Reform is no longer a one man team - why the Nick Candy defection is a game-changer moment - Kelvin MacKenzie
Nick Candy joins Reform UK
GB News
I always thought the biggest problem facing Reform was its biggest asset - Nigel Farage. If Farage were to drop dead I feared the party would die with him.
Today I don’t feel that way. Very quietly, and very efficiently, he is surrounding himself with good people putting himself in prime position to assure the voter that this is not a one-man team.
The latest recruit is property tycoon Nick Candy who is to become Reform’s UK Treasurer. He has three major assets. The first is he’s a billionaire, always helpful when raising money from other billionaires.
The second is that he’s married to Holly Vallance. Not only has she been successful in her own right as an actress and singer, but when it comes to politics she is as committed to the Right as her husband.
Thirdly, Candy is not afraid to speak up for wealth creators. A very odd aspect of the last 14 years of Tory rule has been how few times any leader (Cameron was the worst) talked about how we need to make money, individually and as a country.
All we ever seemed to hear is how we have to help the poor. I remember Rupert Murdoch telling me that a taxi driver had waved his fare and said; ‘’ You know how to help the poor don’t you Mr Murdoch?’’. Rupert said he was all ears.
The cabbie said: "Don’t be one of them!’’
And that’s the reality. Whereas both the Tories and Labour simply want to tax the middle classes to death so that the SIDS (Skint Idle Dim Socialists) can have a comfortable subsidised life without ever breaking sweat.
Nick Candy and Nigel Farage
GETTY
The reason I am so sure Candy is the right man for the job is that as he renounced his Conservative membership he accused the Tories of a ‘’complete breach of trust with the wealth creators in our country.’’
I can’t remember the last political figure to mention the wealth creators. My God we need them. We have a load of other sort in power right now - the wealth spenders who can’t wait to take every penny from you and give it to the train drivers at £93,000 a year.
I can’t wait for the moment that a government - any government - takes them on. It will be a miners or Wapping moment.
The next great appointment was making Zia Yusef the party chairman. Serious minded, made his money by selling a concierge business for £200million. I met him at a party a week ago. Impressive. Into the detail, organising Reform for the battle in the county council elections next May.
Correctly, he told The Telegraph that Reform will succeed because there is ‘’an appetite for change’’. He’s so right there. I am constantly amazed how a party of just 5 MPs can so dominate the media whereas the Tory 120 MPs can hardly get a mention.
Yusef believes that it’s for Reform to lose the next election, a view shared by a Conservative Hoe survey which shows seven in ten party members believe Reform poses the biggest challenge to the Tories at the election.
Good people are now flocking to Farage. Take Tim Montgomerie. The founder of Conservative Home and a former adviser to Boris Johnson has joined Reform after 33 years as a Tory. Add Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory minister, who has quit to run as Mayor of Lincolnshire and you see Reform are attracting high quality candidates.
Were Farage I would be looking at the county council elections as a big opportunity. I suspect pensioners will turn out in force to give Starmer a bloody nose over the £300 winter fuel payments being withdrawn.
Plus I don’t believe that Kemi Badenoch, a better bet as leader than Sunak, is capable of changing the voters’ view of the Tories in literally a matter of months. It will take years and in that time Farage will have got up a head of steam.
Exciting times ahead.
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