Nigel Farage’s team is down to four MPs, with the suspended Rupert Lowe denouncing it as a “protest party led by the messiah”. Let’s not waste time wondering who’s wrong and who’s right

I have one primitive but foolproof tool of political analysis. Trying to balance competing claims in any matter of party discipline – unless it’s a party of which I am a member, in which case, of course, I have already picked a side – I think: “Does it sound as if anyone’s done the kind of vetting even I would know how to do?”

Rupert Lowe has been suspended from Reform over claims of bullying and physical intimidation, which he says are without basis. He went on to say, on X, that he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the allegations, which has a conspiratorial whiff. He has already said the allegations are false, so if he is not surprised to hear them made, it surely indicates that he thinks he is dealing with the kind of people who will expediently exploit any kind of nonsense.