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In England, students are leaving university with £48,000 in debt on average, and hundreds of thousands of graduates owe six figure sums. Meanwhile, the graduate premium continues to be eroded. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, one in four graduates will be financially worse off over their lifetime than if they had never gone to university. As children, our generation were told that if we wanted to amount to anything, we had to take on tens of thousands of pounds in debt to go to university. This is the same generation now struggling to find good jobs, buy homes, and start families. And all of this is happening before the full impact of AI on graduate employment has even been felt. This is a national scandal. Restore Britain has already pledged to abolish all past and future interest on student loans for British nationals resident in the UK. That will go some way towards righting this wrong, but we must go much further. Only 10–15% of people should be going to university, and tuition should be free for those who do. It makes sense for a nation to finance the education and training of its doctors, engineers, scientists and other highly skilled professionals. It makes no sense to saddle young people with decades of debt to finance nonsense degrees that leave them poorer and the country no better off.

Friends tell me it’s pandemonium at Reform HQ these days. Lots of staff not on speaking terms with one another. Some elements are very professional, but the rest can barely tie their own shoelaces. Farage apparently is barely involved anymore, some speculation he’s burnt out or unwell. Most are resigned to having to cut a deal with the Tories and those who aren’t are only staying for the paycheque. Everyone knows Reform’s days are numbered. They’re never getting their momentum back. And results like this one show that it’s time for them - and their mates in the Conservative Party - to step aside for the good of the country.