Burnham and Badenoch revive red versus blue politics as Reform land £36m mega donation

Burnham and Badenoch revive red versus blue politics as Reform land 'gobsmacking' donations

Look closely at the posters, placards and online posts. Your eyes aren't deceiving you if Labour's red seems a little deeper and the Conservatives' blue a little truer.

For the avoidance of doubt, the scale of that initial £36m gift to Nigel Farage's party alone is like something from a different political universe.

That was even before another Reform donor pledged to match that astonishing sum with another £36m, saying the first donation had provoked his "competitive spirit".

A member of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's top team tells me, "normal jogging is reasserting itself", hopeful they're at the start of a more straightforward, routine moment in politics after years of craziness, with smaller parties vying to shove the traditional tribes out of the way.

One senior conservative said: "It was a real line in the sand, we could never have imagined Sir Keir Starmer saying that."

But there is a positive atmosphere in No 10 too, one source telling me that the face-offs between Badenoch and Burnham have "breathed new life into the Labour versus Tory dynamic".

Well, on the security spat, Burnham's backers are adamant he does want to cut welfare spending, and find more money for defence. How does that stack up with his words this week?

Crucially, they reckon while cutting welfare might appeal to some voters, "once you dig into the 'who' and the 'how' of doing that, public support wavers, and when Kemi talks about housing benefit cuts, public opinion goes all over the shop".

He'll give a grabby-sounding view before the government has found a solution to a problem, stake part of his reputation on it, and make the case, hoping it will work out.

But when politics is fundamentally a contest, how can both the traditional political tribes be buoyant?

It's that Burnham is making arguments that are more appealing to Labour's psychology – build council houses, take stronger action against the worst excesses of the Israeli government, stand up for those who need to rely on benefits from the state.