Nigel Farage told Radio 4 this week that he had ‘made a mistake’ in trying to pursue pro-family policies, concluding that this is simply ‘impossible in modern Britain’. The Reform leader might be forgiven for thinking so. The moment Reform moved into this territory with a pledge to end the two-child limit (among working British families it was later clarified), the politics curdled.

Britain has, in practice, built a ‘hostile environment’ for family life

Britain has, in practice, built a ‘hostile environment’ for family life

Voters have long suspected any proposed softening of the cap introduced in 2017, and quite rightly on the grounds of fairness. But still more so at a time when welfare budgets are running away and working Britain is creaking under the weight of the largest tax burden since the 1940s.

The Conservatives were politically smart to punch the bruise until it went turquoise. It is not hard to see why Farage, eventually, withdrew. Still it would be a grave mistake to abandon the family agenda entirely, even if the two-child limit should never have been its first flank.

Indeed, there is a radicalism entirely in tune with the insurgency of Reform in asking a question that our liberal politics has ducked for two decades now: does it stack up, in modern Britain, to start a family?

For a growing number of people, the........

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