Curious Femme

How an 18th-century grifter’s playbook explains today’s politics

The Wildman of Boningale

In the early 1700s, Britain was plagued by crime, corruption, and the absence of a professional police force. Out of this chaos rose Jonathan Wild, a Wolverhampton-born opportunist who styled himself “Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland.” He became both celebrated and feared: a man who “fought crime” while secretly running one of London’s largest criminal networks (Howson, 1985; Beattie, 2001).

Wild’s genius was not in theft itself, but in managing the perception of crime. He organised gangs to steal, returned the goods to victims for a fee, and then betrayed thieves to the gallows for reward money. He appeared indispensable, a pillar of law and order, while pocketing profit from both sides.

But in 1725, Wild’s double game unravelled. Accused of taking money without prosecuting criminals, he was convicted and hanged at Tyburn. His death was greeted with public fascination, satire, and moral panic (Old Bailey Proceedings, 1725).

Wild’s Playbook: How He Gained Power

Jonathan Wild’s rise was built on four strategies that remain eerily familiar today:

1. Problem creation and solution monopoly – Generate or exaggerate crises, then frame yourself as the only remedy.
2. Narrative control – Feed the press, dominate the conversation, and make yourself the hero of every story.
3. Patronage networks – Build webs of loyalty through rewards and punishments.
4. Incentive manipulation – Lobby for rules that guarantee your own profit, however corrupt.

Sound familiar?

Nigel Farage: The New Wildman

Of all modern politicians, Nigel Farage most clearly echoes Wild’s grift.

• Immigration as endless crisis: For decades, Farage has framed migration as Britain’s existential threat. Each new wave of rhetoric fuels fear, yet the “solution” always returns to Farage himself.
• Net-Zero and Teesside: Farage now casts climate policy as an economic assault on ordinary Britons. In places like Teesside, struggling with deindustrialisation, he presents himself as the lone champion against “green elites” (Guardian, 2025).
• Media domination: Like Wild feeding the 18th-century press, Farage thrives on broadcast appearances and social media soundbites, ensuring he, not his critics, defines the narrative.

Farage is not running a literal criminal empire. But structurally, he reproduces Wild’s method: manufacture crises, exaggerate them, then sell himself as the indispensable saviour.

Media Platforming: Who Gets the Megaphone?

Farage’s Wild-style politics are not just his own craft, they are amplified by Britain’s media ecosystem. The question is not only what Farage says, but how often he is given a platform to say it.

• Question Time imbalance (2014–2023): A Cardiff University study of 352 episodes (1,734 guest slots) found party politicians broadly balanced, but repeat pundit slots skewed heavily right-leaning, dominated by Spectator columnists and figures such as Julia Hartley-Brewer and Isabel Oakeshott (Walsh, 2024).
• Farage’s appearances: By May 2024, Farage had appeared 36 times on Question Time, rising to *38 by the end of the year, making him one of the most platformed individuals in the programme’s history (Indy100, 2024; Wikipedia, 2025; Yorkshire Bylines, 2024).
• First year as MP: According to The Guardian, Farage spoke in the Commons 45 times and voted in 95 divisions, while earning over £970,000 from outside media and speaking work (Mason, 2025). His public visibility dwarfed his parliamentary presence.
• Reform vs SNP: A claim by The National that Reform UK appeared “three times as often as the SNP” on Question Time post-election cannot be fully verified from public episode logs for 2025, where appearances look roughly comparable (≈2 each). The ratio may reflect a narrower 2024 window, but the evidence is incomplete.

“Party balance on paper, pundit imbalance on screen. Farage is not just a Wildman, he is a Wildman with a megaphone.

Trump and Johnson: The Transatlantic Wildmen

Farage is not alone in using the Wild playbook.

• Donald Trump’s tariffs (2025) shocked the US economy. Critics argue they inflicted misery on supply chains and consumers, but bolstered Trump’s self-image as America’s protector against foreign powers (Vox, 2025; Daily Beast, 2025). This is Wild-style crisis creation, repackaged for twenty-first-century economics.
• Boris Johnson’s “Partygate” scandal saw the Prime Minister manipulate narrative framing. Initially dismissed as trivial, the scandal showed how authority figures can bend stories to maintain legitimacy—even when caught breaking their own rules. This mirrors Wild’s press tactics during his reign as Thief-Taker.

Why Jonathan Wild Still Matters

Jonathan Wild was executed 300 years ago, but his story is not only about crime. It is about the performance of authority. His life reminds us that the most dangerous leaders are not necessarily the most violent or the most powerful, but those who convince us they are indispensable to solving the very problems they create.

Today, when figures like Farage, Trump, and Johnson dominate headlines by fuelling crises, whether immigration, trade wars, or cultural division, we would do well to remember the lesson of Wild. The trick is to sell oneself as saviour. The public’s task is to ask: who benefits most from the problem?

Conclusion: The Wildman’s Ghost

In 1725, Jonathan Wild was hanged at Tyburn, his legacy immortalised in satire and scandal. Three centuries later, his spirit lingers in politics. When Nigel Farage casts himself as the lone defender of Britain against migrants, elites, or net-zero targets, he is not breaking new ground, he is repeating an old script.

The difference is that Jonathan Wild met the rope when his grift collapsed. Today’s Wildmen are not thieves in wigs and gowns, but politicians in suits. And unlike Wild, they will never be dragged to Tyburn. Their only punishment lies in whether the public sees through the performance. Judging by the social media echo chambers, too many still cannot.

References

Beattie, J.M. (2001) Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Daily Beast (2025) ‘Trump’s Tariffs: Causing Misery by Design?’ 6 May.
Fielding, H. (1743) The History of Jonathan Wild the Great. London.
Gay, J. (1728) The Beggar’s Opera. London.
Guardian (2025) ‘Teesside and the politics of net-zero’. The Guardian, 4 July.Gugliotta, G. (2007) ‘Digitizing the Hanging Court’, Smithsonian Magazine, April.
Howson, G. (1985) Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption in 18th-Century England. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Partygate (2022) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartygateVox (2025) ‘Trump’s Tariffs Explained’. Vox Politics, 2 August.