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Diary: Sharp brain, sharp tongue and rooted to terra firma … what the troops think about Nigel Farage Diary: Sharp brain, sharp tongue and rooted to terra firma … what the troops think about Nigel Farage
(4 months later)
• The world's a place of possibilities for Nigel Farage, and his writ may run yet larger still after the 2014 European elections. But what is the "King" of Ukip really like? He eschews spin doctors and portrays the image of the hail-fellow-well-met type very skilfully. How true is it? The Diary hears tales from someone close to the King. What do they think of him? Don't be fooled, we are told. Nigel is not the insouciant "Mr Average with a pint in his hand" but one "absolutely driven" by the Ukip cause and the need to get the message across. Beloved of stardust, he is, lieutenants fear, prone to courting and falling in love with Ukip-supporting celebrities. That can end in tears – think Robert Kilroy-Silk. He is known, says our new friend, for his regular bollockings of underlings, and unsurprisingly perhaps still finds himself unable to travel by plane after the 2010 crash that so nearly proved fatal. Relies on trains to reach the European parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. A cap on his ambitions. Almost certainly. A White House visit would take quite some time.• The world's a place of possibilities for Nigel Farage, and his writ may run yet larger still after the 2014 European elections. But what is the "King" of Ukip really like? He eschews spin doctors and portrays the image of the hail-fellow-well-met type very skilfully. How true is it? The Diary hears tales from someone close to the King. What do they think of him? Don't be fooled, we are told. Nigel is not the insouciant "Mr Average with a pint in his hand" but one "absolutely driven" by the Ukip cause and the need to get the message across. Beloved of stardust, he is, lieutenants fear, prone to courting and falling in love with Ukip-supporting celebrities. That can end in tears – think Robert Kilroy-Silk. He is known, says our new friend, for his regular bollockings of underlings, and unsurprisingly perhaps still finds himself unable to travel by plane after the 2010 crash that so nearly proved fatal. Relies on trains to reach the European parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. A cap on his ambitions. Almost certainly. A White House visit would take quite some time.
• So how has he built Ukip into a potential force? By draining support from the Tories. But what if another Eurosceptic party rears its head and starts taking support from him? Quite a possibility now Professor Alan Sked, who founded Ukip but latterly accuses it of going "completely fruitcake", is gathering like minds to build a Eurosceptic group of the centre left. "I don't want the Eurosceptic cause to be left to rightwing nonentities like Nigel Farage and Neil Hamilton," he says. What to call his new grouping? The "party without Neil Hamilton" has an agreeable ring.• So how has he built Ukip into a potential force? By draining support from the Tories. But what if another Eurosceptic party rears its head and starts taking support from him? Quite a possibility now Professor Alan Sked, who founded Ukip but latterly accuses it of going "completely fruitcake", is gathering like minds to build a Eurosceptic group of the centre left. "I don't want the Eurosceptic cause to be left to rightwing nonentities like Nigel Farage and Neil Hamilton," he says. What to call his new grouping? The "party without Neil Hamilton" has an agreeable ring.
• Hail to the chief, for Obama is coming and will make a public speech in Belfast before heading to Fermanagh for next week's G8 summit. Already there is high excitement, and the congregation of the city's oldest Prebysterian church is agitating for the US president to pay them a visit. The church in Rosemary Street played an unsung, pioneering role in the anti-slavery movement. Its members boycotted sugar ("because it was made in blood") from slave plantations and stopped slave ships coming to Belfast – the first city in the British empire to make such a stand. The hero of the day was Belfast Presbyterian Thomas McCabe who, long before William Wilberforce, led the city's anti-slavery campaigns. A fitting place, proponents say, for the first black US president to grace on his short tour of Belfast. They should write an email. No need to send it. From what we know the US authorities will see it anyway.• Hail to the chief, for Obama is coming and will make a public speech in Belfast before heading to Fermanagh for next week's G8 summit. Already there is high excitement, and the congregation of the city's oldest Prebysterian church is agitating for the US president to pay them a visit. The church in Rosemary Street played an unsung, pioneering role in the anti-slavery movement. Its members boycotted sugar ("because it was made in blood") from slave plantations and stopped slave ships coming to Belfast – the first city in the British empire to make such a stand. The hero of the day was Belfast Presbyterian Thomas McCabe who, long before William Wilberforce, led the city's anti-slavery campaigns. A fitting place, proponents say, for the first black US president to grace on his short tour of Belfast. They should write an email. No need to send it. From what we know the US authorities will see it anyway.
• The comedian Jimmy Carr may not always have paid as much tax as he might, but still, he has uses to society, if we are to believe the former Guardian columnist Ann Widdecombe. "In 2006 I had a highly successful appearance as chairman on Have I Got News For You and was invited back again in 2007 – when, thanks to the vulgarity of Jimmy Carr, it was not successful at all," she laments in Strictly Ann, her recently published autobiography. "You are only as good as your last programme, and I have not been invited back since." One man can make a difference. Thanks Jim.• The comedian Jimmy Carr may not always have paid as much tax as he might, but still, he has uses to society, if we are to believe the former Guardian columnist Ann Widdecombe. "In 2006 I had a highly successful appearance as chairman on Have I Got News For You and was invited back again in 2007 – when, thanks to the vulgarity of Jimmy Carr, it was not successful at all," she laments in Strictly Ann, her recently published autobiography. "You are only as good as your last programme, and I have not been invited back since." One man can make a difference. Thanks Jim.
• No obvious sign of Widdy's book at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival in London, but on what was the centenary of the suffragettes' most famous protest at the Epsom Derby, there was clear determination to celebrate special women. North London brewer Redemption was commissioned to make a special beverage linking the two great causes: feminism, with heroines such as Mary Wollstonecraft, and cask beer. The result, the Mary Wollstonedraft, proved very popular. A pioneer in its own way.• No obvious sign of Widdy's book at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival in London, but on what was the centenary of the suffragettes' most famous protest at the Epsom Derby, there was clear determination to celebrate special women. North London brewer Redemption was commissioned to make a special beverage linking the two great causes: feminism, with heroines such as Mary Wollstonecraft, and cask beer. The result, the Mary Wollstonedraft, proved very popular. A pioneer in its own way.
• We hoped to end with a thought for the week from Downside Abbey, the Roman Catholic monastery, and home to a community of Benedictine monks. In the event it wasn't possible. "Thought of the week. Sorry, no thought of the week this week," the website said. You really can't force these things.• We hoped to end with a thought for the week from Downside Abbey, the Roman Catholic monastery, and home to a community of Benedictine monks. In the event it wasn't possible. "Thought of the week. Sorry, no thought of the week this week," the website said. You really can't force these things.
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