Start with the indisputable facts: two billionaires have each given Reform UK £36m. This double donation is more than was given to all political parties over the whole of last year. Each handed over four times the single previous biggest gift to a British political party by any living person – and that came from one of this pair last year, who donated £9m to the same political party.

This same man also gave another £5m to its leader Nigel Farage as a personal gift, supposedly as reward for inflicting Brexit on our nation. And both of this very rich pair of men made fortunes in the Wild West world of cryptocurrency trading while living abroad.

These are huge and potentially transformative sums for British politics,…