But mentioning him 31 times in the speech is just idiocy. You can deal with a lot of what Reform represent by putting forward your own policies clearly. Again this idea that you will deal with Farage by talking about him as much as this failed for Trump. Farage will have loved both Lib Dems and Labour conferences.
Reform don't have policies, they have soundbites - that's Farage's MO (and Trump's, for that matter). Farage on Brexit was not 'this is what we'd do', it was always 'look how terrible this is'. You can't highlight the difference with Farage's policies, because he doesn't have them, you can't focus on Reform because it's just Farage with a flag - who gives a toss about Richard Tice, for instance?
Reform is a cult of personality, and unless you address that personality you aren't dealing with the problem - Farage is the problem. If unemployment was the problem no-one would care that unemployment was mentioned thirty times. If Farage wasn't getting the coverage i could see the argument that mentioning him a lot was giving him the oxygen he needs, but he's already mainlining media attention, talking about him isn't going to bring him to anyone's attention that wasn't already more than aware of him.
O.
O.