Nigel Farage’s fiscal arithmetic is as eye-catching as it is unserious.

[…]

That reality is the sticking point. Raising the tax threshold to £20,000 is estimated to cost between £50bn and £80bn all on its own. Reform claims to have found a cool £225bn down the back of the Treasury sofa by scrapping net zero and insists it could save more still by cutting funding to quangos. Good luck, as they say, with that.

But how successful will Reform’s opponents be at pointing this out? Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has been out and about, calling Farage’s plans “fantasy economics”, while Labour has gone for “fantasy promises”. Farage’s answer to this charge was that all parties fudge the figures in their manifestos, suggesting Reform’s creative accounting was par for the course. Against the general backdrop of disillusionment with the political establishment, the narrative will be that Reform are no worse than the other parties – and that official estimates should be viewed sceptically anyway.

One attack line might get through. “Trussonomics on steroids” was how the Liberal Democrats responded to Tuesday’s proposals.

The economic fantasies of Reform UK, New Statesman