Of all the ways in which Reform is upending the rules of British politics, the most fascinating is its reliance on the support of a single demographic. Nigel Farage seems to address himself exclusively to pensioners. The audience for his speech in Birmingham on Monday told its own story: row upon row of retirees. And how they applauded as Farage vented against the fecklessness of Britain’s workers:

Being chained to the desk, going to the pub and only getting home once the kids were asleep might have been acceptable in the Eighties

‘It is an attitudinal change that Britain needs. An attitudinal change to hard work rather than work-life balance. An attitudinal change to the idea of working from home. People aren’t more productive working from home, it’s a load of nonsense. They’re more productive being with other fellow human beings and working as part of a team.’

This is nothing more than updated Tebbitism: get off your Peloton and go to work. Farage certainly has strong views on productivity for someone who has spent much of his life working in or seeking to work in the least productive sector of the economy: politics. What is truly striking is to hear the de facto head of the British right dismiss the concept of work-life balance. It underscores a point I’ve made before: Farage is not a conservative, but a malcontent of boomer liberalism.

For Farage – and many of his supporters – work-life........

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