14% share is a TRIUMPH for Farage - the Tories must now find the right leader to do a deal - Kelvin Mackenzie

The future for Reform will be tougher as the chances of ever being up against a political inept Tory figure like Rishi Sunak again are nil.

Sunak will now go down in history as possibly an even bigger dud than Truss, so what on earth possessed him to go for July 4?

As I have said repeatedly, food prices were down, energy was down, wages were up and interest rates were coming down. Things might, just might, have looked a lot rosier in the autumn.

The political atmosphere in November certainly couldn’t have been worse. After all it was a Labour leader, Harold Wilson, who said a week was a long time in politics. Thanks to social medial five minutes is a long-time today.

Clearly, Sunak didn’t fancy watching even more boats coming across the Channel in the summer months exposing one of the big flaws in his policy; the Tory inability to end the immigration crisis.

Of course, it will be immigration where Reform will continue to have an umbilical cord with the British public. And they will have the political field to themselves unless the Tories take a sharp veer to the Right.

I find that unlikely with Jeremy Hunt hanging on to his seat in Surrey. A decent and clever man but has been wrong on almost every issue for years. He will be the recruiting sergeant for the One Nation lefties.

Were Hunt to be leader I guarantee that he would be ousted by Boris Johnson after a couple of years. There is no point in being a Left-wing Tory. No point at all.

There are three takeaways from the election for me.

The first is that there was no big demand for Labour - despite 14 poor years of Tory rule. Basically, in England they had the same votes under Starmer as they had under Corbyn in 2019. How awful.

You would have thought their numbers would go through the roof, but the stark truth is they only in power because loyal Tories were sick of their own side and switched to Reform to teach them a lesson. Let’s hope they learned it.

But worse for Starmer is he went unto the election with -19% rating whereas Corbyn was a popular figure among his own side. There will be honeymoon for Starmer. Those potholes are Labour potholes from this morning. Let’s see how he fixes them.

The second takeaway concerns Reform. They cannot simply focus on immigration, important that it is. Like Thatcher they need to have a revolutionary zeal in other areas. Forty years later selling council houses is still a great idea. The more the Left hate it, the more you should embrace it.

I would literally give away most social housing to the tenants by allowing them to gradually own their place through their rent. I’m sure Starmer would hate it but that’s why Nigel must double down on it.

Thirdly, I would also try to broaden the appeal of their candidates, getting better people on board. Richard Tice and Lee Anderson are excellent politicians but three makes a decent game of cards but not a party.

Finally, as I have said before, change the name to Farage’s Reform, making it easily identifiable on the ballot paper.

As everybody knows the merged vote of the Tories and Reform will have topped Labour, therefore it makes sense for the parties to come to an accommodation. I would love that but have my doubts it’s possible until a substantial Tory figure of the Right takes over the Conservatives.

And that is where I struggle. I simply can’t see Suella or Prit getting the Parliamentary vote. Possibly Kemi, but I’m told there is no warm feelings towards her as she is too confrontational with colleagues and the media.

If the Right person doesn’t emerge then all that will happen is the Tories will be out of office forever.

That might be enough to bring them to their senses. Let’s hope so.