Nigel farage

Nigel Farage’s gallivanting around in America has resulted in a casualty. Mr Steerpike hears that Raheem Kassam, senior adviser to Farage, missed the flight back home last night. Farage's right-hand man therefore won’t make it back in time for the leader's big speech in Margate this afternoon. As the founding editor of Brietbart London, Kassam was key in arranging the speaking slot at CPAC, a conference that just happens to be sponsored by Breitbart. With Farage due on stage in just a few hours, the timing of the trip to Maryland has been questioned by several kippers — especially after the Ukip leader spoke to a nearly half empty room.

After Inside the Commons drew to a close last night, a new row involving the House of Commons documentary developed. Reports have emerged claiming that in unused footage an MP was recorded calling Ed Miliband a 'sanctimonious c-nt'. Anna Soubry has taken the hard line approach of denying she said any such thing, threatening legal action on anyone who wishes to accuse her. The Tory MP says any footage claiming to show this will prove that she said the word 'rubbish' as opposed to a profanity. While Mr S would never doubt an MP's word, Steerpike couldn't help but think back to the time the defence minister caused offence with her choice of language on The Andrew Marr Show.

Is Douglas Carswell happily at home in Ukip? The Clacton MP’s latest policy intervention, this time on immigration, adds to the sense that his beliefs differ somewhat from his party and its leader. His op-ed in the Times today for example stated that Enoch Powell was wrong about the dangers of immigration: ‘Immigration has not been without its challenges. Yet it has been, overwhelmingly, a story of success. Britain today is more at ease with the multi-ethnic society that we have become than once seemed imaginable — and not just to Enoch Powell. Like many before and since, Powell underestimated the ability of a free society to adapt.

What would happen if Britain left the EU later this year? According to Channel 4, the country would descend into riots and anarchy. Last night’s one-off drama Ukip: The First 100 Days offered a dystopian vision (complete with Beethoven's 7th symphony) of the implausible situation where Ukip is victorious in May’s election. A landslide victory makes Nigel Farage the new Prime Minister and Neil Hamilton deputy, never mind the fact that Hamilton hasn't even been selected as a Ukip candidate yet. The programme was labelled a satire on Ukip and the rise of right-wing populist politics. Priyanga Burford plays Deepa Kaur, a rising star and the party's only Asian MP who struggles with the government's hardline immigration stance.

Nigel Farage wrote in the Spectator of his struggle to complete Dry January, while Jean-Claude Juncker is reported to be partial to a glass of cognac to kick start the day. So it came as little surprise to Mr Steerpike that the leader of Ukip named the President of the European Commission as his preferred drinking partner. Asked by Jim Mellon of Master Investor who out of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Jean-Claude Juncker, Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush, he would most like to go for a pint with, Farage opted for Juncker. 'Oh Juncker every time, top man . I don’t agree with him politically, but I tell you something, he’s got a terrific sense of humour, he’s a real human being – very few people in politics are.

Voting Ukip is a state of mind, according to Nigel Farage. At his first major speech of 2015, and the campaign, in Canvey Island, Essex, Farage set out his stall for the election with the slogan ‘Believe in Britain’ — following on from his article in today's Telegraph. He hit out at the ‘endlessly negative’ and ‘boring’ campaigns from the other political parties and promised to do things differently — especially now that he believes Labour and the Conservatives live in ‘fear’ of Ukip.

Entering ‘Politicians are…’ into the Google search bar brings predictable results. Well, mostly. In amongst ‘liars’, ‘scum’ and ‘all the same’, Google suggests ‘lizards’: David Icke’s reptilian illuminati are still in the spotlight. Number five on the list is predictable: politicians are ‘out of touch’. Minding the gap has been central to British politics for years. Politicians, the line goes, are out of touch with reality, and, to make things worse, spend their whole time in Westminster, only visiting their constituencies to try to hang onto the seat. Yet some canny MPs are beginning to change this impression. This is the first general election where social media will be truly pervasive.

Ukip’s foray into animal rights campaigning is going well. After the Jewish Chronicle pointed out that Nigel Farage boasted to them that he had done a great deal of work to protect shechita, the party’s agricultural spokesman Stuart Agnew told the paper: ‘This isn’t aimed at you – it’s aimed elsewhere – it’s aimed at others. ‘You’ve been caught in the crossfire; collateral damage. You know what I mean.’ If you didn’t know what Ukip meant when it announced it would oppose non-stun slaughter of animals, then at least you know now. This isn't so much a dog whistle as a foghorn. Who else could Agnew possibly mean when referring to religious groups affected by the party's new policy? UPDATE, 5.

Who wants to work with who after the General Election? It’s a question that pundits like to chew over, partly because few politicians can afford to rule anything out with the polls suggesting quite such a jumbly outcome in May. But today two parties effectively ruled out a coalition with one another, even though they’re ideologically close. Grant Shapps was first, telling his press conference this morning that ‘I can rule out… we are not going to do pacts and deals with Ukip’. This afternoon, Ukip has released this statement: ‘UKIP are not promising pacts with anyone. For us politics is about getting something done, not about stitching up deals to get jobs for the boys. We think about you - not us.

Nigel Farage's secret is out. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, the leader of Ukip let slip that he once voted for the Green Party. 'I voted Green in 1989 in the European elections,' Farage admits. While he fails to give any further explanation of why he supported a party that appears to be at loggerheads with his own views, Farage does go on to reveal the most insulting names he has been called. 'I was called a football hooligan once in public and I didn’t like that. I am many things but a hooligan I am not. I have been called everything this year, absolutely everything, racist, xenophobe – there’s a list as long as your arm,' he says.

First Cameron, then Miliband - now it was Nigel Farage's turn to be granted the status of a January interview on the Marr sofa. And there was plenty to discuss: the Sunday Times’ splashes on the story  that a party official joked that Ukip represents ‘hundreds of thousands of bigots all over Britain’, the Sunday Mirror’s splash on the same official saying the NHS is a waste of money — plus the Sunday Telegraph’s news of MEP Amjad Bashir’s defection to the Tories, and carries an interview with him saying the Tories (with their referendum pledge) are the true flag bearers of Euroscepticism.

When Simon Danczuk met Nigel Farage for a pint in December, the Labour MP was accused of plotting a defection to Ukip. While Danczuk denied this at the time, his wife Karen appears to be warming to the idea herself. Karen, who announced that she will stand down as a Labour Councillor from her Kingsway ward, got better acquainted with Ukip members at a recent debate on the NHS. Quick photo with @DanJukes17 & @jackduffin UKIPs finest. KD pic.twitter.com/GLlfwbBHy9 — Cllr Karen Danczuk (@KarenDanczuk) January 19, 2015 Now, Mr S hears rumours that a photo of the selfie queen actually wearing a Ukip badge is currently doing the rounds for the right bidder. If published, it wouldn't be the first time a photograph has got Karen into hot water.

One  reason that Ukip seems rather quiet at the moment is that it doesn’t have very much policy to talk about. And one reason for that is that there’s a row going on over the slow progress of the party’s manifesto. The Times today says Ukip has sacked Tim Aker from writing the manifesto - as Seb pointed out recently, he did have rather a lot to do, what with being a Ukip councillor, fighting for the party in a marginal seat and writing the manifesto - because he was running behind deadline. But one thing we can be certain of is that Ukip’s manifesto, when it does come out, will play super-safe on the NHS.