As Badenoch saw sense, it was just Farage playing politics over a young man’s death | John Crace

Everything is material for Nige, who made rare appearance at PMQs to ask question about Henry Nowak case

T here was a rare sighting in Westminster on Wednesday. The lesser-spotted Farage. A species so elusive that not even David Attenborough has previously recorded him in the wild. Nige blinked several times, trying to get used to his unnatural surroundings.

He looked sunbaked. His time on the run ever since the Guardian revealed his previously undisclosed £5m handout from a crypto-billionaire in Thailand has clearly been spent mainly outdoors. Sleeping under the sun, moving by night under the stars. Anything to keep one step ahead of journalists asking awkward questions. One twitcher thought he had maybe caught sight of him on the Costa del Crime.

Next to Farage was Richard Tice. The man with his head so far up Nige’s bum that only his ankles betray his existence as a non-parasitical entity. Further along the row were Honest Bob Jenrick, Lee Anderson and Andrew Rosindell. Even Danny Kruger had put in an appearance, though he is beginning to look ever more queasy about Reform’s attempt to outflank Rupert Lowe’s Restore on the far-right low ground.

It turned out that Nige was in the chamber because he had been allocated a question as the leader of Reform UK. And he didn’t want to waste it when there was a tragedy to exploit. Up until this point, the Commons had been surprisingly united in its response to the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak . Keir Starmer had begun by expressing his sympathy for the family, his admiration for their dignified response and his hope that their wish that their son’s death would not be used to foster hatred and division be observed. Everyone but the six Reform MPs murmured their approval.

Unusually, even Kemi Badenoch was on board with trying to dampen tensions. The effort must have almost overwhelmed her, as her default position is to find a place of disunity and aggression. There had been hints of this in the piece she had written for the Daily Mail on Wednesday morning, in which she had tried to paint Nowak’s arrest and murder as the 2026 equivalent of the Stephen Lawrence murder.

A crass comparison. Six men were believed to have been involved in Stephen’s murder, and only two were convicted nearly 20 years later. There was also evidence the police had been complicit in actively preventing the killers being brought to justice. Nothing remotely similar happened here. Vickrum Digwa was arrested soon after the crime and is already serving a life sentence. To compare the Lawrence and Nowak murders is to insult both their memories.

But come the start of PMQs , someone must have ripped up Kemi’s script and persuaded her not to march to the beat of the Reform drum. There might have been tears and tantrums involved, but common sense prevailed. Through gritted teeth, the leader of the opposition found herself echoing the same healing tone Keir had adopted. You could see she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing. But credit where credit is due. She got there in the end.