The real sign of a professional Ukip

Nigel Farage hasn’t just been enjoying today, he’s been using it as a springboard for a professional, grown-up Ukip. He told a press conference in London that his party would challenge Ed Miliband’s focus on the cost-of-living crisis and do so in the Labour leader’s own town. He also said the party had been doing ‘substantial work on the NHS’.

Even though he’s had a torrid few weeks of scrutiny on every reach of his party and his own views, you can’t fault Nigel Farage for continuing to plug away at trying to make his party grow up. But while more prominent policies than just Europe are an important part of growing up, the real sign that Ukip is a ‘professional’ party will come when it makes its first unpopular pledge – what Nick Clegg would describe as a ‘difficult decision’. Of course, Farage knows that at the moment voters aren’t particularly bothered by policy detail when they turn to Ukip.