Ukip's logo is quite successful – in communicating a spirit of gung-ho crapness

Now that the conference season is over, we can compare not just the party policies, but their logos too. Last week’s Tory conference taught us the patriotic adaptation of their tree — now draped in the Union Flag — doesn’t work any better than the original green-tree symbol. The old symbol demonstrated Conservative values as imagined by the Innocent smoothie design team. It said ‘Tradition’. It said ‘the Environment’. It said, ‘Look what I can do with my crayons, Mummy.’

Stephen Bayley, design expert and Spectator colleague, was one of the hapless advisers tasked with picking the old logo. ‘Not so great,’ he told me, ‘but you should have seen the alternatives.’ The Union Flag tree was in part the brainchild of Andy Coulson, who felt the British flag should be involved somehow. But it looks like a sop to the disillusioned Tory right, meeting the improbable brief of being both patronising and scary.