If Reform UK can’t keep its own election material compliant, you don’t hand it power and hope it learns accountability later. Right, so Reform UK has just pushed a “concerned neighbour” letter through doors in Gorton and Denton, signed off as if it’s a local pensioner doing the decent thing, and now their whole campaign is being forced to answer a question it cannot dodge: who exactly was behind it, and why did the version voters received not carry the legally required imprint that tells you who paid for it and who printed it. Well Reform’s response has been classic “it’s not our fault”, that it is basically a case of “the proofs were fine, blame the printer”, which is a lovely excuse right up until you remember someone still bundled these up, someone still delivered them, and nobody is meant to notice the missing accountability line on the paper in their hand. Well Greater Manchester Police is now in the mix, and now that has happened, the campaign stops being about slogans and starts being about responsibility, because elections are one area where the law is supposed to stop parties pretending they’re just your neighbour having a chat. So in a minute I’m going to walk through what was sent, what Reform says happened, what the rules actually demand, and why this little “admin error” story is a trap of their own making, because if they can’t put their name on a letter they want you to trust, they’ve got no business asking you to trust them with anything else. Right, so Reform UK has not been caught in some abstract Westminster drama here, it has been caught in a basic, doorstep, nuts-and-bolts problem: campaign material has been delivered to voters in Gorton and Denton that looks like a private letter from a local pensioner, but it sits inside an election campaign machine, and the thing that tells the public who is responsible for it has not appeared on the version that went through letterboxes. The letter presents itself as a neighbourly intervention, “forgive me for writing”, that sort of thing, and it pushes a very specific vote choice in a very specific contest on a very specific date, and it names Reform UK’s candidate, Matthew Goodwin.