Keeping Britain tidy, one fag butt at a time

Hat-tip to my old friend Brian Monteith for drawing this to my attention. It’s a short clip of the Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey interviewing Nigel Farage.

It features two minor revelations. One, Nigel doesn’t deny that he still smokes up to 20 cigarettes a day, down from 40. Two, he carries a small tin that he uses as a pocket ashtray, which is something all smokers should do. (What a pity Keep Britain Tidy can’t use him to educate more smokers to do the same because I think that would cut through far more than any other KBT initiative.)

The clip also serves as a reminder of how warm, humorous and, yes, charming Farage can be. I say this because I have been critical of both Farage and Reform, and I still think resigning as an MP only to stand again in a by-election is a pointless and costly distraction from more important issues, but it’s hard not to like him when you see clips like this.

However, many of his Reform colleagues have none of these positive traits and some are entirely charmless, so when the general election comes I’ll still be voting for Kemi Badenoch, even if I’m not wholly convinced by the ‘new, improved’ Conservative party which remains a work in progress.

In the meantime, fair play to Nigel. What you see is what you get. Mostly.