Nigel Farage certainly has momentum. Fresh off a successful local election campaign, Reform UK’s irrepressible leader rolled out some retail policy offers last week designed to heap pressure on both Labour and the Conservatives.

In a punchy speech, Farage promised to scrap the two-child limit on child benefit, restore winter fuel payments, create a more generous marriage tax allowance and raise the income tax personal allowance to a princely £20,000.

Four years from an election, opposition parties can promise the world. Farage’s critics understandably worry about the implications of a Reform government for government borrowing. “Giveaways” funded by promises of highly uncertain spending cuts — isn’t this all a bit Liz Truss? With bond markets jittery, the Institute for Fiscal Studies is right to say that financing all these promises, as Farage intends, by scrapping net zero, eliminating government diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, curbing asylum hotel costs and attacking “waste” looks … optimistic, to be polite.