From fruitcakes to frontrunners

Reform’s rise leaves Kent’s old political certainties looking shaky

Loud music, an auditorium and indoor fireworks. It can only mean one thing: the new political force in the country has kickstarted the general election campaign and it’s all up for grabs, including the keys to Downing Street, writes Paul Francis…

Nigel Farage with Kent Reform councillors.

There is very little that connects the 1981 version of David Steel’s Liberal Democrat party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, version 2025.

That is, bar one thing: both were and are supremely confident of their election prospects and so confident that the two leaders felt emboldened to urge their respective parties to return to their constituencies and prepare to form the next government.

We know what happened next: the Lib Dems alliance failed to do as well as expected.

Predicting the outcome for the Reform party is a bit trickier.