Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles gives her view on scrapping the two child cap (Image: Getty)

       There’s a feeling of despondency among our local Tory lot.

       We’ve seen the highs - and the lows. We’ll never forget the sweet victory as Boris smashed through the Labour Red Wall as he promised to deliver on Brexit and to finally give our neck of the woods the attention it deserved. But the rejection of some of our area’s best MPs at the last election still stings badly. We painstakingly watched on as we saw Labour reclaim their heartland - albeit through voter apathy more than anything else.

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       And now? Well now, Reform. We can feel the excitement building for the party - many of our number enticed - as they promise to finally sort out migration. I mean, how do you begin to compete with a party that’s more your party than your own?! That was until Tuesday…

       Earlier this week Nigel Farage took to the stage to set out some of his big policy moves should he kick Keir Starmer out of Downing Street at the next election. He had all of us nodding too - on small boats, on Net Zero, on daft DEI stuff.

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       Then came the move that left us all baffled. In a bid to woo Labour voters Farage has decided to channel his inner Corbyn by scrapping the two-child benefit cap, which basically means that parents on Universal Credit don’t get extra money for a third, fourth, fifth - however many - child.

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       Tory councillor Mieka Smiles says that Nigel Farge has made a huge mistake (Image: Getty)

       I couldn’t have put it better than former Tory leader candidate Robert Jenrick who asked if he’d “cooked this up after one too many pints at his local” or if a “joint had found its way into his usual pack of Marlboro Golds”. Quite!

       It begs the question of what principles his party is actually built on, if any at all. And I’m sure the clanger has left all those who were hoping he was the second coming scratching their heads.

       I could talk here about the reasons why I am firmly anti-scrapping the cap. How the emphasis should be on personal responsibility, on making sure you can actually afford to have children before popping them out, on the lack of fairness for making other hardworking families shell out. Note - before the cap in 2017 workless families on state benefits could reportedly claim up to ￡60k a year. Scrapping it also disproportionately benefits migrant families who have lived in the country for less than five years. Oh - and it will cost ￡3.5bn.

       But rather than that, I’d like to focus on how his miscalculation has proven that he’s totally out of touch with what the majority of the voters that he’s interested in tempting to turn turquoise.

       Lifelong Tories in the most leafy Home Counties enclaves will always vote Tory, so he can forget about those. The proper lefty luvvies would rather head off shooting with Jacob Rees-Mogg than put a cross next to his name, so he can strike off those too. The ones he really needs to target are the ones up my end, who really turned that political dial by robbing Labour votes and giving the Conservatives one of the most stonking victories in its history.

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       Instead he’s made a misguided assumption that those in areas like mine would support scrapping the cap, perhaps because that’s where a large majority of those who claim the benefit live. He’d be wrong.

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       People in this area need - perhaps more than anywhere else - a solution for the masses trapped in a benefits system, some for generations. We need a policy that will free those people from a thankless and depressing cycle.

       What he should have done is offered those who do work or want to work - who are also able to claim benefits - better childcare options. He could have proposed lifting the personal allowance, so that people on low wages can keep more of their own cash - the hairdressers, white van men and cafe owners.

       Proper Tories are, in a way, quietly relieved as we can now see a way forward: there’s still a huge opportunity for the Conservative party to speak to the Red Wall. Nigel might have given it big licks on immigration - but what he’s shown with his latest move is that he doesn’t understand what matters to voters in this area: personal responsibility, fairness and aspiration. Farage has made his first major slip-up - and this one could cost him dearly.