{"id":41493,"date":"2026-01-13T15:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=41493"},"modified":"2026-01-13T15:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:50:17","slug":"show-some-gratitude-people-nadhim-zahawi-has-joined-reform-for-our-benefit-apparently-marina-hyde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=41493","title":{"rendered":"Show some gratitude, people \u2013 Nadhim Zahawi has joined Reform for our benefit, apparently | Marina Hyde"},"content":{"rendered":"

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S<\/span>orry to call it early, but the worst trend of 2026 is politicians who are graciously doing us all a favour. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t need to be here,\u201d declared Nigel Farage on Monday of Reform UK\u2019s newest sloppy second, Nadhim Zahawi. \u201cHe could have gone abroad.\u201d Ooh, aren\u2019t we lucky! Thanks for stopping by, Nadhim!<\/p>\n

If you missed this, the former mayfly Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has switched gravy trains. If that sounds like the sort of death-defying stunt Tom Cruise might break his ankle doing in the Mission Impossible franchise, it\u2019s nothing like as exhilaratingly watchable. The Tory gravy train has ground to a halt, and Farage will stop his Reform train even between stations to pick up any old has-been you may remember from episodes like \u201cdeathbed Boris Johnson appointments\u201d or \u201cmy horses are warmer than pensioners\u201d. (More on that latter one shortly.) Needless to say, Farage is doing his best to explain that these guys aren\u2019t secondhand, they\u2019re pre-loved. They\u2019re vintage, they\u2019re appealingly worn in, they\u2019re heritage pieces. They may even have increased in value \u2013 they\u2019re basically political Birkin bags.<\/p>\n

But, as I say, you\u2019re lucky you\u2019re even being allowed to look at them. Don\u2019t dream of touching what you can\u2019t afford. Farage\u2019s party is increasingly full of people who\u2019d like you to know they\u2019ve got way better options than power and don\u2019t actually need to do this.<\/p>\n

Nigel\u2019s one himself, of course, having declared \u201cI want my life back\u201d in 2016, before repeatedly presenting his frequent un-retirings as some kind of regrettable sacrifice he could well afford not to make. He doesn\u2019t need to do this, guys! Or take Richard Tice, the Reform deputy leader given to making grandly self-dramatising statements like: \u201cMy job pays for everything. The politics just costs me.\u201d (By way of a quick sidebar, incidentally, do spare a genuine thought for Tice. He\u2019s been a Successful BusinessmanTM, he led Reform for almost three years when they leapt from 0% to 15% in the polls, and he then dutifully surrendered the leadership to the endlessly un-retiring Farage. And still<\/em> Farage has resolutely declined to name him the unofficial opposition\u2019s shadow chancellor and clearly never will, waiting instead for a Tory of the right perceived calibre to defect so he can give it to them instead. It\u2019s like Nigel loves Richard, but knows he is not serious people.)<\/p>\n

Anyway. Now, take Nadhim Zahawi, who spent Monday\u2019s unveiling press conference making much of the fact that a successful businessman such as himself could have chosen to enjoy a \u201ccomfortable retirement\u201d, but instead is joining Reform, apparently as an act of national philanthropy. But is Zahawi truly one of life\u2019s most selfless givers, or is he a career chiseller whose interactions with the taxpayer include simply not paying his own taxes, and putting in expenses for heat and lighting for the stables on his Warwickshire estate? Something to bear in mind for Reform supporters currently feeling too cash-strapped to put the heating on. Zahawi accepted more from the taxpayer in energy costs for his second home than any other MP. He was forced to repay those, as he was forced to settle his unpaid bills with HMRC after concealing the investigation into his affairs led to him having to resign as chancellor.<\/p>\n

Below these upper echelons of Reform, this attitude that politics needs you far more than you need it persists. The recently resigned leader of Staffordshire county council is a guy called Ian Cooper, whose Reform party membership was suspended last month after the discovery that social media accounts linked to him were a \u201ctop fan\u201d of a white supremacy page, and that he had been posting stuff like a diatribe against David Lammy that included the dictum: \u201cNo foreign national or first-generation migrant should be allowed to sit in parliament.\u201d Yet when a Labour councillor questioned the deafening silence among his colleagues about all this, Cooper reacted airily. \u201cThe good thing is I don\u2019t need to be a politician for the money, unlike some,\u201d he sniffed. \u201cI can walk away without consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strange times we live in, when a consequence-free lifestyle is now being presented as an ideal characteristic for a politician. People didn\u2019t used to talk like this, constantly implying they were far too good or well-feathered for this crap, and only here as a favour to the little people. It\u2019s such an eye-catching reframing of public service for the hyper-individualised age, yet at the same time its practitioners don\u2019t even seem to realise that they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n

Nor, indeed, is the tendency limited to Reform. Back when the Conservatives were looking to expand their pool of MPs, Rory Stewart has recounted asking David Cameron if he\u2019d be made a minister fast. \u201cWhat I was saying was: \u2018Do you want me? Because I can do other things. I\u2019ve got a chair at Harvard. I don\u2019t need to do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Not needing to do this was the absolute keystone of Donald Trump\u2019s first White House run, with the future president reminding voters at every turn that: \u201cI\u2019ve built a great, great company. I don\u2019t need to do this.\u201d That great, great company has, of course, enriched itself beyond measure during Trump\u2019s two stints in office \u2013 which rather disproves the man we might consider the daddy of this particular streak in modern politics, Ross Perot. By way of a recap, tech-firm billionaire Perot ran as an independent US presidential candidate in 1992, and a big part of his norm-shattering shtick was the fact he was so rich that he couldn\u2019t be corrupt like all those other politicians. Perot explicitly believed that autocratic businessmen were the answer, and that government was something that could be fixed if you just got \u201cunder the hood\u201d. One in five Americans voted for him. (By the way, the next time he ran, in 1996, he called his party the Reform party.)<\/p>\n

Last week I saw a poll that found 74% of people across the UK, EU, US, Canada and Japan believed the world is \u201chopelessly rigged for the rich\u201d. It\u2019s kind of nuts that in an era in which this outlook is overwhelmingly prevalent, the supposed great knights in shining armour are men who keep telling you they are doing so well that they really don\u2019t even need to bother. They\u2019re doing it for YOU, and you need to follow them into battle in what Zahawi called Farage\u2019s \u201cglorious revolution\u201d. Is there any armour for the foot soldiers, as they march towards their own consequence-free promised land? Look, I\u2019m sure the guys at the top are working on it. You\u2019re just going to have to take it all on trust.<\/p>\n