Farage spoke of “societal decline” while he relaxed against the lectern as if addressing all-comers at the golf club bar. He was fluent, as he always is, speaking without notes or a script. Lowe, by contrast, stood at the lectern reading. “Family, community, country – this is what we stand for,” Farage proclaimed. He praised Donald Trump’s war on woke, promised Reform would cut the size of the administrative state and said he would never judge anyone “by their colour, religion, sexual preference or gender”. He said “something extraordinary was happening out there” in the country. Reform, a new political party which until recently had no representation in parliament and no proper organisation or infrastructure, had polled “ahead of the Tories in seven consecutive polls” and was just behind Labour. Like a political seismologist alert to what was coming, he predicted an earthquake: “the biggest political change this country has ever seen”.