By Eleanor Robertson, off the jam
THEY come in all varieties, in a host of little outfits, they’re very collectable and they bring me joy. So why does everyone have to carp about my collection of Reform UK dolls?
Why are we so quick to take offence at unambiguously demeaning caricatures of groups in society these days? When I’ve got all 1,600 local council candidates all correct and complete?
Yes, they have exaggerated features, with their puce faces and shocks of thinning grey hair, and they’re largely dressed in tweeds or blazers like lower-middle-class twats cosplaying as country squires or ex-army officers. But that’s just traditional.
Reformiwogs, as we enthusiasts call them, have a long history going all the way back to 1993 when they were branded as UKIP. I had a Reformiwog as a child and loved him ruining my dollies’ tea parties with comments about the single currency and ‘the blacks’.
It never even occurred to me think of him as a person. Roger, as I named him, was simply a child’s toy, not an ageing white man with a baseless sense of victimhood and a bizarre nostalgia for V2 bombs falling on London.
What is the appeal of Reform UK dolls? I find their angry little faces so adorable. There are 45 in my living room alone which is quite a surprise for visitors, though my white friends say it makes them uncomfortable.
That’s oversensitive. Reform dolls are clearly a blatant stereotype of white people as whining, tedious bigots, but to me they’re fictional characters like Rupert the Bear if Rupert had given speeches about deporting Tiger Lily.
Really it says more about the people criticising my dolls than me. How can a stuffed toy be racist? They’re just a fun thing to collect, like wild birds’ eggs or Nazi cap badges.
So let me play with my Reform UK dolls and leave me be. Today, I’m going to play they’re all elected in a populist revolution and instigate a programme of mass deportations!
