Jeremy Kyle on the mic, Jenrick's Wolverhampton name-check and a T-shirt cannon sendoff: We went to see Nigel Farage rouse the Reform troops in Birmingham
Mark Andrews gets a few surprises during Nigel Farage's keynote speech in Birmingham
One thing's for certain: we live in a fast-moving political climate.
Even so, when I started work on Monday morning I did not expect to find myself sitting on Reform UK's frontbench by mid-afternoon.
Turned out the security man had misdirected me, and instead of taking my place in the relative anonymity of the media scrum, I accidentally found myself sitting in a seat reserved for Lee Anderson. Or was it Robert Jenrick? Not sure, all seemed a bit of a blur.
Fortunately one of the Reform UK top brass spotted the error and redirected me before I ended up running the Foreign Office or something. But this was just the start of an afternoon which was going to take a lot of unexpected turns.
For example, when I arrived at Reform's winter conference at the NEC, I never expected to find myself watching Jeremy Kyle questioning Richard Tice about his impending wedding arrangements. It was one of those afternoons when you just have to go with flow and see where it takes you.
By this time the media area was looking pretty packed, so I took a seat behind the stage next to a middle-aged blonde lady sporting a striking array of tattoos. A couple of older men were sat the other side of me, politely muttering in agreement as Kyle fronted the mother of all warm-up acts. Building up the tension to the "Main Man" as Kyle repeatedly referred to him, the former BRMB DJ invited each of the party's eight MPs to join him on a chat show-style set, where they were invited to explain the story that had led to them preparing the crowd for Nigel Farage's great set-piece address.
