It ain't frothy man! Why Reform is a damp squib

Voters in Cullingworth and thousands of other places simply won’t have the option or opportunity to vote Reform. That Party seems to think this doesn't matter.

The latest polling from You-Gov puts Reform just four points behind the Conservatives. This is reported as either proof positive that Reform is going to replace the Tories as the main party of the right in Britain, or else as another reminder just how much of a train crash the Conservative government has been since they decided to boot out Boris. All of a sudden people (well a few people at least) are talking about Reform as a serious challenger. If this is the case then Reform’s leadership needs to learn some lessons.

If you say “it’s frothy man” to people of my age, a little smile plays across our lips and the image of a singing polar bear sporting cool dark glasses enters our minds. The bear advertised a soft drink called Cresta and “it’s frothy man” was the strapline. The ads are legendary for two reasons: firstly because they were so good that 50 years later people still remember the slogan and secondly because you can’t buy Cresta any more.

Cresta was a range of fruit-flavoured soft drinks marketed by Schweppes in the UK from around 1970 to the early 1980s when it was discontinued. Despite the genius of John Webster’s ads (Webster also created the Smash robots) Cresta failed to make much of a dent in the market share of the big soft drinks brands, partly because lots of drinkers preferred coke in its various forms, but mostly because you couldn’t buy Cresta half the time. Inspired by the advertising kids and the mum’s of kids would head to the shops only to find out that they didn’t stock Cresta or that the drinks were out-of-stock. So mum bought lemonade or coke or ginger beer for the inevitably disappointed kids.

Reform reminds me of Cresta. Lots of great media coverage, a veritable torrent of social media but when I want to buy the product what do I get? Reform isn’t stocked. There’s a big election round here for the Mayor of West Yorkshire and I can buy Labour, Tory, Green and Liberal Democrat. There’s also the Yorkshire Party and an Independent. But no Reform candidate. The same goes for the election for the new York & North Yorkshire Mayor - Labour, Conservative, Green, Lib Dem and a slew of independents but no Reform.

The same applies for local council elections. Reform has fewer candidates across the whole of England than the Yorkshire Party has just in Yorkshire. The national media cover Reform with its leader talking about elections but when the voter arrives at the polling station clutching his or her (entirely unwarranted) photo ID eager to vote for this exciting, insurgent party they’ve seen on the telly and in Facebook, nothing. They stand in St John’s Church, pencil in hand, and read down the list of candidates looking in vain for the representative of Reform, nothing.

Just like those kids in the 1970s unable to buy Cresta after being inspired by John’s Webster’s singing, sunnies-wearing polar bear, the voters on May 2nd in Cullingworth and thousands of other places simply won’t have the option or opportunity to vote Reform. That Party may not think this matters, that the only event is the big General Election whenever it happens. But what Reform are signalling is that they do not take the rhythm of elections in England seriously. Reform are less well-organised than the Yorkshire Party who have less money to spend than Angela Rayner dodged in taxes on her house sales.

Ernest Saunders is remembered for the scandal of insider trading around the merger of Guinness with Distillers to create Diageo. Before this scandal, however, Saunders had transformed Guinness’s fortunes. Saunders noticed that, despite decades of award-winning advertising, Guinness wasn’t seeing the sales growth you’d expect. Guinness had, Saunders observed, the Cresta problem: people wanted to buy Guinness but when they arrived in the pub the chances were that the draught product wasn’t available. The strategy was to continue with the great advertising but to direct the sales teams into getting draught Guinness into every pub. The merger with Distillers was only made possible because Saunders had turned Guinness from an iconic, much-loved brand into an iconic, much-loved, profitable brand.

I don’t care much for Reform but if it wants seriously to replace the Conservatives, the party needs to get a grass roots organisation where it is challenging in the majority of seats. Even with the Party so unpopular, the Conservatives are standing in 95% of the elections being contested on 2nd May, more than any other party. Reform can only manage 15% of contests, hardly the position of a serious political party. Right now the Conservative brand may be struggling but unlike its competitor on the right the Tories have their distribution sorted. The tale of 2nd May won’t mention Reform but will simply point to Labour, Green and Lib Dem, maybe even some independent, victories at the expense of the Conservatives.

In a political system like Britain’s the only way to ‘break through’ is to do the long slog of building local organisations, standing in elections and tramping streets delivering leaflets. I appreciate that building a following of 20k on ex-Twitter and shouting a lot about ‘Not Real Conservatives’ is a whole load more fun than talking about dog muck, children’s playground and the litter on Keighley Road, but if you want to be a serious political party the second part is essential. And Reform demonstrates it simply isn’t prepared to get its political hands dirty. For this reason I think it will fail to achieve any breakthrough but will succeed in helping Labour get an extra 100 MPs come the General Election.