Farage needn't strike another Fozzie Bear pose (flanked by the ever-present coterie of "Blokes") from here to the election. He's played his part to perfection.
The people who have bankrolled his face onto every billboard in the country don't throw such colossal sums about lightly. But neither they nor Farage have any delusions about power. From the outset UKIP were a stalking horse for a Tory party shunted radically to the Right and nothing more.
All this nonsense about
"foreigners over 'ere" will be dropped the moment the polls close. To those who have chosen to back UKIP primarily because of this perpetual mantra - I'm afraid you'll be looking back in twenty years wishing you'd paid attention to the policies UKIP prefer NOT to talk about i.e. the transfer of the NHS into private hands.
UKIP and the Tories will be too much for a Labour Party that can only delay the inevitable (they certainly won't reverse the trend). Victorious, the Conservatives will publicly distance themselves on moral principle from Farage's foreigner bashing (despite privately holding precisely those beliefs). But they will
"Hear the Voice of the Great British People" and be only too pleased to adopt selected UKIP manifesto promises because any vote for UKIP must clearly be a vote to transfer the NHS's assets into private hands whilst retaining all the liabilities.
At this point Farage gets the key to a Swiss Safety Deposit Box containing a few million quid, a villa in the Caribbean and security. Job done.
You have to marvel at the diabolical genius. That said, a few million suckers makes the game a whole lot easier.
