Nigel farage

Is Nigel Farage’s magic disappearing? On Question Time last night (his 15th appearance in four years) the Ukip leader was taken to task by an audience member who asked him to 'stop scaremongering the majority of people' — followed by the kind of rousing cheer that Farage himself used to draw. The Tory defence minister (and former TV anchor) Anna Soubry finished off the attack with an impassioned defence of immigration, in language that Farage usually uses to attack it. This left him flummoxed. Here’s what she had to say: 'You do not talk facts, you talk prejudice. You scaremonger, you put fear in people's hearts. Times are tough, we know that.

Ed Miliband stole the show at this year's Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards. The Labour leader, who won a new prize called Political Speech of the Year (for the energy freeze pledge, which ‘transformed his fortunes’), took the chance to read out a Sunday Sport story which accused his ‘Belgian communist’ father of ‘killing a cat’ when cycling through the British countryside during the war. Ed charmed the crowd by being funny, good on camera and, you know, normal. Home Secretary Theresa May, who took the Politician of the Year award, despite her recent burka-related difficulties, was a hoot.

HS2 was given an emphatic vote of no confidence at The Specator’s debate last night, where Matthew Parris and Nigel Farage led their respective teams into battle. This was the debate that Westminster will not have (all parties are officially agreed on the project) which is all the better for us. Farage claimed he loves infrastructure projects in general but hates HS2 as it’s a Westminster vanity project. Farage attempted to marry Ukip's (inconsistent) support for high speed rail with his ardent opposition to HS2: 'There are so many things we could do. And yes, let's look at the Great Central railway project…we are not luddites, we are not backwards. I want Crossrail, I want to build some new motorways.

The government’s approach to the HS2 debate has changed. Up until recently, government sources would wave away the suggestion that Labour might withdraw its support for the project. They’d point to Andrew Adonis and his influence on Ed Miliband to explain why Ed Balls’s doubts about it didn’t matter that much. But this has now changed. They’ve now decided, in the words of one Number 10 figure, that they need to ‘smoke Labour out on the issue’. Over the next few weeks, we’ll see the Tories trying to put more and more pressure on Labour to say whether or not they’ll back it. Number 10 is acutely aware that, at the moment, Labour’s ambiguous position is simply emboldening opponents of the project, including many Tory MPs.

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.

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 simple Conservative message: ‘Welfare Capped: Immigration Down: Crime down’.

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 national independence. You've got to do rather better than that.

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 it should concentrate Tory minds. Far too many Tories seem to think UKIP might be rascals but rascals-with-their-heart-in-the-right-place.

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.

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 simply aren’t appropriate after a while.’ How true.

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 ambitious young brains in CCHQ, every tweet matched where appropriate by a sensible question applying targeted pressure to UKIP policy.

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.

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. I don’t like it. It really is not the way we’ve ever behaved or operated as a country.