There was, obviously, about Nigel Farage’s launch of Reform’s programme for government, a Tinkerbell element. Clap, children, if you believe that a tax threshold starting at £20,000, no limits on child benefits and the restoration of the winter fuel allowance, can all be funded from scrapping hotels for asylum seekers, abolishing net zero commitments and doing away with quangos.
There may be something to be said for all these things but even if the refugees were being hosted in the Connaught, it still wouldn’t be enough to pay for the Reform wishlist.
The Prime Minister hasn’t been slow to home in on the Liz Truss associations – accusing Farage of “fantasy economics” and conjuring up scary associations with the last woman to conduct “a mad experiment” with the nation’s finances.
Those Tory commentators – and Kemi Badenoch – who are perking up at the prospect of deflating the Reform balloon have now got solid ground for saying that Farage is unsafe with public money. More to the point, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has put a price – around £90 billion – on the party’s income tax proposals, in particular the one about raising the tax threshold.
All perfectly valid concerns. But let’s remind ourselves that the Government has been in office for less than a year. There are four more for Reform to brush up its act.
More to the point, the Farage speech – delivered in the hotel that occupies the site adjacent to the once-grand National Liberal Club (a reminder of the fate of once mighty parties) – should be considered not so much as a programme as a declaration of intent.
Let’s look at the direction of travel rather than at the costing, and what you get is, for both Labour and the Tories, rather a worrying combination of leftish economics and a right-wing social agenda. Raising the tax threshold to £20,000 would indeed be a powerful incentive to be in work rather than not.
Of course, there is the problem that its new agenda is unaffordable
Giving a boost to the exiguous tax benefits of marriage is sending out a powerful signal about how the party sees that institution – not withstanding Mr Farage’s serial marriages.
Restoring the winter fuel allowance – well, that’s precisely what an awful lot of Labour MPs have been lobbying for, and what the PM is capitulating on.
Lifting the cap on child benefit would be popular and would moreover do something to address the demographic crisis. What we’re looking at here is that troubling thing, genuine populism, that is, promising people what they actually want.
And if you combine that with the net zero commitment on immigration – allowing in only the same number as those leaving – you have rather an attractive agenda, dangerous to both main parties. The fuss about the Farage speech goes to show how seriously they are taking Reform; a couple of years ago, it could have promised to scrap income tax, and no one would have noticed.
Of course, there is the problem that its new agenda is unaffordable. But if Reform were to make the £20,000 tax threshold an aspiration rather than a commitment, something to be worked towards as the nation’s finances allowed, that would be another matter.
Ditto the child benefit changes; perhaps it could be extended gradually, again, as the financial situation allowed. Establishing a direction of travel rather than making firm promises is the intelligent way to go. And we can assume that between now and the next election, the party will be able to attract enough serious economists and ex-Treasury officials properly to cost its commitments.
But this week, Nigel Farage did something important: he established that Reform has a lefty social agenda as well as a bullish immigration side. And if it were to make it another aspiration actually to support manufacturing industry – like the Stoke on Trent potteries brought to grief by drastically increased energy costs – it really would spell trouble for both Tories and Labour.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage should be going through his policy speeches, replacing “will spend” with “would like to spend”. It makes all the difference.
Melanie McDonagh is a London Standard columnist
