Robert Ford

Ed Davey will be very happy about Nigel Farage’s political comeback. This might seem odd – Davey leads a socially liberal and vocally pro-EU party beloved by the latte sipping metropolitan professionals who loom large in Reform UK demonology. Yet it is the Liberal Democrats who stand to gain most from a Farage surge. A little political history and a dash of political geography explains why. The Lib Dems had their own overlooked electoral surge last time, slashing Tory majorities in seats the length and breadth of the Home Counties. While they didn’t score any wins, they built a solid platform for this campaign, with dozens of strong second places leaving them well placed to profit from current Tory misfortunes.

He’s back. After months of teasing and indecision, Nigel Farage launched himself fully into the fray of yet another election campaign on Monday, standing as the Reform UK candidate in UKIP friendly Clacton, and taking over from Richard Tice as leader of the party. The electrifying effect of this announcement might seem a bit odd, given that Farage has hardly been absent from screens and airwaves in recent months. But this decision to fully take the plunge matters, for three reasons. Firstly, it kills the squeeze on the Reform vote. The clear Tory strategy in the first fortnight has been to love bomb Reform UK supporters with socially conservative policy offers in an effort to bring these voters back into the Tory fold.