John Curtice

Because they don't have a standout alternative, frankly.

Look, it would be great if Keir Starmer found a new narrative.

It would be great if he had the guts to say we need to do more Europe or we need to do more alignment or we need to work out actually where we're going to get the growth from.

I don't doubt that.

But I'm going to turn this on its head and put another proposition to you, which is if you go back to...

kind of my original thesis, which is this is an arson attack.

This is everyone feeling unhappy and blaming the people who are in government.

There is a world in which the smartest thing for Labour to do right now is to say, come on in, reform.

Yeah, come on in.

Let's everyone get to know you.

See what you're like in local government.

See how you do the council.

See what you...

do with your tax rises, with the council bills, all the rest of it.

Because these figures, and I'm encouraging people to look below the headlines now, if you go back to Kelner, they were winning 41%.

This year, they're on 33%.

In other words, reform have peaked, right?

I mean, we still have places to go.

Reform have, in actual numbers, come off their top.

So if people get to know this party better, if they become the party of establishment, if they become not the neophyte, not the kind of evangelist who's just walked into town, not the guys on the stag do who say, burn it down, rip it up, come on, tie yourself to a lamppost.