Could it be Rupert Lowe v Matt Goodwin at the next general election?

It’s been a chastening couple of months for Matt Goodwin, the former academic turned hard right rabbler-rouser.

First, he conspired to lose a Gorton and Denton by-election for Reform the party pretty much threw the kitchen sink at, despite its protestations he was “coming home to Manchester” (the GB News presenter was born and bred in St Albans, Hertfordshire),

Then his new book, Suicide of a Nation, was roundly mocked for its glaring errors, lack of citations and blatant reliance on AI – only for him to invite a detractor to a contest him on the matter on GB News in a debate which he was so roundly bested that even his own colleagues laughed at him on air the following day.

And it that wasn’t enough he travelled to Hungary to give a talk the day after the country’s general election, a day he presumably thought he’d be celebrating another Victor Orbán win – except his hero had conspired to lose by a landslide.

But just as Goodwin gets knocked down, so he gets up again – and an enticing rumour is that he could fight Great Yarmouth, currently held by too-wacky-even-for-Reform Rupert Lowe, at the next general election.

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“I understand from sources close to Reform UK that senior party bigwigs are planning to parachute in Matthew Goodwin to fight Rupert Lowe in Great Yarmouth at the next election,” wrote LBC presenter and son of East Anglia Iain Dale on X on Monday. “That would be quite the spectacle to watch. Knowing Great Yarmouth well, I have to say I am not wholly convinced Goodwin would go down well there. Bring out the popcorn!”.

It would certainly prove to be an unedifying fight as Lowe, a former Reform MP who astonishingly managed to fall out with Nigel Farage, has managed to find a political space even further to the right than Goodwin’s Reform. His Restore Britain party – essentially a one-man show which is only standing a handful of council candidates next month, all in Lowe’s constituency – has a hardline policy of mass deportation of even British citizens, something even Farage hasn’t advocated.

More esoterically, its policies include allowing anyone to kill burglars, abolishing HR departments in private firms, banning the trans pride flag, giving parents “the right to take their children out of school for a limited number of days per year without getting fined” and outlawing halal and kosher food as “in Britain, we treat our animals with care” (Lowe recently had his labrador shot dead by his gamekeeper).

Alas for those itching to see how Goodwin, in the manner of peripatetic former footballer Robbie Keane, would declare representing Great Yarmouth his “childhood dream”, he has already poured cold water on the idea.

“I am fully committed to Reform and have no doubt Reform will win Great Yarmouth at the next general election, along with a parliamentary majority,” wrote the great soothsayer on X. “But I will not be the candidate. I suggest Iain Dale gets himself some better sources.” Like ChatGPT, Matt?