And, yes, Putin IS another incarnation of that murderer with a mustache.

Farage himself might win Clacton - his (in)fame could draw voters, and the constituency elected a UKIP MP in 2015 (who had represented it as a Conservative earlier). Lee Anderson, who had been a Tory vice-chairman before he defected to Reform, might hold his seat; there are one or two others, in heavily-Brexit-voting constituencies, where they stand a chance. But they have to take over half the previous Tory vote in a constituency, plus overcome the Labour candidate (who will probably get some of the previous Tory vote too), to win anywhere.

But where they've avoided selecting the nutjobs like this one, they may well come second in many seats.

rather than winning outright.

All along, it's not been so much Reform/UKIP's policies and candidates in themselves that have presented a threat to other parties as their fear of having "their" votes poached, driven by polling.

What happens if any of them do win seats is another matter, of course. The UK Parliament isn't as tolerant of the sort of high jinks and disruptiveness Farage likes to get up to as the EU Pariament was. In the past, when UKIP and its ilk have won council seats, let alone Westminster ones, they've usually imploded within a couple of years.

but investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr did some digging into his background in 2008:

Link to tweet

Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla

So here's an interesting connection. Julian Malins QC, the totally independent lawyer, who today gave Cambridge Analytica a clean bill of health? Here he is with fellow City of London alderman, Matthew Richardson...aka Robert Mercer's lawyer

Doubt that Putin is popular there.