Nigel farage

There is today only one united French political party, and it is the National Front. The FN has been profiting from a split French right, a hopeless French left and from the general disenchantment with the political class. It is tempting then to compare, as Agnes Poirier did in the Times, the FN’s recent success with that of Ukip in Britain. Tempting, but wrong. The National Front is 30 years older than Ukip, and a very different beast. It supports protectionist policies, while Ukip promotes a more libertarian and democratic approach. The FN’s ‘progressive tax’ – a rising income tax – clearly contrasts with the flat tax advocated by Ukip. Some

The Tory party has been at peace with itself this week. Eurosceptic backbenchers have given Nigel Farage a verbal kicking on the fringe, Cabinet ministers have stuck resolutely to the ‘hard- working’ conference script, and even Boris Johnson has behaved himself. Gay marriage, which so divided the leadership from the grassroots, has barely been mentioned, and you’d never know that just a month ago David Cameron lost a Commons vote on Syria. The new harmonious mood has come about in part because the leadership has moved towards the rest of the party. Tory conference was once decorated with posters extolling the benefits of ‘the big society’. Now, there is a

Normally you might lump Nigel Farage and Bill Cash together on the political spectrum. But today there wasn’t much love lost between them, judging by their almighty clash at a Bruges Group fringe today. The Ukip leader aimed both barrels at Cash, who had asked Farage not to fight Tories in marginal seats: ‘I have to say Bill, and I hate to say this, but listening to you this afternoon I’ve realised that you are a hopelessly, out of date tribal politician who has not recognised that British politics has fundamentally changed. ‘To ask me, to support a party lead by Mr Cameron, in order we can get back our

I was at a funeral on Friday and so late catching-up with the latest entertainment provided by UKIP. But, gosh, thank heavens for Godfrey Bloom. Not just because he and his ilk have injected some welcome craziness into British politics – the circus always needs new clowns – but because by doing so they have reminded us of the stakes involved. Bloom – last heard decrying aid squandered on feckless Bongo Bongo Land – one-upped himself with his talk of sluts who fail to clean their kitchens properly. Sure, there was something refreshing about hearing Nigel Farage admit all this amounted to a disaster for UKIP but the bigger point is that

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

You know what the real problem with Nigel Farage is? It’s not his politics, for they are a matter of personal taste. No, it’s something more objective. His name. And not that improbable surname, either, the one that makes him sound like a Bond villain. It’s the Nigel. There’s a passage in Julian Barnes’s novel Talking It Over which summarises the problem nicely. One of the characters, Oliver, used to be called Nigel until he changed his name by deed poll. ‘You can’t go through the whole of your life being called Nigel, can you?’ he explains. ‘You can’t even go through a whole book being called Nigel. Some names

The Conservative party may have lost its summer momentum, but at least it isn’t worrying about Ukip at the moment. Former spin chief Andy Coulson is doing some worrying in this month’s GQ on the Tory party’s behalf, warning that the party needs an even stronger message on Europe to counter the threat of Nigel Farage’s party. But some of his advice will hearten CCHQ, as spinners and researchers are already ahead of Coulson. The article says: ‘UKIP must be taken seriously so as to expose just how empty-headed it really is. Every utterance must be recorded and analysed, every speech given proper attention by some of the bigger, more

There is a glaring omission from the shortlist of Ukip’s approved MEP candidates. Neil Hamilton, the self-proclaimed ‘writer, actor, broadcaster and entertainer’, has had his application rejected, despite speculation that he would top the bill. But this is not the end for Hamilton. Mr Steerpike made some enquiries and received this enigmatic reply: ‘Although he had applied to be considered as a UKIP candidate for the European Parliament, he has now been asked by Nigel Farage take on different leading role for the party, the details of which will be announced shortly.’ We wait with baited breath. Meanwhile, former shock-jock Jon Gaunt and The Spectator’s very own James Delingpole didn’t

First the white vans, now the spot checks – Nigel Farage is being given fresh voice by the Home Office’s attempts to tackle illegal immigration. He has said of the spot checks: ‘Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes of course we want to deal with illegal immigration but what’s the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they are still flooding in at Dover and the other nearly 100 ports in this country. I’m astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised…before long they will be live video-streaming of these arrests.

UKIP is up in arms about the new working peers (or at least it’s pretending to be). The Greens get a peer and the Lib Dems get many peers; but UKIP gets none, despite its healthy polling. There are very good reasons for this. The Greens and the Lib Dems are powers in certain parts of the land, while UKIP only has what Nigel Farage recently described as ‘clusters’ of councillors here and there. In other words, the Lib Dems and Greens wield some legislative power; UKIP doesn’t. The upper house ought to reflect that. But, these facts suit UKIP. The party’s shtick is that it is an insurgency of outsiders

Boris Johnson’s Telegraph columns are often works of mischief, but today’s is a carefully constructed piece of politics. His subject is immigration – about which the political nation has been warring over the weekend. Boris is, famously, pro-immigration – as one would have to be to win elections in London, irrespective of whether one was a Conservative. And his attitude to illegal immigration is pragmatic: illegals need to be brought into the fold or deported. Boris treads this line again today. First, he writes a paean to the runner Mo Farah – who personifies a ‘sermon as to what immigrants can achieve if they work hard’. Then he says that illegal immigrants

The old boys of Dulwich College have closed ranks, if their online presence is anything to go by. I hear that super-sleuth Michael Crick has been digging into the past of Ukip leader Nigel Farage. The pinstriped soak’s old girlfriends and early career in the city are of interest to Crick, but his main focus is Farage’s school days. Channel Four’s top detective has found the College’s Friends Reunited page, and sneakily posted: ‘Does anyone have interesting memories of Nigel Farage? He was at Dulwich College from 1974-82?’ Six weeks on, there have been no responses.  

Tonight, the ‘cross-party’ Better Together referendum campaign will have their London launch. At an event in the heart of Westminster the begging bowl will go round, and a rallying call to protect the union will go up. But who will be missing? Their heart might be set on a very different referendum, but emails seen by Coffee House show that Ukip are being officially excluded from campaigning to preserve the United Kingdom in 2014. Correspondence between the Better Together campaign and Ukip Scotland reveals that, despite protestations from the latter, the ‘board of directors’ at Better Together are only officially interested in working with the ‘Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Liberal

Ukip has been unusually quiet in its response to the Woolwich killing last week. The only thing we’ve heard is a tactful statement on the day from Nigel Farage, slamming the incident and calling for calm. Not a peep more, and certainly no outlandish statements about tackling the ‘cancer’ of Islam. The muted response is a clear sign Ukip is working hard at its message discipline. The party still has one significant issue to overcome — the views of some of its members. In their response to the Woolwich incident, it appears Ukip wanted to avoid a rerun of the difficult stories they encountered at the local elections. Coffee House