𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

I could hardly believe it. Surely, it had to be a macabre April fool. Surely no politician, of any party, would be so comprehensively crass and thoughtless as to say of the Grenfell Tower victims, who died in the most appalling, terrifying circumstances, “Everyone dies in the end”. But no. Incredibly, a politician really did say that. And who was it? The housing spokesperson for Reform, Simon Dudley, in an interview with Inside Housing magazine. How he must be regretting his foolish, horrid choice of words today.

Look, I’m all for plain speaking. It’s one of the most refreshing things about Nigel Farage, love him or loathe him, that he says what he thinks and encourages his top team to do the same. There are few things worse than a politician who’s terrified of saying anything remotely blunt for fear of offending someone or other.

But there are limits. And Grenfell is one of them. You don’t have to be the world’s foremost political operative to know that there is no decent, humane way of diluting the enormity of that tragedy, in which 72 people died, including a child whose last words were to beg for her mother.

So, what on earth was Mr Dudley thinking? What was he on? Okay, if we merely engage our brains, and ignore our human hearts, we can recognise the basic truth that we all have to die sometime, and it’s true that the powers that be can sometimes misjudge regulation in the aftermath of a tragedy.

But politics is every bit as much about the heart as the mind, and if Dudley doesn’t realise that, then it’s probably best that his political career has ended so soon.

I’d also advise him to get some media training. In fact, one of the first things I say to every delegate in such training courses I conduct is to be exceptionally careful of what you say in an interview with a print journalist, when words can so easily be taken out of context, and when, unlike in a broadcast interview, the audience has no way of knowing the tone with which they were said.

Clearly, Dudley either hadn’t been told that or assumed media training didn’t matter. The only other explanation is that he just can’t empathise. Whichever way you look at it, he made a big mistake.

And this is even more important for a Reform politician than for any other. Because the establishment is desperate to find fault with that party; desperate to knock it off its perch; and keen as mustard to stop it gaining power.

Just look at the glee with which Dudley’s comments were reported. The message many commentators are desperately trying to send out? Reform people are heartless, so don’t put them in power. Well, Mr Dudley, you’ve made it all too easy for that label to stick.

Nigel Farage and Richard Tice immediately leapt into damage-limitation mode, and were absolutely right to sack Dudley, calling his words “shocking”. Too right. But they must be livid that they were forced into that position in the first place. Already, Reform is sinking in the polls. Yes, it’s still in the lead, but that lead is shrinking, with Labour and the Tories stabilising and the Greens surging.

If Reform wants to achieve its aspirations in the May local elections, and then go onto form the next government in 2029, it must minimise these terrible own goals. Let Simon Dudley be a lesson then, and make sure his awful case is the last.