Ukip conference: Paul Nuttall, a very different Ukipper, appeals to the Labour vote

Even if Nigel Farage’s speech was, as Fraser blogged earlier, a wasted opportunity for the Ukip leader to impress the voters that he really needs to attract, it still pleased the members in the hall. In fact, there was more of an excited, energetic atmosphere at this conference than at any party political conference I’ve ever attended.

When I interviewed Nadine Dorries for the magazine earlier this year, she recalled the dying Tory government in 1997, saying that ‘[Voters] hated us because the Labour party promise, the vision, the song “Things Can Only Get Better” had a purchase on people’s imagination, and in their hearts that I see being replicated by Ukip today.’ You can see that start-up excitement in the delegates thronging around Westminster Central Hall today. And really, the excitement was best embodied not in Farage’s speech, but in the one that came before, from Paul Nuttall.