Reform should ditch Richard Tice before it’s too late

The Reform Party has claimed that the Rochdale by-election was not ‘free and fair’. Their leader, Richard Tice, said that his party had suffered intimidation on the campaign trail including ‘vile racist abuse’. It was certainly an ugly election battle, one dominated by the conflict in Gaza – and, because of that focus, George Galloway of the Workers Party triumphed. But say what you like about ‘Gaza George’, but he has one crucial commodity for a politician that Tice lacks: charisma.

Galloway, of course, one participated in the most ‘cringeworthy’ moment in the history of reality TV – as voted by British viewers – when he pretended to be a cat in an episode of Celebrity Big Brother. That would have finished many a career, but George has in him as many political comebacks as a cat has lives.  

Unlike Galloway, Tice is light on such charisma and it’s holding back Reform.