The threat to Rishi from the right

Most dads will have been on a beach holiday where they helped their children build a sandcastle near the water’s edge and then waited for the tide to overrun it. 

Sometimes there are false alarms, when a rogue wave comes in a bit further than expected but then its successors return to the holding pattern and the castle stands proud and safe a while longer. 

Up until now this has also been true of the threat posed to Tory fortunes by Reform UK, the successor to the Brexit party, currently led by the property developer and broadcaster Richard Tice. 

Tice’s outfit has bumbled along on 3 or 4 per cent, occasionally notching up a 5 or even a 6 during a bout of Tory self-immolation. It is helped as well by the fact that many opinion pollsters include it on a list of parties that voters can select when asked about their vote – a position it inherited from the Brexit party, and which most minor political parties do not have.