An addendum to my piece in the mag this week, partly for clarification and partly to reinforce the point, for idiots, that Reform’s retreat isn’t something I wish for, simply what I have observed happening.

The main point being that the voting public has shifted because it perceives various battles have been won, because that’s what the headlines tell them. It does not mean that the battles HAVE been won. So, for example, on immigration – it is true that Labour has got the raw numbers down to their lowest for years, (partly as a consequence of initiatives brought forward by the previous government). But 200,000 net per year is still way, way too many. Indeed I remember writing a decade ago about how that exact figure was utterly unsustainable. I didn’t expect it to reach, at times, four times that figure. And yet presented to the public, the headline ‘immigration down by two thirds’ has a certain force.

Ditto the culture wars. It is still the case that most of our institutions are gripped by decolonisation and trans idiocy, even if there is a gentle shift away from that divisive, awful, stuff. And I repeat the caveat that Keir Starmer can still alienate the voters with his ludicrous simpering around the Islamists. Which he continues to do.