Potholes and pitfalls: Labour ready to play the long game against Farage

It was, a Labour official hastily explained, "just one front page". But for Nigel Farage it was quite a front page: a banner headline in the Sun proclaiming "Britain is broken", the exact slogan Reform UK is using for May's local election.

- Peter Walker

Inside the paper was not an actual endorsement for Reform but something that felt as if it could be a precursor to one - details of polling that showed Farage is more trusted than Keir Starmer by "red wall" voters on a series of key issues, with his party level-pegging with Labour for support.

This was the perfect lead-up to Farage's biggest speech in the local election campaign, in which he proclaimed Reform's tanks were "on the lawns of the red wall" and targeting Labour, with the Tories dismissed as finished.

It has been well documented how seriously Starmer's team treats Reform UK as a threat. At the same time, it is a more complicated picture than Farage would like to present, with arguably as many pitfalls as opportunities ahead.