'The return of Farage' will be remembered in 10 years time
Tune in to The Division Bell podcast to hear Express deputy political editor Martyn Brown and Sunday Mirror counterpart Mikey Smith give the inside track on the election.
Farage “attracts toxic personalities” says Mikey Smith
Martyn Brown, the Deputy Political Editor for the Daily Express, said on the Division Bell podcast that “the return of Farage” will be a remembered moment ten years on from this general election.
“The return of Farage has spiced it up…we should talk about it because the Tories are fighting on two fronts really. There’s this warning of the Labour supermajority partly to suppress the Labour vote, and partly to encourage some disillusioned voters to get out there vote for them instead.”
Martyn told Mikey Smith, Deputy Political Editor for the Sunday Mirror, that the Tories are “also fighting Reform who are threatening to, certainly on percentage wise, to overtake the Tories.”
“It started with fireworks, but I've been covering him for the best part of two decades. First you get the fireworks, then you get the toxic stench as there is inevitably some controversy and that's what we've seen here.”
Martyn questioned: “One of the interesting things for me, will be to see if that [the racism row] is impacting the polls. Will the Reform numbers dip and how many MPs can they expect?”
Don't miss... First come the Farage fireworks, then the toxic stench [LATEST]
Mikey responded: “Their polling has dipped already. It's hard to say whether that's as a result of the toxic stuff. A certain part of me thinks that's priced in for a lot of reform voters.”
Martyn summarised that due to Reform’s controversy, “since Thursday where Channel Four did this exposé and the canvasser Andrew Parker made horrendous comments about the Prime Minister and migrants. What it all does is for the last few days we've been talking about Nigel Farage and his party, and he probably doesn’t mind that.”
This episode also sees Mikey and Martyn discuss what the final few days in Parliament will look like before Thursday’s election.
New episodes are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the General Election campaign, with a special edition on the morning after polling day.
