Being friends with a Duke has its upsides
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Reform UK is planning a summer party for thousands of people at Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s birthplace and a UNESCO world heritage site.
Self-proclaimed “people’s army” leader Nigel Farage is a friend of the 12th Duke of Marlborough, James Spencer-Churchill, who lives in the stately home.
Rooms at the palace cost from £850 a day for the Spencer Churchill room, and start from £1,500 a day for the Marlborough Room.
The Orangery, a private dining room costs from £9,000 a day, and the Saloon costs £17,000 per day.
Farage used Blenheim Palace to film his new year’s message, where he said the Tories had “completely squandered” Brexit and used it only for their electoral advantage.
In the video message, he also praised Churchill stating he “represented something, when this country was indeed a great country not just in terms of looking after its own people but in standing up for the right things”.
The Duke, Churchill’s first-cousin, three times removed, has praised Farage in the past, saying he “could end up in the same league as the wartime leader”.
Spencer-Churchill voted Reform UK at the general election last year.
At the time, he told The Telegraph: “I’m voting for Reform UK because I won’t vote for Keir Starmer, for obvious reasons, and there’s no point voting for the Tories because they aren’t going to be back for 10 or 15 years, if ever.
“Nigel Farage is doing the best job any man can do for his country and he is the only person who can stop this country being dragged into another war.”
The Duke is also a relative of the late Princess Diana, and is a descendant of the prominent US Vanderbilt family through his great-grandmother Consuelo Vanderbilt, who was a socialite.
Farage might call himself a “people’s army” leader, but his connections with the aristocracy aren’t very “man of the people”.
Keir Starmer hosted leaders from almost 50 European nations at the Oxfordshire stately home last year for the European Political Community (EPC) summit.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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