Riding high, perhaps, but Farage is not PM material

Are the wheels coming off the bus? Have enough people seen through Nigel Farage for the bandwagon to be faltering?

- By ALAN RUSBRIDGER

Iain Dale, the veteran broadcaster, commentator and writer, seems to think so. He opened his LBC show on Wednesday night by pronouncing that Farage was incapable of even appearing prime ministerial and that Reform UK seemed to have gone “a little bit bonkers”.

If Dale is correct, it flies in the face of the latest polling, which shows that Farage is on track to become our next prime minister rocketing the number of his MPs from just five to 311.

Dale is the first to admit that his prediction may turn out to be wildly wrong. And yet who could disagree that, on the form of the past two weeks, Reform and its leader have indeed gone a little nuts?

There are people who seriously believe that foreigners are rounding up our royal swans to stew or toast them, but the actual evidence is thin to nonexistent - and, believe me, I've trawled through the murky depths of X (Twitter) in search of the clues. So why, if you think you could be prime minister, would you waste a single breath suggesting it could be true?

And when his mate Donald Trump hints that sharia law could soon be coming to London, why would a politician wanting to be taken seriously not plainly say that the idea is laughable instead of mumbling that he once heard something similar from a taxi driver?

When asked about Trump linking paracetamol with autism, why not just contradict him? He wants to be our nation's leader, for heaven's sake. Why not acquaint himself with the clinical trials rather than muttering about how they once told us thalidomide was safe?