One of the chief challengers is, of course, Reform UK. There’s a belief in both senior Labour and Tory circles that Reform’s party has plateaued – their stellar growth has slowed, and their dominance in the polls not as convincing as it was for much of last year.
In the last couple of days, there’s been embarrassment for its leader Nigel Farage, who quit the video message platform Cameo after a newspaper investigation found he had recorded clips supporting a man convicted of violent disorder, and an event by a neo-Nazi group.
Reform said he had stopped using the account for security reasons and that he had used the platform in good faith. Reform has definitely moved into a different era from their heady ascent in the polls last year, grappling with more scrutiny, as we reported on in our documentary, Reform: Ready to Rule?
They also have a new rival further to the right, Restore Britain, founded by one of its own former MPs, Rupert Lowe, who had a spectacular bust-up with the party. He’s now building followers online and has just officially registered Restore as a political party. Restore even claims now to have more members than the Conservatives – but evidence of party numbers is often closely guarded.
They hope to win some seats in Great Yarmouth in May. Party sources claim they are growing because “we are saying things that people want to hear, not the woke stuff that is being peddled”.
But as far as the polls are concerned, they’re yet to make any meaningful national impact. Reform is still the biggest challenger to Starmer, and, for that matter, Kemi Badenoch.
Her position in her own party is much more secure than in the early months of her leadership, but the Conservatives are still likely to have a rough night in May. But, irrespective of the election results, the big poll of polls survey shows the same broad picture week after week: Labour, the Conservatives and the Greens bunched around the same modest poll level, in the high teens, with the Lib Dems consistently in fourth and Reform constantly at the top. Add in healthy showings for Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the SNP in Scotland, and a completely different complicated picture in Northern Ireland.
The shape of our politics is in flux, and any traditional expectations of stability fraying. And that’s happening just at the moment when it feels like the gravity of the decisions that faces politicians is growing every day: to take part in war or work only for peace, to grapple with what could be a hefty economic shock and, perhaps, to keep the lights on.
Is there “a lot of anxiety around”, as the minister told me? You can be absolutely sure of that.