Long before he grumbled about facing an “uncertain future” for “shaking my fist at the ugly, hypocritical and inconsistent god of progressivism”, Laurence Fox was carrying an air of self-righteous victimhood. It even seeped into his acting; in the role of the bumbling, quiet yet impressively dull Mr Wistley, Fox’s offer of marriage was rejected by Anne Hathaway’s Jane Austen in the 2007 blockbuster Becoming Jane. Now, leaving his acting career behind him, Fox has set his sights on an even bigger proposal. Throwing his hat into the ring last Saturday, Fox is offering the people of London a new spectacle: the chance to see him at the helm of City Hall.
Fox fronts the Reclaim Party, which was founded last year as “a new political movement which promises to make our future a shared endeavour, not a divisive one”. An examination of the party’s website is reminiscent of Phoenix Buchanan’s living room in Paddington 2; it is plastered with pictures of the former actor pouting out at his potential allies. At least, unlike the now-defunct Independent Group for Change, there is no question who this party’s leader actually is.
For someone whose identity is based around his being starved of a platform, Fox does seem to be everywhere. From Twitter spats, to The Telegraph’s news pages, Fox appears to have redefined what it means to be cancelled. Londoners should brace themselves for a campaign which grounds itself in the “barren wasteland” that is the free-speech debate, a realm where the primary demographic certainly isn’t middle-aged white men. Fox has promised to release Londoners from lockdown a few weeks early. But, if he is successful, by the time he ascends to the mayoral throne in May, surely freedom will almost be upon us.
Up against this hard-done-by thespian in the race to win London is Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate. On International Women’s Day, the Labour Party unveiled a carefully curated dossier of Bailey’s past remarks on women, which included his ample praise for the teachers when he was at school who “were all men then”. One wonders what horrors his Labour opponents have stored up for International Happiness Day, which falls next week.
Sadiq Khan, the incumbent mayor, has his work cut out for him in wading through the noise blaring from his fellow candidates. Compounding this is the fact that he can’t seem to get a word in edgeways without being blamed for everything going wrong in London, at all times, especially if it falls outside of his remit. Khan’s quiet industriousness is likely to be his saving grace when pitted against the flamboyance of his primary opponents. But, having been starved of live entertainment for so long, will Londoners be patient enough to sit up and listen?
