Farage buoyed by debate after backing reform in polls

Nigel Farage says Reform UK 'is now in opposition to Labor'; Credit: ITV ?direct=true&id=bc72b371-0215-4d99-b27b-4223678de837&template=articleRendererHTML» class=»tmg-particle Sticky-nav wrp-bc72b371-0215-4d99-b27b-4223678de837″ title=»General Election» data -business-type= «editorial» loading=»eager» scrolling=»none» Frameborder=»0″ allow=»web-share» style=»width: 100%; min-width: 100%; border: none; position: relative; display: block; padding: 0px; Margin: 0px;»>

With the same line-up as last week's BBC debate, it could have been a tedious replay of the action, but Reform UK's success in the new poll has put it ahead of the Conservatives. electrified the events of Thursday evening.

Nigel Farage wasted no time in celebrating the moment, using his opening commentary to tell the TV audience: “Just before we went on air, we overtook the Conservatives in a national opinion poll . We are now the opposition to the Labor Party.»

Even Penny Mordaunt's hair seems to have gone a little flat as a result. The stiff blond helmet that appeared last week has been replaced by a less combative look, and on The Telegraph's live voting tool Mr Farage is getting five times as many thumbs up as she is.

Shortly before the program began, Reform ran a party political broadcast on Channel 4 that said: “Britain is divided. Britain needs reform» on a black background for almost five minutes, without sound or movement.

Whether it was effective or not, it was certainly innovative, and Mr Farage is perhaps the only person , suggesting anything different from what we heard in last Friday's seven-party debate.

On the NHS, he said the 43 per cent rise in patients was due to «explosive population growth — by six million since the Conservatives came to power. to power.

There is no mention of the population crisis in the Labor Party manifesto, he told an audience in Salford: “One in 30.” the people walking the streets have only come here in the last year.”

Ms Mordaunt seemed less enthusiastic than last week without Angela Rayner standing next to her, but had difficulty getting the message across to the end the essence of the problem. Labor and taxes.

After telling the audience that Labour's manifesto had a «£38 billion tax gap in their spending plans», she told the audience that «they have only declared a quarter of the taxes they are going to collect».

Another question is, did anyone understand her comment that no one cares what color a cat is, as long as it catches mice.

Angela Rayner was the most wooden of the combatants, repeating to her: “You broke the economic line” similar to a figure with a string behind its back, although its only task is not to say anything stupid.

Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, at least looked like she was having fun pulling off the difficult trick of smiling and talking at the same time as she said her party would invest an extra £9 billion into the NHS and fix the crisis with dentists.

However, the public seemed to find the whole affair rather boring. By the halfway point there was almost no applause.