Haha, I love the “expose the vagaries of the voting system” comment, what with the conservatives since 2019 having a do what the feck you like 80 seat majority on the back of a 43.6% (ie a 56.4% against) share of the overall vote

With Farage now, whether or not he gets a seat, he’s banking on sucking the remnants of the “pro-brexit, I’m all right mate and don’t give a toss about anybody else, hate immigrants and love warm beer and spitfires” brigade away from the conservatives. Given that the conservatives have been doing nothing but chasing the tail of this brigade ever since 2016, Reform are hoping to leave the conservatives a dried up empty husk of a party come July 5th if all goes to plan

Nigel then probably imagines amalgamating with that dried up husk and forming a new Conservative Party, with the old one dying a death. If Labour then bring in proportional representation, in five years time that new party will get some fair representation, as will of course everyone else including the greens; this would be a good thing all round

Trouble is the conservatives and reform, regardless, are both just vying for the 30% of the population that is interested in all that, typically the older, more bigoted generation coupled with the ignorant, poor and mostly white (see Clacton’s actual voter mix) haven’t got a cluers who just love hating things; mean while the rest of us don’t want that

An interesting stat from the lat at yougov poll was that, if the polling was just based on the views of 18 to 24 years olds the conservatives and reform would both not get a single seat on 4th July!