In Milton Keynes, Rishi Sunak repeats his pledge to scrap 'Mickey Mouse' degrees please log in to view this image
It is a bit like getting a rat to run the pest control company. Well, it would be if Reform meant reform and wasn't a codeword for more unsavoury beliefs.
Reform in this context appears to mean undermine, isolate, and plunder. That seems to be the plan these patriots have for their own country, at any rate.
Can only seeing this being even worse for the Tories But surely he must have a reason to believe that entering himself might allow them to win seats? Or perhaps his aim is to try and get reform more votes than the conservatives even if they don’t get any seats and declare himself the “rightful opposition”
Clacton was Douglas Carcrash’s old constituency. Didn’t he defect to UKIP? They must be hoping there’s enough retired Colonel Blimp types out there, to get Farage over the line.
There could well be especially due to FPTP Perhaps the plan (as just suggested on LBC) is for him to win a seat and then defect to the Tories post election and run as their next leader. But wouldn’t a new Tory leader have to accept a defector ?
I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying what i'm seeing of the Lib Dems campaign so far, they just look like they are having fun which is quite refreshing. Especially compared to Rishi's grand delusion tour and Starmer's pragmatic but dull offering (its what i'm voting for, but I can't pretend its particularly interesting). That said I bet the Tory campaign bus was an absolute barrel of laughs this afternoon.
I'm not sure Farage has a particularly coherent plan, beyond getting himself into Parliament and back into the spotlight, but his entry is still really bad news for Rishi. The Tories are walking a pretty narrow tightrope between ~150 seats (which is where they'd likely end up today) and well under 100 seats...if he boosts Reform by a couple points, that could crater the Conservatives without actually grabbing more than a seat or two.
Much as I’m enjoying the tories self-implosion, it’s important that there’s a coherent opposition to the next Labour government (as it is with any government).
It’s unlikely to be the Tories though. The coherent opposition will have to come from the Lib Dem’s and the SNP. There is hardly anyone on the current government benches who is capable of forming a credible shadow cabinet, and most of them will be gone on July 5th anyway. For that reason, it would be much better that the Lib Dem’s become the second largest party, which with a judicious tactical campaign is entirely possible.
40 Tories with a united voice would be more coherent as an opposition party than 200 fighting each other tooth and nail, but I suspect that the civil war is going to occur regardless.
