In May, Reform MP Danny Kruger unveiled a substantial body of work “setting out Reform’s plans for the centre of government, shaped by the research of the Preparation for Government team.” His 5,000-word article went into significant detail about the structural changes his party says it would make to Whitehall and the machinery of government. It was the sort of exercise designed to rebut critics who argued that Nigel Farage’s party had failed to move beyond permanent protest mode.

It was a notable moment in the party’s development, and it appeared at the time that the summer might give Reform room to talk more seriously about policy development.

Instead, after a by-election defeat, awkward questions about cash and donors, and a new prime minister enjoying a poll bounce, Reform’s summer has been consumed by the absurd spectacle of Farage campaigning against a comedian dressed as a bin. The party’s by-election effort is a familiar retreat into its comfort zone of stunts, grievances and noise, which matters because it delays the slow work of turning a protest movement into something that can persuade voters it is ready for government.

Burnham’s summer of great content and easy money

While Reform spends the summer by the seaside in Clacton, Andy Burnham has been striding across the country — one leg in Manchester, the other in London — producing viral social media content and announcing policies without the irritation of parliamentary scrutiny or the distraction of Westminster politics. He has given himself the best possible runway into party conference season, where he is likely to be hailed as a hero by party members and activists and may well be in command of an even larger poll lead over Reform.

It has to be said that while Farage appears to have shot himself in the foot, Burnham has dealt himself a strong hand and is playing it well. At least, that is the story for the next six or eight weeks, but the honeymoon will not last. Conference season tends to reward momentum, but it also puts claims, personalities and internal tensions under a brighter light.

Farage will return to parliament. The realities of Westminster politics will take the edge off Burnham’s summer of great content and easy money, and he will soon face several fights: with his own MPs, who oppose any spending cuts; with a bond market sceptical that his sums add up; and with a Tory leader in Kemi Badenoch, who made mincemeat out of Burnham’s predecessor at the weekly bout of Prime Minister’s Questions and who is spending her summer planning how to tackle the new Labour leader. That combination means the politics that have been played out online and on the campaign trail will have to survive contact with the practical constraints of party management, fiscal credibility and parliamentary combat.

They say August is the silly season in news, and while that is certainly true in Clacton, things will get serious again by September.