Farage Helicopter Row: How Reform’s David Wimble Put His Boss in the Spotlight

Nigel Farage now faces questions over undeclared helicopter travel linked to a Reform UK donor. The delicious Kent twist? The trail was opened up by Reform’s own Cllr David Wimble, who couldn’t resist telling UNPRECEDENTED TV the same helicopter had delivered him too.

There are political own goals. There are spectacular political own goals. And then there is Cllr David Wimble, Kent County Council Cabinet Member, Reform UK frontman, would-be serious statesman, and now the man who appears to have gift-wrapped Nigel Farage’s latest helicopter headache for the national press.

The Guardian has reported that Farage faces questions over why he didn’t declare use of a helicopter owned by a company linked to Lorenzo Zaccheo, the Kent businessman who gave Reform UK £25,000 last year. Reform says the flights were paid for at “commercial rates” and that there was “no undeclared registrable interest”. Zaccheo has backed Reform’s position. But, according to The Guardian, the party didn’t answer follow-up questions about who paid for the flights or whether Farage paid personally.

The national story is about transparency, political money and whether the public is being asked to accept “nothing to see here” without seeing the receipts. The Kent story is much simpler, and much funnier in the cruelest possible way. It was David Wimble who opened his mouth.

On UNPRECEDENTED TV, Wimble said

That’s not a forensic audit. It’s not Companies House wizardry. It’s not a whistleblower in a trench coat meeting a journalist in a car park. It’s a Reform councillor on telly, cheerfully pointing at the helicopter and saying, in effect: that one, officer.

So yes, in ordinary Kentish English, Wimble grassed up his boss. Not with a dossier. Not with an affidavit. With the casual self-importance of a man who thought the story was that the media mistook him for Nigel Farage, when the real story was that he’d just identified the aircraft.

And that matters because the aircraft is now at the centre of a national transparency row. Democracy for Sale says the helicopter, registration G-NALC, is owned by a company belonging to Lorenzo Zaccheo (pictured), and that flight data showed it moving to and from locations on dates when Reform rallies were being held. The Guardian reports that the twin-engined Eurocopter travelled to Birmingham on 28 March 2025, the day Reform held a major campaign launch rally there, and later travelled from Birmingham to Kent, where Zaccheo’s company is based.

The question isn’t whether helicopters are illegal. They’re not. The question isn’t whether wealthy donors can give political parties money. They can, provided the rules are followed. The question is who paid, how much was paid, whether it was genuinely commercial, and why the public should have to take a political party’s word for it when the obvious answer is to show the receipts.

The House of Commons rules say MPs must register relevant financial interests within 28 days, and gifts, benefits or hospitality from UK sources worth more than £300 can require registration if provided free or at concessionary rates and related to political activities. That does not mean every flight must be registered. If Farage or Reform paid full commercial rates, that may answer the registration point. But that is exactly why the unanswered question is so important: who paid, and where is the proof?

This is where Kent comes in. Lorenzo Zaccheo is not some remote name in a Westminster spreadsheet. Companies House lists Mr Lorenzo Zaccheo as the active person with significant control of Alcaline UK Limited, with ownership of 75% or more of the shares. Companies House also lists him as an active director of Alcaline UK Limited, based at Alcaline House, Units S-V, Lympne Industrial Estate, Hythe.

Shepway Vox readers have seen the Alcaline name before. In 2022 we wrote about a Folkestone Town councillor being gifted a helicopter flight from Lympne in a helicopter supplied by Alcaline Aviation, with Alcaline UK Ltd and Lorenzo Zaccheo identified in the public company records. We also noted then that Alcaline Aviation had donated significantly to Conservative dinners, according to senior Conservative councillors, one of which was attended by David Wimble.

We returned to the Alcaline name again in 2025 after HMRC’s national minimum wage “name and shame” list recorded Alcaline UK Limited, Hythe, as having failed to pay £1,898.08 to three workers. Our own write-up also noted the company’s political donation history and the Companies House link to Lorenzo Zaccheo.

None of that proves wrongdoing in the helicopter matter. It doesn’t need to. The point is transparency. A Kent-linked company. A Reform donor. A Reform leader in the helicopter. A Reform councillor saying the same helicopter delivered him. A party saying it was all commercial. And still no public receipts.

Then we arrive back at Wimble, because no article about political judgment should pass over the man currently sitting on Kent County Council’s Cabinet as Member for Economic Development and Special Projects. KCC’s own website lists him in that role. That means he’s not an eccentric uncle at the back of the parish hall. He’s part of the county’s executive leadership.

This is the same David Wimble we previously reported had two unsatisfied County Court judgments showing at his Littlestone address: one for £1,171 dated 16 August 2023, and another for £385 dated 30 May 2024, a combined £1,556. Searchlight later picked up the same Shepway Vox reporting, describing him as Kent Reform’s head of economic development “who can’t pay his bills”.

And this is why he is becoming a liability to Reform UK. Not because he once made a mistake. Not because politics requires sainthood. It doesn’t. But because the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore. A senior councillor with two reported unsatisfied CCJs should probably avoid becoming the narrator of a national story about his boss’s transparency, money, donors and unanswered financial questions.

There is something almost perfect about it. Reform UK sells itself as the party of plain speaking, hard truths and sweeping out the old political class. Then along comes Wimble, the Cabinet Member with unresolved judgment questions of his own, and he tells the cameras that he too arrived in the same helicopter that has now landed Farage in the national spotlight.

Farage’s problem is the receipts. Wimble’s problem is his mouth. Reform’s problem is that it keeps presenting men like this as evidence of a new political seriousness.

A disciplined politician would have said nothing. A cautious politician would have changed the subject. A useful politician would have understood that private aircraft, donors and party leaders are not props for a funny anecdote. But David Wimble, in the full beam of UNPRECENDENTED TV, apparently saw only the chance to tell the world that the media had mistaken him for Nigel Farage.

They may have been disappointed when he got out of the helicopter. Reform UK may be even more disappointed now.

The question for Farage is straightforward: if the flights were paid at full commercial rates, show who paid and how much. The question for Reform UK is sharper: how many times does David Wimble have to embarrass the brand before the party notices?

Because this time, the man with the unpaid CCJ questions hasn’t merely created another local wobble. He appears to have pointed the national press towards his own leader’s helicopter.

And in politics, when your own councillor grasses you up on television, it’s usually time to check the passenger manifest — and the company you keep.

The Shepway Vox Team

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