What else have you got, Nige? Immigration isn’t the only problem we have – but it’s all Reform will talk about

“Labour On Course To Win General Election.” Wait, what? This notification on my phone makes no sense. Nigel Farage’s problems have seen Reform’s poll lead crumble as Labour surges ahead Credit: House of Commons New PM Andy Burnham is predicted by a new poll to get 26 per cent of the vote at the next election, knocking Reform and the Tories into second and third Credit: Getty Labour can’t possibly win the next election because Reform UK are nailed-on champs, right? I mean, Nigel’s lot have been streets ahead in the polls for months. He’s assembled the, er, cream of the crop of UK politics ready to ride into Downing Street: Braverman, Yusuf, Jenrick, Anderson . . . and Prue Leith’s lad, Danny what’s-his-chops. Zia Yusuf is already measuring up the curtains in Number 11. (“Sod off Jenrick, I’m having it!”) Well, it looks like Reform might need to put the Champagne — sorry, English sparkling wine — on ice as a new “poll of polls”(!) has them in second place behind . . . hold each other tight now . . . Labour. That’s right, Our Andy is predicted to get 26 per cent of the vote, knocking Reform and the Tories into second and third with 24 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Oof! What a difference a few weeks makes, eh? Of course, it is easy to dismiss this poll as just a stab in the dark from an erratic polling industry famous for its clangers (although another poll from More In Common 24 hours later had Reform in third place). But scratch the surface and I think there’s something here, something that tells us where this merry band of upstarts find themselves. Immigration matters – but migrants aren’t to blame for all of Britain’s woes Credit: Getty Zia Yusuf branded ex-defence secretary Ben Wallace a ‘moron’ and ‘traitor’ — forcing Nigel Farage to slap him down Credit: Alamy Because even before these polls, Reform UK had started to look like a party coming unstuck. The “vote for us, we’re better than these clowns” vibes that saw them soar to 35 per cent in one poll last September are fizzling out. New, much less auspicious, vibes have taken their place. Indeed, in recent weeks Reform have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Like Farage’s £5million “gift”, rotting round his neck like a putrid albatross and putting off more voters than he cares to accept. Or Yusuf’s nasty branding of former Army captain Sir Ben Wallace as a “moron” and “traitor to Britain”, spiteful remarks that even his famously blunt boss thought were “too strong”. Then on Friday, Danny Kruger (that’s the fella!) pissed everyone off by suggesting we should scrap postal voting and therefore cancel our holidays if they happened to clash with an election. (First rule of life, Danny Boy: don’t f**k with someone’s holiday.) Of course, like much of Reform’s policies, it was all wrapped up in other punchy ideas addressing Britain’s chronically soft-touch immigration racket. Which is fair enough. Immigration is the No1 issue on the doorstep. Foreigners sucking at the teat of our broken benefits system and the incessant small boat arrivals (albeit mercifully down by nearly half since last year) are issues that have become so charged they’ve spawned a new right wing party, Rupert Lowe’s batshit Restore Britain. A more robust approach to immigration is clearly needed. But Britain’s problems do not start and end with migrants. Stopping the boats and reducing the number of foreigners granted indefinite leave to remain are no panacea for our crippling cost-of-living crisis. Reform must convince those still sceptical about a party many view as a one-trick pony that they can tackle the other big issue: Fixing the economy. So far they have offered little in the way of reassurance as Britain’s national debt hits £3TRILLION. Eye-catching policies like no income tax until you earn £20,000 have already been binned as a manifesto proposal to make £90billion in tax cuts was scrapped for not being “sensible”. Few alternative big ideas have materialised. So, beyond some minted backers, it’s no wonder Reform are struggling to attract the support of big business. (Their biggest business backer is crypto boss Christopher Harborne, the man behind Farage’s iffy £5million.) This time last year, Reform were in Birmingham hosting a party conference that crackled with excitement as pint-wielding delegates in Reform FC football shirts put the world to rights. Here was a party with their finger on the pulse, a new political force with the world at their feet. Today they will traipse back into the same NEC halls a lot more battle weary. The faithful will offer a warm welcome as they raise a glass of IPA to their hero Nigel Farage. Yet while he drinks in the applause, he will be painfully aware that he needs more than their adulation or that of those spending £3,000 for “platinum” tickets. If Reform UK are to deliver the Britain they are promising, Farage must speak to everyone outside the walls. To the huge swathes of undecided voters — like me — eager to know: What else have you got? X Factor reboot? Get the Crankies Could Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh be passed over for the X Factor reboot? Credit: Rex Features Instead, painfully woke stars like Raye could be taking over on the judging panel Credit: Getty Things must be bad at ITV if they’re even thinking of rebooting the X Factor with cranky old loonies Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh on the panel. Well that’s what I thought when I first read the news in Monday’s Sun. And then I saw who might be on the panel instead. Painfully woke stars like Yungblud and Raye might make sense for TikTok, but I can’t imagine for one second they would spew out the kind of bile that Shazza and Louis used to. It would be all soft soap blah about how great everyone was, so as not to trigger anyone or damage their mental health. Nah, X Factor only works if the jumped-up acts are cut down to size by the sharpest tongues in the business. Anything else is just wallpaper. Yungblud could also be set to star in an attempt to woo the TikTok generation Credit: Getty KEIR AS PM SO STUPID So farewell then, Keir Starmer MP. After 11 years serving the country he was once so passionate about improving, he’s thrown in the towel. I can’t say I’m that surprised he fled the Westminster bear pit so soon after his defenestration. Screw all those backstabbers, time to make some real money from anyone daft enough to give it to him (and there will, inexplicably, be plenty). Of course the truth is he should never have got involved in politics in the first place. He was catastrophically bad at it, as his hopeless tenure in No10 proved. He wasn’t “evil” as some of the more swivel-eyed members of the online right insisted. But he suffered from too much ambition and far too little ability. Labour were stupid to give him the top job. It sounds harsh to say good riddance. But good riddance. Smaxx of bad smell Gen Z’s latest bizarre ‘maxxing’ craze sees blokes ditch the shower to get more women Credit: Getty Just when I thought Gen Z had maxed out on all their “maxxing” bollocks, along comes another ludicrous phenomena, straight off the red-eye from the good ol’ USA, natch. This one is called “pheremone-maxxing”, which sees blokes not bothering to shower or wash their hair so they smell like God intended. The theory, claim aficionados, is simple: Allowing one’s natural pheromones to run riot unimpeded by the aromatic straightjacket of Lynx Africa will help you get more females with whom to mate. Unsurprisingly, this hogwash is not supported by science. As dermatologist Dr Shereen Teymour put it: “Not showering isn’t pheromone-maxxing . . . it’s bacteria-maxxing.” Ladies, form an orderly queue . . . ARGIE ENZO'S AN OIK Typical Man City stumping up £125million for that Argie spanner, Enzo Fernandez. It may have been nearly two months, but I still can’t get the image of him taunting our fans after he scored against us at the World Cup out of my mind. What a ghastly oik he is. So I feel nothing but pity for all those City fans having to cheer for this arrogant pleb. They’d better get used to all the boos from their opponents’ fans. My vocal cords are primed and ready for when the Manchester derby rolls round in ten days’ time. Why can’t he have been sold off to some godawful Saudi club so we’d never have to see him again? Timothy Taylor’s new bearded hipster mascot has sparked fury among traditional ale drinkers Credit: Timothy Taylor's Brewery Traditionalists are frothing over brewer Timothy Taylor’s new “hipster” dude on its classic Landlord ale. Out goes the fella who always looked to me like a retired Wales scrum-half now running his local boozer in the Mumbles, and in comes a perky bearded chap. The issue seems to be the new mascot’s facial fuzz, which is something of an irony given many real ale drinkers famously don’t own a razor. And the suggestion it’s some kind of Gen Z rebrand is obviously daft. Our anxious young folk would rather sup a protein shake than anything with alcohol in it. A kick in the teeth Fresh from screwing £480 out of ladies for its Airwrap hair curler, Dyson has now conjured up a toothbrush for £420 Credit: Dyson Dyson has “reinvented” another common electrical device in order to charge the earth for it. Fresh from screwing £480 out of ladies for its Airwrap hair curler, it’s now conjured up a toothbrush for £420 (plus a £9.99 tube of paste to go with it). It promises to use AI to spray the gaps in your teeth with water jets as you brush, to blast that hard-to-reach plaque Right, so it’s a water flosser (£20 on Amazon) combined with an electric toothbrush (also £20). Of course, Dyson insists its CameraJet is far superior than anything else on the market. But unless it turns my knackered gnashers into Brad Pitt’s mega-watt grin after one brush, I’ll pass.