LOUD music, a concert hall and indoor fireworks. It can only mean one thing: the new political force in the country has kickstarted the general election campaign and it’s all up for grabs - including the keys to Downing Street, reports Paul Francis.
There is very little that connects the 1981 version of David Steel’s Liberal Democrat party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, version 2025.
That is bar one thing: both were and one still is supremely confident of their election prospects and so confident that the two leaders have felt emboldened to urge their respective parties to return to their constituencies and prepare to form the next government.
We know what happened next: the Lib Dems alliance failed to do as well as expected. But the Reform Party? Predicting the outcome for that is a bit trickier.
Nonetheless, Farage has every right to be content after a period of high-velocity politics that has catapulted Reform UK into the driver’s seat. The Dick Dastardly of UK politics is in top gear and even by his standards, is experiencing another spell in which he is outflanking the main parties and is on the crest of a wave that has left his rivals floundering in the political shallows.
The man who had battled eight times to win a seat in Parliament - including several times in Kent - is even more cheery after the Labour party went close to a complete implosion in the midst of the resignation of Angela Rayner after she admitted failing to pay the right amount of tax on a new house.
Farage is, then, riding high and how David Cameron must regret labelling the party as a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” in 2006.
What does all this mean for Kent?
The electoral map of Kent has changed its hue from shades of blue to red to turquoise and green - not by way of a rainbow alliance but because it is no longer what used to be known as a true blue Tory heartland. The new electoral force of the Reform Party is compelling the other mainstream parties to think of ways in which to outflank Nigel Farage, without becoming a shallow imitation of the real thing.
They have all got a plan to deal with migrants…but none seem to work:
Like it or not, the political attritional arms race over small boats is going to continue to be the single most important key issue in Kent. Nigel Farage has upped the stakes as the parties battle over who has the best solution to resolving - in other words blocking the continuing influx of irregular migration. His pledge to deport all asylum seekers within two weeks could become a pledge too far. He has already rowed back, saying the two-week deadline means two weeks after legislation has been passed permitting the government to return arrivals.
It doesn't take long for things to go wrong in political parties.
After the justifiable euphoria, the Reform Party UK, has already seen one or two hitches and glitches within the ruling administration at Kent County Council. Under its leader Linden Kemkaran, not everything is going to plan.
Even Nigel Farage has had to admit there are councillors who have been elected who would perhaps never made it on to a shortlist had they checked thoroughly before their name went on the ballot paper. How many years until the next election?
Brexit
Remember those heady days when we were promised all manner of goodies if we left the EU? Well, for many the sweet jar is empty and remains so. The pledges of a new era in which we could do our own thing without having to run it past dozens of EU member states? That promise to fund hospitals £350m a week with the money saved by not being member states? You could be forgiven for thinking you might have missed it. But like a lot of things to do with leaving the EU, not everything is what it seems - and we’ll be revealing more of that in the coming weeks.