Nigel Farage gets surprise endorsement from a Christmas icon – Ebenezer Scrooge
Picture the scene. Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by a new ghost on Christmas Eve – the Ghost of General Election Future – who whisks him to a London church hall in the 2020s to cast his vote.
Which party does that squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner choose?
According to a new YouGov poll, Brits are unequivocal. Scrooge would back Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The survey suggests 30% of us believe Dickens’ miser would opt for the right-wingers if given the option. In second place is the Conservatives with 19%, then Labour with 14%.
It’s unclear if poll participants were thinking of Scrooge before or after his famous phantasmal conversion into a generous cheer-bringer.
However, Reform’s policy of slashing public sector and benefits spending may square with the line he gave to charity collectors who pop by his office in the opening scene of A Christmas Carol.
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He tells them: ‘I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.’
A Reform spokesperson didn’t seem too fussed, telling Metro: ‘British people realise that even Scrooge knows that Britain is broken and that Britain needs Reform.’
Here’s a second thought experiment. It’s election night in the UK, shortly before polls close at 10pm, and a magical sleigh whooshes from the sky to land on the roof of a school gym in suburban England.
Santa Claus has come to town, in order to cast his vote. Where does he write his X(mas)?
Perhaps reflecting the questionable legality of Father Christmas participating in a UK election (surely he’s a citizen of the North Pole?), Brits are more split on who he would support.
In fact, 30% believe he would not vote – but if push comes to shove, 14% of us think he would plump for Zack Polanski’s Green Party.
Somewhat surprisingly, 10% believe Santa – who is renowned for not recognising borders and for distributing freebies to everyone, regardless of their legal or socioeconomic status – would be a Reform voter.
YouGov chose to only poll on those two festive characters, thanks to their diametrically opposed attitudes towards Christmas. But the question has got us thinking about how other favourites would vote.
Could Buddy the Elf be tempted by Your Party?
Where does George Bailey fall on the ideological spectrum, as a small business owner?
Rachel Reeves, like so many Chancellors before her, has been compared to the Grinch – but does that mean Dr Seuss’s creation would back Labour?
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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