UKIP has been forced to deny persistent rumours Nigel Farage is suffering from burnout. The latest claims come from Dan Hodges in the Daily Telegraph, the Labour blogger said Farage “is fading away without a fight” and that his “magic is gone”.
Hodges said of Farage’s performance at the latest Leaders’ Debate: “Watching Nigel Farage standing on that stage on Thursday – railing against the bias of the BBC audience – was to see a diminished man. Or a diminishing man.
“As the election has gone on, Farage has reminded me of the Michael J Fox character from the film Back to the Future. Gradually, as time runs out, Fox slowly begins to vanish, like an overexposed negative.”
His attack follows persistent rumours spread in Westminster that Farage is “seriously ill”, a claim he was forced to deny. However, they have not gone away, despite there being no evidence to substantiate them. Breitbart London is aware of the exact nature of the claims but has chosen not to repeat them.
Hodges also said the UKIP leader only visited Thanet South infrequently, and with 16 days to go there was “precious little standing or fighting” in the seat. In his article he also claimed a Tory activist had told him Farage had “only held two big events here in the past three weeks… Apart from that, he’ll canvass a single street with the press, then leave.”
UKIP hit back saying Farage has done 21 public meetings in Thanet South, attended by over 3500 people. Party officials claim he is in Thanet “almost every day” and he personally canvassed the Conservative strongholds of Ash and Sandwich this week.
Party insiders have told Breitbart London that the pressures he faced were not unusual and he was able to cope. They also said he remained “jovial” despite the punishing workload. Farage is known to regularly work until 2am and then get up at 5am. He uses the time travelling between events in his car to make up the lost sleep.
A senior official said: “No one is claiming it is easy to run a national general election campaign while also fighting in a marginal seat. Farage is doing more than the rest of the party leaders and is working his magic wherever he goes.
“He’s done piles of events in Thanet, he’s been there more times than Ed Miliband has been to Doncaster North.”
While the attacks on Farage might be cause for some embarrassment they are not thought to be as serious as running naked down Whitehall. A task that Dan Hodges is looking increasingly likely to have to undertake:
If UKIP break 6% at the next election I’ll streak naked down Whitehall in a Nigel Farage mask whilst singing Land of Hope and Glory…
— Dan Hodges (@DPJHodges) December 15, 2012
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