Dubai Dick mocked over 'brain drain' claim

Reform’s deputy leader Richard ‘Dubai Dick’ Tice is once again the subject of derision, this time over a Daily Telegraph article headlined “Britain is suffering another major brain drain”.

Quoting some gloomy economic statistics, Tice writes: “Many smart people who take risk [sic], employ people and invest their own cash in growing a business are leaving the country.” And then, quicker than you can say “dogwhistle”, he adds: “A major brain drain is occurring, and risks being replaced with a lower skilled mass of people who often will not speak the language, are less likely to be employed and are not part of the same cultural team. Be under no illusion. This will not end well.”

So, just how major is this “major brain drain”? The piece does not tell us – in fact, it offers no detail whatsoever about how many “smart people who take risk” have fled since Labour took office.

Could Tice be thinking of one person in particular – his partner Isabel Oakeshott, who has left the country for Dubai partly, she says, because Labour’s VAT on private school fees would have pushed the annual payments for her three children up to £150,000 per year (Tice is worth an estimated £21million)?

Tice is also spending time in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – doubtless working hard from there for his constituents in Boston and Skegness, and says the couple “are spreading our international reach”.

So is the “major brain drain” just Tice and Oakeshott – in which case “major brain” is doing some heavy lifting – or is it wider? From the evidence in the article, we will never know.

Tice’s piece is being widely criticised on social media, with some of the harshest remarks coming on the Telegraph’s own Facebook feed. Typical comments include “He’s clearly talking about himself. Over inflated ego”, “A great example that wealth doesn’t equate intelligence. The ones leaving cause they don’t want to pay tax aren’t necessarily the brains” and “I remember when the Telegraph used to be a serious newspaper.”