Suddenly people are wondering whether Farage is losing it
Maybe UKIP’s not a certainty to win most votes at EP2014 after all
There’ve been several pieces today about Nigel Farage’s performance on Question Time last night held in what became a UKIP stronghold at the May local elections, Boston in Linconshire.
It might just have been the audience or he was having an off night but he came over badly as seen in the clip above.
Under the heading “Is Nigel Farage losing his touch?” Sebastian Payne on the Speccie Coffee House blog wrote:
“…Just a few months ago, Farage announced he was taking a step back from the television microphones to ‘get a grip’ on Ukip. Instead, he’s just undertaken a mini-tour of UK theatres for ‘An Evening with Nigel Farage’ — some of which I understand drew the sort of audiences Ukip had five years ago (i.e. rather small ones).
Every party leader can have bad days. But not every party is so dependent on the star quality of its leader. Farage is placing a very large bet on the potency of his cheeky chap persona. If this wears thin, what’s left of Ukip?…”
Indeed. That was always going to be a problem because the limelight has always been on him and there are few other figures in the background.
I got the feeling last night that the Anna Soubry approach was a new strategy from the Tories to deal with what is a big threat. She’s a minister and her line of attack would have been agreed beforehand with coalleagues.
Last May after the local elections I took out a bet at 10/1 that the Tories would win most votes in the EU election. That’s now into 5/1.
Mike Smithson
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