Which group of voters did Offord actually intend to impress with his boast about owning six boats?

Paul Hutcheon's contributions to this campaign have been somewhat less than constructive, but I did think he was absolutely correct when he said that Malcolm Offord's boasts about his wealth were much more Thatcherite than Faragist.  They triggered something primal in our hard-right commentariat, who have since seized the opportunity to espouse an Ayn Rand style 'morality' in which the only thing heroic or good is to accumulate vast personal resources and to care nothing for those less fortunate than yourself.  It's ironic that Reform keep insisting that Britain is a "Christian country", because Christian morality is the polar opposite of Ayn Rand's.  The Christian message to Malcolm Offord would be simple and unpalatable for him: "give your yachts to the poor".

My question, though, is who did Offord actually intend to impress by mentioning his boats and cars in his pre-scripted question to Ross Greer?  All the evidence is that Reform primarily takes its votes from the lower end of the income scale, because that's where the anti-immigrant messaging seems to have most potency.  But the only country I know of in which low-income voters are impressed by their leaders openly working in favour of the wealthy is the US, where people have bought into the myth of the 'American Dream' and honestly believe that tax cuts for millionaires can direct benefit themselves because they too will soon be millionaires if they just work hard enough.  To the best of my knowledge, there is no similar phenomenon in Scotland.  People in deprived parts of the East End of Glasgow or wherever are more likely to hear Offord's boasts, and his claims to be worried about losing young Scots to Dubai (!), and think "this guy is from another planet, he doesn't understand us, he can't speak for us".

There might be some logic to the idea that Offord is trying to expand Reform's support base by appealing to wealthy voters too, and it's true that fascist movements have in the past taken power with a coalition of support that combines both big business and the working-class.  But in this case I'm not sure how Offord can appeal to Thatcherites without simultaneously alienating the low-income voters he needs to hang on to.  If there is a way of pulling the trick off, I doubt if he's going the right way about it.

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My latest constituency profile for The National is Rutherglen & Cambuslang.

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