Robert Kenyon is the far-right Reform party’s own plucky plumber candidate, and is standing against that bloke your sister fancies in the suddenly hot seat of Makerfield. Last week, Kenyon was found to have agreed enthusiastically in an online discussion with another man who said he would “love to smell and lick the arsehole” of the broadcaster and writer Carol Vorderman (MBE), in a comment appended, unnecessarily in my opinion, to a message wishing her a happy birthday.
The Reform candidate for Makerfield also wrote that women can’t drive, that those who get abortions just “want to shag anyone they want” and that abortion is “cowardly murder” even if a woman has been “raped by their brother”; and he has befriended far-right activists online, including Gary Raikes of the New British Union, who has been photographed in full fascist uniform. However, the British celebrity-driven media being what it is, with its tolerance of actual fascists becoming rapidly normalised, it is Kenyon’s endorsement of Vorderman-smelling that seems to have got him in the most trouble.
Should this be a surprise? Barnsley’s newly elected Reform councillor Andy Arnold appears to be sporting a swastika tattoo on his forearm, and remains in post. His wife, Theresa, who is both a Reform councillor and a tattooist, claims the swastika is a “misunderstood Buddhist peace symbol” and that “in his late teens, my husband briefly explored Buddhism and had a symbol tattooed on his arm during that period”. This may be true, but unless Andy Arnold is so old his youthful interest in the swastika (also the Hindu sign for good luck) pre-dates its 1930s appropriation as an explicitly antisemitic sign of fascism, recognised pretty much exclusively as such all over the world, he would have to have been quite stupid to have had one tattooed on himself and not expected it to cause a fuss. Never mind. I’m sure it’s just that level of thought that will make him great at sorting out the Barnsley bin collections. Perhaps people who recycle their plastics properly could have their bins marked with a lucky swastika as a reward.
The standard political PR playbook move in the case of the Reform candidate for Makerfield’s online unpleasantness would be to accept that the comment about Vorderman was inappropriate, say it was made before the candidate was in the public eye, move on and hope it all blows over. However, as if in a kind of experiment to see how far they can push voter tolerance now that their leader, Nigel Farage, seems to have happily endorsed crypto as the best thing on earth while accepting a £5m donation from a crypto entrepreneur, Reform have doubled down on Kenyon’s delight in the smelling of women’s private parts, though it is not yet clear if support for his position reflects actual party policy and a long-term manifesto commitment.
I am glad I turned down the Perineum of the Decade award offered by a specialist Latvian publication in the 90s, as it would have left me similarly vulnerable to abuse
A Reform spokesperson said: “Rob isn’t a polished, professional politician and doesn’t speak like one. That’s precisely why he’ll be a straight-talking, effective voice for normal working people in Makerfield.” For Reform, Kenyon’s comment – exactly the kind of thing that actively dissuades capable women from making contributions to public life – is evidence not of his unsuitability as a candidate, but of the very thing that will make him good at the job. When insisting that rape victims don’t get abortions, for example, Kenyon will be able to do so in the same straight-talking fashion that he has endorsed the licking and smelling of an arsehole. Barack Obama’s 2012 address at the vigil for the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, widely regarded as one of the great acts of political oratory, was all very well, but in retrospect it is clear that what it lacks is a secondary endorsement of celebrity arsehole sniffing.
Kenyon’s controversy has become a lightning rod for the usual unpleasant online outlets. Europa, “an independent news aggregator focused on western politics, culture and identity” now monetising likes on Elon Musk’s child-porn and race-hate sluice Twitter (currently X), points out the younger Vorderman had twice been awarded the now discontinued Rear of the Year award. Different times! The inference here is that, as she had not objected when she became the focus of attention in such a fashion before, Vorderman has no right to complain today about sexually explicit comments, as if her body were now in the public domain. I am glad that I turned down the Perineum of the Decade award offered me by a specialist Latvian publication in the 90s, as it would have left me similarly vulnerable to abuse.
Meanwhile, the batshit Reform candidates march ever onward, controversies that would have felled any other would-be politician simply batted away and ignored by a news media too complicit, or too cowed, to care. In August, I am judging a dog competition in the Lake District with the entertainer and activist Charlotte Church. I must make clear to any Reform voters in attendance at the event that the winning dog does not consent to become an object for their sexual objectification by default, merely because it has been judged to be an especially good-looking pet. Nor, if they want to wish their dog good luck on the day, should they daub it with swastikas.
Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf tours everywhere in the UK and Ireland until the end of the year, with a final November and December London run just announced.
Stewart has programmed, and will be appearing in, Up The Anti, a benefit for North London Hunt Saboteurs, at London’s Leicester Square theatre on 6 July, alongside Daniel Fox, Harry Badger, James Gill, Horn Walsh, Sue Jerkins, Shappi Coarse-Angling, Alasdair Bear-Baiting and Stewart Eel