Almost ten years after he died at 53, the singer George Michael remains a much-loved figure to millions. But to Lord (Malcolm) Offord, chairman of Reform UK in Scotland, the pop legend and his surviving partner Fadi Fawaz were fair game for bigotry.
Back in 2018, the peer cracked an unprintably crude and homophobic joke at the couple's expense at a Burns Night dinner - and the resurfacing of the footage last week drew explosive condemnation.
A joke's a joke, of course - and the row will blow over. After all, a fascinating poll last month revealed that Reform are by far the most popular party among 'gay and bisexual' British men, with 25 per cent of them intending to vote for Nigel Farage - 6 per cent ahead of the Greens and 7 per cent more than Labour. As Darren Grimes, a prominent Reform councillor, quipped: 'Reform UK has more gays in it than Heaven nightclub.'
The striking polling - partly explained, I understand, by the concern many gay people feel at the rise of militant Islamist sectarianism in Britain - offers a useful glimpse into the unlikely coalition Farage is trying to assemble as he prepares for next month's critical local elections.
And on that score, I'm told, there is mounting nervousness within the ranks. One senior figure admits to me there are 'jitters' inside Reform's offices in Millbank Tower (New Labour's former riverside bastion) ahead of the May 7 ballot.
After winning 15 per cent of the vote in the 2024 General Election, Reform soared to 35 per cent in the polls as recently as last September - a mighty 15-point lead over Labour.
Farage was on course to seize 343 seats at the next General Election, comfortably above the 326 he needs for an overall majority. After defections, he now boasts eight MPs.
But since November, the party's support has been sinking. Reform are averaging 26 per cent in the polls, with one YouGov survey last week putting them on just 23 per cent.
Even at 26 per cent, they would be dozens of seats short of a majority, likely requiring a coalition with the hated Tories.
Anxiety over the upcoming elections is exacerbated by mounting problems with candidates. On Thursday, Farage sacked his new housing spokesman, Tory defector Simon Dudley, after Dudley said the 2017 Grenfell fire, which killed 72 people, was a 'tragedy' but then added carelessly: 'Everyone dies in the end.' He was making a point about excessive health-and-safety legislation - but the crass remark was a gift to Reform's critics.
Last month, three Reform candidates withdrew from the Welsh Senedd elections, in which the party hopes to end 100 years of Labour hegemony. Eight Scottish candidates have gone the same way.
Resigning Welsh councillor Owain Clatworthy said: 'A lack of discipline and serious concerns around candidate selection have made it clear to me that Reform UK is no longer operating in a way that reflects the standards the public deserve.'
Others agree with him. On the day Reform launched their local-election campaign last week with a pyrotechnical rally, a photograph emerged of a Welsh candidate apparently performing a Nazi salute.
To take a final example, last month, the mayoral candidate for Hampshire and Solent, Chris Parry, was suspended after he disgracefully described members of a Jewish charity ambulance service that had been the victim of an arson attack as like 'Islamists on horseback'.
These episodes neatly illustrate the bind Farage finds himself in. He has presented himself and his party as outsiders breaking down a stale Westminster establishment. But the well of talent from which he can recruit the mavericks he needs to take on what he calls the Tory-Labour 'uniparty' is hardly bottomless.
As a result, he has increasingly resorted to hiring Tory defectors, such as former home secretary Suella Braverman and ex-chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. Both served in Boris Johnson's Cabinet (anathema to the Reform membership given the extraordinary surge in net migration that took place under that administration). In plain terms, it is hard for Farage to claim Reform mark a break from the Tories when so many ex-Tories swell his ranks.
After Zahawi's appointment, about 1,000 Reform members resigned in protest, and Farage promised a major Labour defection. The whispers at Westminster were that this would be the free-spirited ex-Blairite minister Baroness (Kate) Hoey, now an independent. But she has denied ever planning to join Reform.
Last month, Farage unveiled former London Labour council leader Sir Robin Wales as his latest defection - not exactly the major political figure the country was promised. As for the 'top business leaders' that Farage last summer told the Financial Times were set to join his shadow cabinet, there has been little sign.
Now he faces a new and growing threat to his right flank. In February, ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe established a party called Restore Britain after Farage kicked him out when he criticised his leader's 'messianic' management style to me in these pages.
This week, Lowe reported that Restore, after less than two months, was already Britain's fourth-largest party, with 123,000 members - surpassing the Tories on 113,000, and more than double Lib Dems membership. (The Greens, Labour and Reform all have at least 200,000 members.)
The ex-investment banker, who donates his MP's salary to charity, tells me: 'Our aim is clear - to win the next General Election.'
That may be ambitious - but Lowe's insurgent movement could undoubtedly bleed significant support from Reform. For years, British people on the Right who were disappointed with the Tory Party's liberal drift under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak - from rising taxation to Net Zero legislation and military disarmament - were forced to default to Farage.
Now, judging by Restore's membership figures, some believe they may have a new option in a party pledging the mass deportation of every illegal migrant; stripping benefits from healthy Britons who refuse to work as well as from non-British nationals; abolishing inheritance tax; even proposing a referendum on the death penalty.
Added to which, Reform can increasingly be judged on their performance - which has not always been stellar. Having taken control of ten councils last May, the party now has to run them. In Worcestershire, where Reform have minority control, councillors have approved a 9 per cent council-tax increase. A frustrated Farage said the town hall was 'virtually bankrupt' when Reform captured it from the Conservatives; but Adam Kent, leader of the local Tory group, said: 'If Reform can't run Worcestershire, how can they run Britain?'
With all that said, Reform may yet triumph in the May elections. Voters appear heartily fed up with Labour; the Tories (for all Kemi Badenoch's improved recent performances) are flat at best in the polls; Restore are not yet ready to field candidates; and the far-Left Greens, while ascendant, are mostly stealing support from Labour and the Lib Dems.
Farage, I'm told, is aiming to win at least 1,000 council seats across England, with targets including Sunderland and South Tyneside, Norfolk, Suffolk and the outer London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Havering and Barking and Dagenham. The party is also polling well in Scotland.
A senior Reform figure tells me: 'Considering where we were at the General Election when we won five MPs, the results in May will be extraordinary. However, expectations have been set too high that we were going to win a landslide. We haven't controlled the messaging.' The source said the war in Iran was another electoral drag: 'Nigel is friends with Trump who started the war.'
No one should deny Farage's achievements. From a standing start he has built Reform into a political force now topping the national polls, and he remains as driven and energetic as ever. But, equally, it has been hard for him to escape that caustic description by ex-Tory adviser Dominic Cummings: that Reform boil down to 'Farage plus iPhone'.
In that context, May 7 will be a seismic test - and a forerunner of the next General Election due in 2029, and possibly sooner if a financial crisis causes Labour to implode. Farage, in short, may not have long to turn his 'one-man band' into an orchestra.
The votes of gay and bisexual men, however welcome, will not be enough to sweep him to power.