The UK election results this morning are putting a smile on Nigel Farage’s face. A by-election win for Reform in Runcorn (by 6 votes), winning the mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire and a slew of council seats to come.

This portrait of Nigel Farage in the National Portrait Gallery says it all… for now…

Labour is on the back foot, but they held on to the mayoralties in North Tyneside, the West of England and Doncaster. They should not panic over the success of Reform any more than the main parties might have done when the LibDems surged in by-elections. It has been a grim first year for the Government. A misjudged first budget, economic headwinds everywhere leaving little money to improve public services, all exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs have provided a terrible backdrop to these elections.

However, whilst this blog predicts further success for Reform, they are close to peaking, loathed by a large majority of the electorate. Labour, despite the uninspiring but broadly competent leadership of Keir Starmer, is close to bottoming.

We are, as the Greens put it, in a period when most votes are being more evenly split between five parties. This will lead to erratic and dramatic election results, but Labour is still in the strongest position by far to win the next general election. Excitable journalists should remember there is still four years to go.

The party who should panic is the Tory Party. It has totally lost its way, stands for nothing and speaks to nobody. Its audience has drifted and is drifting off to the LibDems to the Left and Reform to the Right.

There is a clear conclusion from these results.  Kemi Badenoch is not up to the job. Fearful of the Right, she shamefully pursues culture wars when there are much more important issues to address and define her party.  Why are Tories Tories? It is the economy stupid. Small government, taxes extracted from the public with real justification or not at all. It is the Party of aspiration not prejudice.

Running after Reform’s agenda has been and will continue to be a disaster, take note, Robert Jenrick. The Conservative Party probably needs James Cleverly as leader to buy itself some time, but to do what? To get back to first principles, not letting others to define it. It is that simple but do the Tories have the understanding or the appetite to do this? There is no evidence so far, and until the Tories wake up and release themselves from their obsession with Reform, they have no future.