Twenty-five or so Reform members of the Senedd were lined up against a wall. Almost as if they were in a police identification parade. Reform’s need to find a new leader in Wales is becoming habit-forming.
First, Nathan Gill was banged up for 10 and a half years on eight counts of taking £40K in bribes to make statements in support of Russia. Who among us hasn’t been tempted by the Kremlin? And then last week, Dan Thomas chose to stand down after being arrested on suspicion of assault and coercive behaviour, leaving the Welsh leadership spot open once more.
He denies the allegations. It’s almost as if there’s a pattern emerging. That the job of Reform leader in Wales is somehow cursed.
Otherwise law-abiding men and women suddenly find themselves accused of all sorts of things. So much so that it’s now the job that no one really wants. Yet politics abhors a vacuum, and someone has to do the job.
So it was a decidedly grumpy-looking Nigel Farage who turned up in Cardiff on Monday morning to pretend to be interested in announcing the next Reform Senedd leader. Perhaps he reckoned he had better things to do. The event – if you can call a five-minute announcement that – was supposed to kick off at 11.45.
Nige was booked on the 12.18 back to Paddington and had hoped to be in London for a late lunch. No champagne and oysters. There were no undercover reporters posing as Americans trying to make a potentially illegal donation this time.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
