Welcome to Vodafone France. In St Margaret’s, four miles east of Dover, you can’t just see France on a clear day, you are connected to it. I don’t know. They come over here and take over our phones: I always knew we were better off with a decent landline. Still, if you close your eyes and listen carefully you can still hear the voice of Vera Lynn echoing off the white cliffs. Just along the beach are the houses where Ian Fleming and Noël Coward once lived. And in the Coastguard pub car park is a new Ukip immigration poster waiting to be unveiled.
Shortly before 11am, a bodyguard self-sculpted to look a bit like a rough-trade Jamie Redknapp corralled 15 local Ukip supporters into standing beneath the mobile poster van. Each had been given a placard to turn round when given the command. One had to be reminded he was holding his the wrong way up: another, a woman in her 70s wearing a Peruvian knit cardigan, looked as if she might be moonlighting from the Lib Dems. “How dare you!” she said with a laugh. “And the cardy is Moroccan.”
Ukip has always taken a certain pride in its lack of professionalism. Now there was also a noticeable lack of energy: even in Nigel Farage, who stepped out in country cords and Barbour – the pinstriped city slicker doesn’t play so well in this part of Kent – from behind the trailer for the big reveal. A photomontage of three escalators travelling to the top of the white cliffs of Dover. As no one is on them, either the immigration service is doing its job properly or it has wasted public money on two more escalators than it really needs.
Farage tried to maintain his normal tempo but there was something missing. Self-belief. He’s far from certain of winning his own prospective seat of South Thanet and the Ukip surge has dipped. He looks tired and semi-detached.
A man with the auto-pilot switched on. If he was worried about peaking too soon, he needn’t be. “Immigration ... wilful deceit of the Tories ... immigration ... broken promises ... immigration ... 10 former communist countries in the EU ... immigration ... quality, not quantity,” he said. “A return to normality.”
What is normality? Farage was asked. “The 1950s,” he said, before remembering to add, “and the 50 years after that.” His supporters seemed rather happier with the first part of that answer, but they had long since been relegated to a supporting cast.
As Farage edged towards the beach, surrounded by reporters and photographers, for the crucial Dirty Nigel money shot of him standing alone by a lifebelt – “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?’ – everyone else was left to their own devices. Including David Little – known locally as Little Britain – the Ukip candidate for Dover, who last year posted the Ukip map of the world with Africa renamed Bongo-Bongo land. “I’m quite confident we will do well here,” he said. He didn’t look it. Farage didn’t even once acknowledge his presence. Maybe he didn’t know who he was. Or maybe he was just preoccupied.
The ceremonies over, Farage headed straight for the pub. Once he was inside, Rough Trade Jamie stuck out a leg. “Nigel is tired,” he said. “He needs five minutes on his own.” It hadn’t been that exhausting a 25 minutes, but Nigel had apparently given us his all. He’d left everything on the beach, darlings. He later emerged holding a cup of coffee. The new Hampstead Nigel wasn’t an entirely convincing character.
The advertising poster was still parked up long after Farage had left. “What’s going to happen to it now,” I asked. “I’ll probably take it round Kent for a bit,” said the driver. “Not the whole country?” “Nah. Haven’t got the time.” Back in Dover several parties of French schoolchildren were wandering aimlessly round the streets. None appeared aware of the danger they posed. Though they might have appreciated a tipoff about where to make cheap calls home.
