There is one surefire way to defeat left-wing' hero Farage

If people are forced to choose, they are more likely to say that Nigel Farage is “for working people” than Keir Starmer is.

- JOHN RENTOUL

This probably reflects the prime minister’s unpopularity more than it is a positive endorsement of the Reform leader, but opinion poll findings such as this encouraged Farage to make his pitch for Labour votes.

His starting point was that the Conservatives are “finished”, “done” and “have had a good 200 years”: he is now squaring up to Labour.

Farage said that Starmer was “terrified” of what Reform was doing to the Labour vote, and that was why the prime minister was aping him.

It was a typical Farage performance – except that there was no crowd of enthusiastic supporters to cheer his well-rehearsed applause lines. He is an energetic speaker, able to carry an imaginary mass rally, even if the only people there were Zia Yusuf, the Reform chair, and Sarah Pochin, the party’s newest MP, sitting mutely on stage facing a silent audience of mostly journalists.

Farage contrasted his “passion” with Starmer’s stiffness, noting that the prime minister, when he won the election and addressed the nation from the door of No 10, looked down at his notes 158 times when he might be expected to know what he wanted to say.

“What I bring to this now is experience, passion and courage,” Farage said modestly. But his is a pitch that suggests he has thought more deeply about how to fight Labour than some in Labour have thought about how to fight him.