Who benefits from more riots this summer? Only Farage...

“We must not let Reform dominate the summer,” Kemi Badenoch told Conservative MPs in an end-of-term pep talk.

- ANDREW GRICE

True, she grabbed some headlines with a limited shadow cabinet reshuffle, but so far, Reform UK is dominating the summer.

Other carefully constructed Tory initiatives go largely unreported, to the party's frustration, while Nigel Farage makes news with that smirk or by raising an eyebrow.

He is now widening his pitch beyond immigration, which he has banked as a vote-winner, and will campaign on law and order over the summer. His pledge to halve crime at a cost of £17bn doesn't add up. But it still garnered positive headlines; Reform is judged by different standards than rival parties. It is now seen as the best party on handling law and order.

Farage got lucky with his timing. Tuesday's Daily Mail front page, on his crime campaign, was manna from heaven: "Britain is facing societal collapse, warns Farage." His backing of the protests outside an asylum hotel in Epping, Essex - and his dismissal of those arrested as "a few bad eggs" - might have been attacked by other parties in normal times.

But deputy prime minister Angela Rayner made a highly significant intervention at Tuesday's cabinet meeting, warning that Britain could face a repeat of the riots almost a year ago unless the government addresses people's concerns, and that immigration is having "a profound impact on society". It seemed to validate Farage's warning of "civil disobedience on a vast scale", sparking fears of another summer of violence.