Failing Grayling double reports for duty as Reform’s armed forces spokesperson | John Crace

You can make a good case for Nigel Farage having been one of the most consequential British politicians of the 21st century. Without him there would have been no Brexit. And yet it is now beginning to look as if his time has come and gone.

The narcissistic qualities that have served him so well now threaten to finish him off. His skin is becoming thinner by the day. All that’s left is reflexive lashing out. A raging against the dying of the light. You’d need to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

On Thursday, Nige was at the old Billingsgate fish market in central London for a press conference – not another one – at which he was to unveil his new armed forces spokesperson. Only this would turn out to be a press conference with a difference. Nige would not be taking any questions for the cameras.

You couldn’t help but think he was struggling to shake off the humiliation of insisting the pollsters were wrong about the Republicans in the US midterms. Trump would not be smashed, he said. The American voters saw it differently. And now The Donald was proving to be a liability.

It’s not just Nige who is suffering. He’s taking his whole team down with him. Not least those former Tory MPs who had thought the Conservatives were dead in the water. Danny Kruger was supposed to be the sensible one. The one who could provide a veneer of intelligence to the Reform project. Yet Nice Danny is rapidly morphing into Desperate Dan: a man now thinking he may have been a bit hasty and made the wrong call.

Desperate Dan had been roped in as the warm-up act. Usually the sort of meaningless gig that is delegated to Dicky Tice. It probably wasn’t in the script for Dan to use his five-minute gig to unload his full existential meltdown, but that was what he got. Angry Dan is a sucker for any conspiracy theory. The polls had been rigged to make it look as Reform was in third place. And John Healey had only resigned as defence secretary so that he could get the job as chancellor in order to dismantle all the armed forces.

The madness apogee was reached when Desperate Dan declared that no politician in the whole country knew more about defence than Nige. In a war, Nige would be the first person trying to escape the draft with ingrown toenails. Reform have never even got round to naming a defence spokesperson or showing the slightest interest in the subject. Reform’s attendance in parliament for defence-related matters is pitiful.

Nige took centre stage to a standing ovation. There are still a few hardcore believers left. He craves the attention despite the ever-diminishing returns. “The world is more dangerous now than it has been for 80 years,” he said, with his trademark grin. He could be right, though he hadn’t stopped to consider whether Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump – two leaders whom he has openly admired – might have contributed to that. Nige has blamed the Ukraine war on Nato and was all up for joining the US in bombing Iran.

The 3.5% of GDP by 2035 was paltry, he continued. Though he didn’t commit to spending any more or saying how the increase would be funded. But help was at hand. Nige had tracked down the one man in the entire armed services who could save the country from its darkest hour. No matter that the RAF had rather overlooked the talents of the wing commander with 40 years’ service. Meet Angus MacIntyre, who last week resigned from the RAF to become Nige’s official wingman.

Cue a spectacular double take. Because the man who walked on stage was a dead ringer for Chris Grayling, the former Tory minister who had never yet found a job he couldn’t do worse than anyone else. Failing Grayling made a career out of his own incompetence. Mediocrity was a level of achievement to which he could only aspire.

Being Failing Grayling’s double is a cross no man should have to bear but Angus was determined to do his best. He was happy to report for duty as Reform’s shadow minister for the armed forces. This was Angus’s first lie in his new role. Start as you mean to go on. He is not and is never going to be a shadow minister. That role can only ever be done by a Tory as the official opposition. But maybe no one had yet got round to explaining such things to him. Angus was a grunt who operated on a need to know basis.

MacIntyre quickly moved on to his CV, which includes spells in the US and at Nato HQ. More lanyard class than man of action. Nor did he quite explain why he had finished his career only as wing commander despite four decades of service. You couldn’t help thinking Angus might have been passed over for promotion several times and that the RAF hadn’t quite appreciated his talents as much as he would have liked.

Still, Angus looks as if he has landed in the right place, sounding suitably swivel-eyed about net zero and condemning current attitudes towards the armed forces as “Marxist ideology”. However, it was a little weird that Reform’s new man from the military had nothing to say about either Ukraine or Iran. It would have been good to know if he shared Nige’s admiration for Putin and Trump and whether he too looks on not joining the Iran war as a missed opportunity. Nor did he say whether he intended to stand as an MP or who was paying him. Questions, questions.

“Have I got the right guy?” Nige asked the audience, as he joined Angus on stage for a last group hug. We will find out soon enough. But my bet would be that Angus may soon be feeling buyer’s remorse. Nige looks as if he is running on empty.