‘The lead singer is unavailable’: is Nigel Farage spending his summer in hiding?

The Reform UK leader is keeping a low profile and his approval ratings have sunk since Burnham took office. What’s the outlook for the Clacton byelection? This time last year, Nigel Farage was making the political weather. His freewheeling weekly press conferences filled a sparse news agenda, setting out eye-catching policies on areas such as crime and immigration. This year? Less so. The Reform UK leader is expected to hold a press conference in London next week. If so, it would be just his third since May’s local elections and the first in the capital in more than three months. The man who was everywhere now appears to be in hiding. There is an obvious context. The UK has a new prime minister and Farage’s aides are clear it would be pointless to try to compete against the whirlwind of policies and attention from Andy Burnham’s first few weeks in office. “Burnham was always going to get a lot of oxygen at this stage of the cycle,” one aide said. “Why would we waste key announcements?” Farage’s party also disputes the idea that a lack of press conferences means he is invisible, pointing to occasional broadcast media rounds and a social media presence they say outs