Chris

Reform’s support is skin deep. It has councillors (and MPs) who don’t show up to work and who resign and swap parties. It is quite possible it could do very well in the next election but at some point it will do well enough that the spotlight is properly on them and that’s when it’ll go bad.

The Scottish Socialist Party was a thing at Holyrood - formed in 1998, got one seat in the first Scottish parliament, six seats in the second, and then utterly beclowned themselves with a series of stunts and pronouncements that would make a student activist blush. They lost all their seats in 2007 and gave up contesting Scottish elections prior to the 2021 vote.

Populists are great at pointing out problems and getting people angry enough at what’s wrong to support them on the basis that they made people agree with them that everything’s awful. Whether they are as good at implementing workable solutions, especially solutions that take time, cost money, don’t have universal support and which involve some people winning and some people losing, is another matter.

The Tories are the most successful political party in the world for good reason. They have a depth of support and a heritage. They may look awful now but they’ve looked awful before.