Let me give you a list of policy proposals and ask you a quick question. Fully reinstating the £200 Winter Fuel Allowance for all pensioners, lifting the two-child benefits cap, increasing the tax-free personal allowance on income to £20,000 per year, and allowing one partner in a marriage to have that allowance set at £25,000 per year. Which politician do you think proposed each of these this week: Jeremy Corbyn or Nigel Farage?

You probably already know that these were all put forward by Nigel Farage in a speech on the economy earlier this week, but I hope you see my point. Mr Farage is a Thatcherite, not a big stater. But polling out this week suggests that Mr Farage and Reform UK may have already captured the support of most Britons likely to be attracted to right-wing populism, and so he is branching out. His agenda for the next few years is clear: to build a bridge between right-populism and left-populism that could win him the next general election.

A new report released this morning shows just how fertile the ground for such a populist agenda is in Britain. Ipsos’s 2025 Populism report has found that the strength of populist sentiment in Britain is the eighth-highest of 31 countries studied, is the highest in Europe, and is stronger than at any other time since Ipsos began regularly measuring it in 2016.

Around two-thirds of Britons believe that society is broken and that Britain is in decline. Just over 70% of us agree........

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