Fraser Nelson

How seriously should we take Nigel Farage? He’s an exceptional politician but when UKIP did so well at Eastleigh I suspected they may have peaked. I went along to test my theory at a UKIP rally in Worcester last week, expecting to find a few hardline Eurosceptics huddled together in a room and I wondered how the audience would compare with that of the old BNP rallies. What I found was quite different: it was mobbed, Farage spoke very well – speaking about housing, unemployment, school places – essentially, UKIP is trying to reposition as a patriotic party of the working class. I write about this in my Telegraph column today. Here are my main points. The Worcester rally’s popularity... My plan was to sneak in half an hour early for the 7pm rally, but by 6.

In his Mail on Sunday column today, James Forsyth gives a fascinating insight into what both main parties are thinking as we move from welfare wars into local election campaign mode. His piece is, as usual, full of gems - but one in particular caught my eye. Several of those closest to [Ed Miliband] tried to persuade him to use the term ‘benefit cheat’ in a speech soon after he became leader. They believed that Miliband, the son of an academic, needed to speak in the way that voters do. But Miliband refused. He’s determined not to take the tactical approach to the issue beloved by the triangulators of New Labour. Instead, he wants to position himself as a ‘one nation’ politician capable of uniting the whole country.

George Osborne has been behaving rather oddly of late. Normally, he’s known as the ‘submarine’ for surfacing only twice a year. Now, it's twice a week. On Tuesday he delivered a speech to supermarket staff, talking tough on welfare and sometimes lapsing into a Dick Van Dyke mockney accent. On Thursday he used the Philpott case to raise questions about the welfare system. Yesterday, David Cameron backed him. It looks like a concerted effort to speak on the wavelength of target voters – but will it work?  In this week’s Spectator, Matthew Parris suggests it may not. He has spoken at length to many of the 40 MPs who hold the most marginal seats.

Trenton Oldfield has written in this week's Spectator that he won't be attending today's Boat Race but just in case, we learn today that Royal Marine Commandoes will be patrolling the Thames with thermal imaging equipment to look out for copycat stunt artists. Whatever it cost to imprison Oldfield will be as nothing compared to the cost of discouraging his epigones - real, or imagined. Having made such an impact, what does Oldfield think now? In this week's View from 22 podcast, he has what we can fairly call a sparky debate with Douglas Murray, a contributing editor for the Spectator. It's not for the faint-hearted.

Today’s newspapers disclose that Cabinet members have received letters telling them to expect 10 per cent cuts to their budget in the next spending round. This will have been a letter designed to be leaked, and to establish a negotiating position. The Times says that the real figure is closer to 8 per cent, as I disclosed in my Daily Telegraph column three weeks ago. It was the 8 per cent figure which set off the chain of events which led to Theresa May’s leadership-style speech. To recap, here’s what happened first time around. The problem came when Osborne asked ministers to make further cuts of 8 per cent in their budgets.

David Miliband rather grandly told Sky News last night that the public's "legitimate fascination" with the tension between him and his brother Ed had "obscured the real choice for the country" - that between Labour and the Tories. As if. The truth is that people had just stopped thinking about David Miliband. For all the hopes once pinned on the former Foreign Secretary, he had become an irrelevance. A Puck-like figure who'd pop up on the political stage now and again, to general mirth, then disappear. As Iain Martin says, his departure from Westminster is of almost no significance. Most Blairites bolted at the last election, and those who didn't chose to sulk rather than fight for the future of their party.

Ed Balls is a good street fighter, but not a very loveable one. The polls suggest he is perhaps the least popular figure in frontline politics. His manner too abrasive and his political bloodlust too obvious. As James Forsyth says in this week's View from 22 Spectator podcast (below), Balls is — at best — Miliband's 3rd choice for the position of Shadow Chancellor. His first was Alan Johnson and Yvette Cooper (aka Mrs Balls) was asked before it fell to Balls. A triumphant Alistair Darling, fresh from a 2014 Scottish referendum victory, may well be more palatable to the public. It's unlikely that Balls would move over for Darling - although he may not have the choice. We know that Darling loathes Balls (which admittedly, in the Shadow Cabinet, is not saying much).

Whatever else is said about David Cameron’s hand-ling of press regulation, there can be no doubt that the deal he struck on Monday demonstrated masterful sleight of hand. Just days earlier, his differences with Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg had seemed irreconcilable and the Prime Minister was heading for defeat in the Commons. But then, overnight, everyone united around a compromise: a state regulator which insisted it was no such thing. It was the political equivalent of Magritte’s ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’; Britain’s first piece of legislative surrealism. The Royal Charter’s ornate, 17th-century language is part of the obfuscation. It begins: ‘To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting!

Those of a nervous disposition should not click beyond the link. What follows are a few graphs that sum up what's very hard to spin out of: the extent to which our economic situation has worsened, and how bleak the future looks.  The Chancellor started by saying he'd cut the deficit by a third, not a quarter. That's one way of putting it. Another way is to say that debt is up 38 per cent under the coalition so far, and is set to double: George Osborne's targets involve ratios, not absolute levels of debt. Here is how the outlook on his debt/gdp ratio has changed since his first budget:         And that's the optimistic view. Citi doesn't think (pdf) the ratio will fall at all.