of strength not weakness. No way was the party a reclusive one-man band. There was Dicky and Honest Bob after all. Not forgetting Honest Bob and Dicky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s turning out to be one of the longer sulks in Nigel Farage\u2019s already sulk-filled career. Few politicians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-751075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751075","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=751075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782846071_379_1000.jpg\")
<\/p>\n