The Right loses as Ukip wins

In Brighton in 1996, an insurgent party held its first and as far as I can see only conference. Liberal journalists gazed on the gaudy spectacle with wonder and disdain. We could see that he Referendum Party was a sign of the coming age of the super-rich. It was created by Sir James Goldsmith, a corporate raider who inspired the English tycoon Sir Larry Wildman, in Wall Street, and, you may not be surprised to hear, was a vain and bombastic censor to boot. (He persecuted Private Eye in the courts for not treating him with the deference a mighty plutocrat deserved.)

Goldsmith spent most of his time in Mexico and France. During one of his visits to Britain he found the time spend some £20 million on funding anti-EU candidates in every constituency. What a crew his supporters were. To us they represented everything that was wrong with the old Britain we thought New Labour would sweep away: Andrew Roberts, Sir Charles Powell (pronounced “pugh-ell” if you please) Lord McAlpine, Alan Walters, Freddie Forsyth, John Aspinall and, inevitably, Taki, stood alongside women who slept with their best friends’ husbands and men who were best friends with Lord Lucan.