Love him or loathe him, you can't fail to notice Nigel Farage. Loud, opinionated and colourful, his success as UKIP leader in attracting new voters – and, crucially, first-time voters – to the fold could arguably have as much to do with his manner as anything he stands for.
Like Boris Johnson, Dennis Skinner, Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, Nye Bevan, George Galloway and even Margaret Thatcher, each generation throws up a handful of politicians who refuse to be ignored. Engendering strong passions of protest or adulation, these men and women are each responsible for engaging voters to support or challenge them. They provoke anger and admiration, they spark debate, they inspire large swathes of the electorate to stand up and be counted.
Compare the likes of Benn and Bevan with the current crop of nondescripts who seek to hook our votes. Hardly a Rizla paper between their policies or presentation, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are unlikely to inspire a single potential voter. And without that essential "fire in the belly", even the most radical policy is in danger of going unnoticed. As if to point up their apparent homogeneity, Margaret Thatcher's death saw Cameron fawning like a lap-dog, Clegg sullenly muttering his admiration and Miliband disgracefully calling a halt to Labour's election campaign as a mark of respect. Had someone pinned a "kick me" sign on your back, Ed?
At a time when the country needs real leadership and government policy based on fact rather than ideological bunkum, the choice offered to voters is three men who all wish they were Tony Blair. Is it any wonder, therefore, that some sections of a disenfranchised electorate are looking to a colourful character for a bit of a shake-up? His ideas might be repellent to many, but Nigel Farage is now experiencing the kind of committed following Cameron, Miliband and Clegg can only dream about.
Kicking off his national pre-election tour in East Cornwall, Mr Farage found himself among friends. There were no rotten eggs, no banners, no shouts of indignation from the floor as some 300 UKIP adherents listened to the man they want as the next Prime Minister.
Some people will tell you they would rather spoil their ballot paper than put a cross beside the name of a candidate representing the most reactionary mainstream party we've seen in this country for a very long time. Yet for all their robust protestations on Twitter and whingeing on Facebook, no more than a handful of critics turned up at Callington Town Hall to harangue him.
Nigel Farage likes to be known as "Britain's most popular party leader". It is a slightly misleading moniker as it relates to a survey carried out among UKIP supporters. The results showed, unsurprisingly, that he was more popular among his own party faithful than either Cameron, Clegg or Miliband were among theirs.
This does not mean Mr Farage is significantly popular among the general public. What it does mean, however, is that we all know who he is.
Dressed in bright yellow corduroy trousers, matching tweed jacket and farmer's cap, shiny brown brogues and a tie decorated with scampering hares, he does cut something of a comic figure.
But there is nothing funny about Mr Farage. While his message may not be as isolationist as that of Kim Jong-un, his mission is nevertheless unequivocal: to sever political, economic and security ties with the people in the world who are most like us (i.e. Europeans).
Barking out his now-familiar anti-EU mantra, he strikes a chord with many. It's a simple message: we'd be better off out of Europe. And perhaps it is this simplicity, coupled with the passion of its delivery, that stirs something in the waverers.
When most voting-age opponents of the Government limit their outrage to 140-character smartphone quips, is it any wonder UKIP are doing so well?
By contrast to the Twitterati, UKIP supporters are well organised, determined and out there. It's hard not to admire their drive and determination. The party won 27 per cent of the votes in the recent Eastleigh by-election and is fielding 2,000 candidates in next month's local elections. At a time when probably a majority of the British electorate are feeling disenfranchised, many may opt for UKIP this time round. Why? For a change... for the want of an alternative... for a chance to give every other party a bloody nose.
There is nothing subtle about Mr Farage's approach. It is loud and simplistic, with a dash of scare-mongering. But it is clear and it is delivered with conviction by a politician nobody would deny is colourful. Judging by the cheers at Callington Town Hall, unless opponents campaign against him and vote against his candidates, there is a very real chance that Britain will wake up on May 3 to find UKIP holding the balance of power on councils up and down the land.
And we will only have ourselves to blame.
