How Farage and Cameo exposed the monetisation of British politics
IIt is with great sadness that Reform UK announces that its leader Nigel Farage has put a pause on his burgeoning Cameo career, citing “security reasons”.
For those unfamiliar with the platform, Cameo allows celebrities, politicians, and athletes to make videos for fans for a fee. Cameo came to my attention last month when a friend noticed a disgraced ex. MasterChef Host Gregg Wallace is selling Valentine’s Day messages. I honestly can’t think of anything less likely to send me into love mode than a personalized message from that creepy scrotum, but I’m reliably informed that the site has something for everyone.
Farage’s messages are slightly less romantic. Last week, Guard reported that one of his videos supported a man convicted of violent disorder, while the other was linked to a neo-Nazi incident. It’s the scams, the mistakes, that really keep giving. Farage is known to understand social media better than any politician in the UK, but that doesn’t mean putting his phone on silent to record his clips. The resulting angry, vein-faced fs and cPartly disturbing, partly hilarious.
Farage has recorded nearly £80,000 worth of income from his Cameo account since he became an MP in 2024. Closing (sorry, pause) must be a bit of a bummer, but luckily he has a new venture to fall back on. About two weeks ago, former Liz Truss-era chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng introduced himself as a strategic investor in new crypto Bitcoin treasure Stack. Speaking of unfortunate mistakes, “credibility” was misspelled in Kwarteng’s video announcing the news in which he called for “institutional reliability” for Bitcoin treasury companies in X. You can practically smell the professionalism.
It is not right to keep these two separate. A lot of people are into this. No matter where you fall on the ethics of MPs having second jobs or former/current politicians making money from their former/current positions. This is perhaps rich for me, who joins the entire political podcast pool; I would like to point out that Helen and I were not paid in Bitcoin; This happens everywhere. Boris Johnson is said to charge more than £200,000 for a speech.
So why are they doing this? It is obvious that money plays a big part in this. Johnson has multiple children and many well-documented vacations to finance. After the Mini Budget disaster, it seems unlikely that Kwarteng will be invited to join Goldman Sachs’ board. My career as an erotic political novelist is not as lucrative as I had hoped. But there is more. Someone recently told me that a group of A-level politics students paid Farage to record a Cameo for their teacher (a practical joke as he’s not a Reform fan). The video went viral, first at the school and then in the town. He gave two minutes of his time for a fee of around £100. And thousands of pairs of eyes.
The Prime Minister himself is not immune. Putting aside the money he earned from legal fees when he was an MP, Politico reported this week that Labor had paid a communications agency to source influencers to spread the Prime Minister’s high-cost-of-living message. Did they reach Gregg Wallace? It currently offers Cameos for just £37.48. A bargain. And probably with more “reliability”[sic]” than Kwasi.
What about the Prime Minister in his official capacity? As you can imagine, the prime minister is inundated with invitations to events and opportunities to do business. A large team working on these investigations is trying to balance the Prime Minister’s time and energy by using ways to meet with as many interest groups as possible.
This results in roughly four categories:
- YES – we would be happy to host you at a reception in Downing Street or visit your factory for a great photo opportunity to go along with an announcement.
- Unfortunately the Prime Minister will not be able to attend but will be happy to pre-record a message to be played at your event.
- I’m afraid we don’t even have time to record a message, but here is a nice note written with an e-signature by a caring staff member.
- I was politely rejected.
Needless to say, there is an unacknowledged fifth category for those who write and ring alarm bells. I cannot say that they have been fully examined, but in general we can say that f.from cQ. Maybe enough to make everyone pause their Cameo account.
Cleo Watson is Boris Johnson’s former deputy chief of staff and co-hosts Independentpolitics podcast, in the roomwith former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara. New episodes come out every Friday Apple Podcasts, SpotifyAnd YouTube
