Labour's Farage disguise is already wearing thin with Britain's progressive majority Will Hutton

Reform is a joke party with joke policies, joke values and a consummate joker as its leader.

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If it ever won national power planning to implement even part of what it is promising, there would be a collapse in business and financial confidence with devastating economic consequences. Yet, terrifyingly for British politics, it has struck such a chord with a strand of the electorate that it was the decisive winner in the May mayoral, local council and Runcorn byelections.

Labour's challenge was always to demonstrate tangible economic and social improvement over the life of one parliament in arguably the most unforgiving economic environment for 80 years. Now the stakes are even higher. Fail and such is the impatience of at least part of the electorate that Reform’s momentum would only increase. For example, in Wales, where elections are due next May, Reform leads the polls on 30%, with Plaid Cymru second and Labour a poor third on 18%. This cannot be dismissed as a transient, errant phenomenon.

Yet look deeper and progressive Britain is not dead. Reform may have won 677 council seats; but they were at the expense of the Conservatives, who lost 674, reports polling guru Peter Kellner. As he points out, Labour did lose 187 seats: but the Lib Dems gained 163 and the Greens 44 for a net progressive gain. Despite the gloom, the progressive constituency is holding - even making - ground