Musk's playground politics leave Farage in a tight spot

You know that moment when your child gets home from school and you know something bad has happened? Then, it all comes out: the person your child thought was their new best mate isn't that nice after all. And they're worried that his other longstanding friend might side with this other person, because the two seem really tight.

- JON SOPEL

And you listen attentively, if slightly bewildered, to learn the spat is all the fault of that horrid kid in the class, Tommy.

Well, in this story it’s Nigel Farage who’s fallen out with the school’s Mr Flash – Elon Musk... all because Nige hasn’t shown loyalty to another kid, Tommy (Robinson, of course), who has been expelled. And Farage is worried that his longstanding best friend, Donald Trump, might take Elon’s side because they seem inseparable – always hanging around the playground together, sniggering at the back of the classroom, Elon letting Don copy his algebra homework.

If it wasn’t so consequential for British politics, it might be easy to play it for laughs.

But it does matter. Having played an outsized role in the US presidential election in November – few can doubt Musk’s significance, both in terms of financial muscle and his alleged recalibration of the X (Twitter) algorithm to promote and amplify Trump’s messages – it looks like the world’s richest man is turning to the UK for his next political playground.

For some reason, there is a small section of the right in America that gets misty-eyed about the lovable, cuddly and horribly misunderstood Tommy Robinson; mistakenly believing him to be some “free speech hero” brought down by a “woke and repressive” state – and conveniently forgetting the offences for which he has been found guilty by our impartial courts system.