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As Reform UK revels in its success in last week’s local election – winning 1,450 council seats – the idea of Prime Minister Nigel Farage no longer looks like a pipe dream for the Clacton MP.

In response to Friday’s results, Farage said this is “a truly historic shift in British politics,” and that these results would not be a “one off”.

There is no doubt that the party has capitalised on public frustration over immigration, living standards and distrust in Westminster – and has gone from a fringe movement to a serious force in British politics. But, can Reform UK keep growing – or has it peaked?

Michael Crick, Jonn Elledge and Zoë Grünewald offer their perspectives.

Reform’s success has never hinged on broad appeal or personal popularity. Farage doesn’t need to be liked; he needs disillusionment, fragmentation, and a political system too brittle to absorb public anger. Right now, Britain has a surplus of all three.

First, take the mood music. Reform’s rise isn’t happening in a vacuum; it is being enabled by a government that just isn’t delivering. Keir Starmer came in with a landslide and a huge amount of political capital, yet public frustration has only deepened. Living standards are still stuck, public services still feel broken, and the national conversation is a never-ending argument about immigration.

And that narrowing hasn’t been an accident. Labour’s tougher rhetoric on migration hasn’t neutralised Reform so much as validated it, while pushing parts of its own coalition away. You could see that in this year’s local elections: progressive voters drifting to the Greens and Liberal Democrats, the vote splitting, and Reform slipping through the middle.

More broadly, the conditions that fuel populism haven’t gone anywhere. Economic pessimism is baked in, trust in institutions is broken, and there’s a widespread sense that Britain is stuck in a kind of managed decline. A decline run by a political class that prefers tinkering at the edges to actually matching the scale of the anger out there. Reform, by contrast, is willing to meet it head on. And in that gap, it’s building something that looks a lot more serious than a protest vote.

Enter Reform’s backers. If you haven’t heard of them, that’s partly the point. Behind the pub-pint populism sits a shadowy operation: a Maga-style ecosystem of think-tanks, lobbyists, billionaire donors and tech-bros, imported wholesale from the American right. Organisations tied to the US Christian conservative movement are already expanding their footprint in Britain and courting Reform, while Farage’s orbit continues pulling in money from overseas billionaires and murky crypto interests. Beneath the anti-establishment cosplay, serious infrastructure with sinister interests is being built.

At the same time, Reform is thriving inside an online ecosystem tilted firmly in its favour. Its MPs generate eye-watering levels of engagement on X, supercharged by algorithmic misinformation and amplified by Elon Musk himself, a foreign billionaire using his platform as a political megaphone. Britain has no serious regulatory framework capable of dealing with this kind of influence, and the government is sitting on its hands as the machinery of modern populism operates largely outside the reach of British law. Reform is laughing all the way to the bank.

And then there is the electoral system. For years, first past the post was seen as the establishment’s safety net, squeezing insurgents and protecting Labour and the Conservatives.

How times have changed. Britain is no longer a two party system, and FPTP is malfunctioning. In this new fragmented Britain, it doesn’t suppress challengers, but magnifies them.

The result is wildly disproportionate outcomes: parties winning frail majorities on barely a third of the vote, or making gains simply because their opponents are collapsing faster. This is why Reform doesn’t need broad support to win power, just for everyone else to lose more efficiently.

Some models suggest Reform could secure a parliamentary majority with only around 30 per cent of the vote. Farage understands this perfectly: the system he once railed against is now his very best friend since it started working in his favour.

None of this makes a Reform government inevitable, of course. But all the conditions that could deliver one – political disillusionment, weak regulation, foreign money, a broken electoral system – are all very much in place.

Ultimately, Reform doesn’t need to win the argument to win government. It just needs everyone else to keep fracturing and convincing themselves it’s not really a threat. Complacency is how Reform wins.

Just when you thought Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor couldn’t get any more odious – what with his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, those sexual assault allegations by the late Virginia Giuffre (which he denies), his supposed inability to sweat – something comes along to make an impossible situation even worse.

That something, this week, is the claim that the former prince once “kicked his own dog – in the head”. Oof. If there’s anything that will earn the ire of the entire British nation, it is that.

The claim comes from the royal biographer Andrew Lownie, who says the incident happened at a BBQ at Sandringham, when Andrew was in his twenties. Speaking to Palace Confidential, Lownie said the story came to him from a very close friend of the Royal Family. “He was shocked to see Andrew kick the head of his dog – Andrew’s dog – because I think he grabbed a sausage roll or something. And no one said anything at the time. And this man felt he had to say something.”

Lownie said he was informed the man “reprimanded” Andrew and told him to “get lost”, adding: “That evening, as they were having drinks and dinner, Prince Philip came up to him and said, ‘Thank you, that needed to be said, and I’m glad you said it.’” But Lownie queried why the late Duke of Edinburgh didn’t say it to his son directly. “The question, I think, is why didn’t Prince Philip say it? Was he worried about embarrassing Andrew in front of this person?”

It’s impossible to know whether the incident itself (or the reaction from the Duke of Edinburgh) is true, but when taken alongside a litany of other misbehaviours, it doesn’t look good. As the writer Maya Angelou once put it: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time” – and the ex-duke has been showing us who he is for a long time, now. So, isn’t it time we started believing him?

We already know he’s a disgrace to his family due to his continued association with Epstein – even after the former financier was convicted for child sex trafficking in 2008, he continued to host him at royal residences – and has been stripped of all royal titles and military roles. We know he’s been forced to leave his 30-bedroom mansion in Windsor, Royal Lodge; and that he’s been accused of sharing information with Epstein during his time as UK trade envoy.

And we all saw a series of damning photos in February: first, those released in the Epstein files, showing Andrew bent over the prone body of an unknown young woman; and weeks later, those snatched shots in the back of a taxi on the day the former prince was arrested and detained for 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was later released under investigation, but that didn’t stop the campaign group Everyone Hates Elon from hanging the snaps in the Louvre in Paris, alongside the caption: “He’s Sweating Now”, referring to his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview.

Kicking a dog? With everything else we now know about Andrew, it really wouldn’t surprise me.

When Vicky Keating’s son Jack moved out of the family home three-and-a-half years ago, although she knew she would miss him, she breathed a sigh of relief.

With four children living at home in their three-bedroom home, before Jack, now 25, moved out, she and her husband John had one bedroom, Jack had his own bedroom and her three daughters Jemma, 22, Ella, 19 and Eva, 14, all shared the biggest bedroom.

As space was a struggle, when Jack moved out to live with his partner and their baby, it meant Eva could move into the room he vacated, leaving the two older girls sharing a room.

However, in October last year, Jack’s relationship broke down and he suddenly arrived back home and since then, the family have had a full house again.

Vicky, 48, who lives in Taunton, told The i Paper their living situation is challenging and makes her feel embarrassed and frustrated that she is not in a financial position to help her children get on the property ladder or move out.

“It is really difficult and sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by it all, it feels like the walls of the house are going to collapse on me,” she said. “We’re not in a financial position to buy a bigger house – and when your children are older, you shouldn’t really be having to do that as they should be planning for their own futures and homes.

“However, at the moment that is too difficult and we feel stuck and the money worries and our situation is putting a strain on me and affecting my mental health and wellbeing.

“As much as I like having Jack back home with me as he is my son, they come to an age where they need their own space. It pains me that we don’t have the room at home for them all to have their own space. I wish I had the funds for a house where we could all fit comfortably.”

Vicky, who is a business support manager for a counselling company, explained that her situation is exacerbated as she works from home so has no respite or time to get out from the busy house.

However, she says it is not the fault of her children as life is so difficult for young people and saving for a house deposit or being able to afford rent can be a real struggle.

“Jack is a vehicle technician and does earn quite good money, but by the time he has paid his bills such as car and phone and his maintenance, there is not enough for him to rent a decent place for him and his daughter.

“A house share is not ideal for him because of his daughter, who is two. I love our granddaughter to bits but we have her here every other weekend and Wednesday evening and have to make space for her and that is very difficult.

“Jemma works in a children’s nursery and has only just started a full-time job and doesn’t earn enough money. She has to stay at her boyfriend’s house a lot because there aren’t enough rooms or beds for everyone here, especially since her brother came back. Her boyfriend lives with his parents and neither he nor Jemma can afford a deposit for a house or to rent somewhere.

“Ella is a hairdresser and has just gone self employed, so her earnings can fluctuate. And at her age, I don’t think she is quite ready to move out anyway.

“Our youngest Eva, is still at school and she is lucky as she has her own space and her own room. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell her to move back into the room with her sisters so Jack could have the room again.”

Vicky says she feels embarrassed about their living situation, particularly with having four children in a three-bedroom house.

“It’s not ideal, but we have no choice given our circumstances,” she said. “Sometimes, I wonder about my future and my relationship and I feel that not having enough money impacts me, making me feel stuck where I am.

“The financial strain is a constant concern and affects my overall wellbeing. I am getting to a stage in my life where I am menopausal, trying to hold down a full-time job and trying to keep the house as minimalistic as I can when there are so many of us living here.”

Vicky says she did not charge Jack board when he lived at home the first time around, but mortgage rates and bills have gone up so much that she is now asking Jack and Ella to pay £100 a month.

“I know it is not much, but I absolutely hate taking from them – even though I know it is right as they need to know you have to pay for things in this world,” she said.

“Finances are difficult with the cost of living, so I just ask for a contribution towards things like electricity and water. I don’t charge Jemma as she isn’t really here much.

“But I don’t like asking my children for money and I feel disappointed in myself and wish things were different. However, I can’t see things changing in the short term and I wish there was more help for young people.”

Research carried out by Nationwide reveals that house-sharing embarrassment now sets in at 29, but 69 per cent of people say living alone is uncomfortable, so the average age of house sharers has crept up to 35.

Richard Stocker, head of savings at Nationwide, said: “With living costs continuing to rise, it’s no surprise that more adults are reconsidering their living arrangements and moving back into the family home, bringing added pressure around space, finances, and independence for all involved.

“While conversations about money can feel difficult in these situations, it’s important that people get the support they need.

“We offer tools and guidance both in our branches and online, on everything from our ISAs to our budget builder, to help people take control of their finances and work towards small, achievable savings goals.

“With the right support, situations like Vicky’s can feel far more manageable.”

Defensive players rarely win individual awards. The only pure defender to win the Ballon d’Or in the last 55 years was Fabio Cannavaro and that was largely because he captained 2006 World Cup winners Italy. In the Premier League, two defenders have won the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award since 1993 – Virgil van Dijk and John Terry. The only Football Writers Association’ winner since 1989 was Ruben Dias.

Goalkeepers win individual awards even less: often. Peter Shilton was the last for the PFA in 1978 and Lev Yashin is the only goalkeeper ever to win the Ballon d’Or. Is that not strange? Sixty-nine years of an international award being handed out, perhaps eight positions to pick from (goalkeeper, full-back, centre-back, defensive midfielder, central midfielder, No 10, winger/wide forward, striker) and a goalkeeper picked once.

It suggests one of two things: defensive players are weaker than attacking players or people just prefer attacking players winning awards because we like goalscoring and attacking endeavour. It’s the second of those and it’s time to redress the balance.

I broadly believe that the Player of the Year award should go to an individual involved in the title race, unless there is an extraordinary reason not to do so. Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes comes close to that for the sheer volume of assists and the standard of the Premier League in general, but I don’t believe it quite worthy enough. You can certainly argue that Fernandes makes the biggest difference to one team (although Morgan Gibbs-White has a similar case), but that isn’t my selection criterion.

I’m then ruling out Manchester City players. The only options were Erling Haaland, who has had better Premier League seasons and endured a quiet spell between December and March, and Rayan Cherki. Cherki has been superb since February but has only started 19 league games.

We’re down to two options. The first is Declan Rice, who is likely to rival Fernandes for the PFA award. Rice would be a perfectly reasonable winner, but his excellence lies in consistency over an extended period more than starring over a single season. I think some of Rice’s best work came towards the end of 2024-25. The deliberately controlled nature of Mikel Arteta’s tactical style this season has limited Rice slightly, albeit he has still flourished.

Handily, I think 2025-26 is the perfect campaign for a defensive player to win individual awards. It is the theme of the Premier League season: more 0-0s and 1-0s and almost half a goal down per game from 2023-24. If Arsenal win the league, it is not because of their work in midfield or attack. They have conceded 26 goals.

David Raya has been the difference-maker in this title race above any other player. He has won the Golden Glove already because his 18 clean sheets are four clear of anyone else. He has kept clean sheets in 55 per cent of his appearances in all competitions.

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Speak to any Arsenal supporter and they will tell you that Raya has earned them 10 points or more; he has made extraordinary reaction saves throughout this season. Speak to any teammate and they will wax lyrical about his calming impact.

As Mikel Arteta said on Sunday after potentially the defining victory of Arsenal’s season, Raya has produced a series of “magic moments” this season that have pulled his team closer to the title and avoided further pressure from building.

I think he has done so more often than any other player in the title race. Raya was a slightly unpopular replacement – amongst Arsenal supporters, even – for Aaron Ramsdale and he has become one of the best goalkeepers in the world. He defines both their title push this season and their relentless improvement over the last three years. He is my Player of the Year.

The situation in Iran is unravelling for Donald Trump, with talks over ending the war stalling, the US economy suffering and the President experiencing his worst poll ratings ever.

But Trump – at least outwardly – appears blissfully detached from the seriousness of the problem, instead spending his time bombarding his Truth Social platform with reposts of adulatory memes from his supporters.

In the space of less than ten minutes on Sunday night, from 10.22pm to 10.31pm, Trump reposted 17 memes mostly focused on his own greatness, as well as referencing the discredited theory that the 2020 election was stolen, the construction of his White House ballroom and the addition of his face to Mount Rushmore.