JEEVES and Wooster author PG Wodehouse passed away 50 years ago on February 14 1975.

Of the writer’s comic creations, one appears particularly relevant to these uncertain times, namely Roderick Spode, “amateur dictator” and leader of a fictional fascist group, the Saviours of Britain, also known as the Black Shorts. As others may have noted, Spode distinctly resembles Reform Jefe Nigel Farage.

Public school-educated Farage — including eye-wateringly pricey Dulwich College, where day pupils pay £10,206 per term, weekly boarders pay £20,020 per term, and full boarders pay £21,422 per term — has cultivated a similar booming, braying style of speechifying to Spode, although the themes of their diatribes differ.

Spode has three chief political passions: root vegetables, umbrellas and bicycles, whereas Farage is laser-focused on performative schemes to restrict immigration, abandoning inheritance tax and sucking up to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The Duce of Dulwich College

Farage’s apparent affinity with Mosleyite politics apparently was noticed at Dulwich; an unnamed (due to fear of reprisal) former friend commented: “I do remember you singing the song starting with the words ‘gas them all, gas ’em all, gas them all.’ I can’t forget the words. I can’t bring myself to write the rest of it for it is more vile than anything the teachers at Dulwich would ever have been aware of.”

Then young English teacher Chloe Deakin wrote to the college’s headmaster, David Emms, about the prospect of young Farage being appointed a prefect: “Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neofascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson.”

Another teacher at the Combined Cadet Force camp organised by the college claimed Farage and others had marched through a Sussex village “shouting Hitler-youth songs.”

In his defence, Farage said: “I don’t know any Hitler youth songs, in English or German … Any accusation I was ever involved in far-right politics is utterly untrue. Of course, I said some ridiculous things, not necessarily racist things. It depends how you define it.”

Wodehouse’s character comes across rather mildly compared to the youthful antics of Farage, also lacking Nigel’s veneer of hail-fellow-well-met phoney affability.

Spode’s bid for power comes to an abrupt end when his under-the-radar sideline as a successful women’s underwear designer and proprietor of lingerie store Eulalie Soeurs of Bond Street is threatened with public exposure. Spode later inherits his uncle’s title to become the Seventh Earl of Sidcup. After this elevation, he sells Eulalie Soeurs and quits the Black Shorts.

One cannot imagine the shameless Farage would be likely to be worried by anything in the manner of Spode, as his many tacky money-making side hustles attest, including flogging gin, hosting a GB News show, recording video messages for paying customers, hawking gold bullion, commenting for Sky News Australia, and a £4,000-a-month column for the Daily Telegraph. All while representing the lucky voters of Clacton-on-Sea!

It’s also most likely true that cosplaying “Farmer Farage” probably couldn’t turn his grasping hands to anything as creative as lingerie conception. Too much like hard work.

Of course, Spode is not the only literary character Farage has been compared to. Toad from Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows comes up frequently, although to be fair, the bumptious caecilian is actually a decent chap at heart, despite his obvious similarities (physical likeness, showing-off, mouthiness, dress sense) with the Reform leader.

Napoleon, the conniving pig from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, has also been mentioned as possessing a Farage-esque aspect, also Tolkien’s odious lickspittle Grima Wormtongue, the latter especially in relation to Nigel’s repellent grovelling to Trump, which resembles the character’s pathetic obeisance to the corrupted wizard Saruman.

And, as Lieutenant Frank Columbo would say, “Just one more thing.”

Back in 2015, 2000AD sent up the then-Ukip leader Farage as rabble-rousing anti-alien-immigration provocateur “Bilious Barrage,” the Meg First Party boss who eventually incurs the ire of Judge Dredd. “The man has a ‘kick-me’ sign on his back and 2000AD is ever happy to oblige,” said writer Ian Edginton.