A Trouncing for Both Main Parties

As a schoolboy, I remember walking to breakfast and being asked by my fellow pupils why the Tories had lost so badly in yet another by-election, or set of local elections. Even as a teenager, I knew the line to take and even believed it: this is what happens in mid-term, it is a protest vote, but wait until the next election.

The Tories' successes in the 1983 general election and again in 1987 made this a credible and compelling argument. Even in 1992, we won back all the by-elections we had lost in the previous five years.

Once Tony Blair became Prime Minister, the Labour Party could use the same argument to its own benefit; bad local and even European election results did not presage defeat at a parliamentary election.

Unfortunately, this argument no longer works.

“This time it is different” - these five words have led many an investment manager to come unstuck as he pours money into an overvalued speculation at the peak of a bull market. It is almost always untrue and often is a warning sign of a bear market to follow.

It is, therefore, from all my professional experience, with great reluctance that I am essentially making the political case summed up in those fateful five words.

Reform’s by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby is truly significant. Previously, UKIP could not make this breakthrough, as the opposition’s effort to keep them out was successful. The reputation of some of its candidates, and the perceived nature of the party ensured that the left-wing voters coalesced around its leading opponent.

This did not happen this time, and it is a tribute to Nigel Farage, who has detoxified the party's reputation. The weird candidates have been excised, and any reasonable voter looking abroad sees what the far right really looks like.

Reform is not the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany or the National Rally in France. It is a respectable mainstream party that people do not need to feel ashamed about voting for. This is a crucial breakthrough and the inability of Labour to muster the left-wing forces to keep Nigel out changes British politics.