Y ou can make a good case for Nigel Farage having been one of the most consequential British politicians of the 21st century. Without him there would have been no Brexit. And yet it is now beginning to look as if his time has come and gone.

The narcissistic qualities that have served him so well now threaten to finish him off. His skin is becoming thinner by the day. All that’s left is reflexive lashing out. A raging against the dying of the light. You’d need to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

On Thursday, Nige was at the old Billingsgate fish market in central London for a press conference – not another one – at which he was to unveil his new armed forces spokesperson. Only this would turn out to be a press conference with a difference. Nige would not be taking any questions for the cameras.

You couldn’t help but think he was struggling to shake off the humiliation of insisting the pollsters were wrong about the Republicans in the US midterms. Trump would not be smashed, he said.…