Nothing illustrates the challenge facing Reform UK better than the strained interview Danny Kruger gave to the Today programme on Monday morning. Kruger, a former Tory MP who defected to Reform last September, has been charged by Nigel Farage with preparing the party for government. He clearly wanted the interview to be a high-minded examination of the intricacies of the Whitehall machinery. Instead, he had to deal with more pungent street politics.

The interview quickly descended into questions about Robert Kenyon, the ‘plucky plumber’ and Reform candidate in the Makerfield by-election. Kruger, a thoughtful Christian, was clearly uncomfortable answering questions on sexual comments about Carol Vorderman which Kenyon had shared on social media in the past. The interview revealed a tension within Reform. On the one hand, the party wants to present itself as a thoughtful answer to our broken politics; on the other, Reform’s appeal is that it is a people’s army of rough and ready outsiders, scornful of SW1 politesse.

Isn’t it distasteful for Kruger, a polite and godly fellow, to be upstaged by the pungent views of a plumber?

Isn’t it distasteful for Kruger, a polite and godly fellow, to be upstaged by the pungent views of a plumber?

Kruger’s task is to show middle–class voters that they can trust Nigel Farage to run the next government in a way that will get things done. But in Makerfield, the campaign is designed to see off a challenge from Rupert Lowe’s even more anti-establishment Restore party, where Reform feels that a politically incorrect candidate is a winner.

These twin approaches are strange bed-fellows, if not actually at odds. Kruger knows the by-election is not his hunting ground: ‘I don’t........

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