Paul Nuttall interview: I don’t want to lead Ukip

Ukip’s autumn conference made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It was supposed to be a showcase of how grown up the party is these days, but it ended up being about Godfrey Bloom calling women ‘sluts’ and hitting a journalist. In the conference hall, Nigel Farage bounded onto the stage to a strange remix of 1990s dance music and his famous ‘who are you’ diatribe at Herman van Rompuy.

But while Bloom stole the headlines and Farage delivered his usual routine, the most impressive performance of the day came from Paul Nuttall MEP, the party’s deputy leader. Nuttall is quite a different Ukipper to his boss. He’s a bald Liverpuddlian who sees his main mission as attracting Labour voters to the party. He told the conference that Ukip was the ‘official opposition’ in the North of England. The party has been trying to prove this point in the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election – and we’ll see how much of an impact the party has made when the result is announced in the small hours of tomorrow morning.