Last night Paul Nuttall’s still brief leadership of Ukip was thrown into further turmoil as voters in Stoke-on-Trent Central voted against him with a proverbial middle finger.
Labour’s Gareth Snell retained the seat with 7,853 votes to Ukip’s 5,233 - a comfortable win given the much-trumpeted threat Ukip poses to the party in the north of England.
Nuttall’s campaign was blighted by false claims he lost “close friends” in the Hillsborough disaster as well as confusion over where he actually lived.
He was confronted by Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick earlier this month over revelations he had never stepped foot in the house he was listing as his address for the contest.
When Crick pointed out that electoral rules state candidates must put their home on their nomination form, Nuttall replied: “It will be for the rest of the campaign.”
It later transpired he had moved into an empty house in an attempt to quash rumours of foul play which, as the chap on Question Time last night said, might be up for sale pretty soon.
So one can only assume that not only is Nuttall nursing the sore head of defeat today but he’s also doing it sat in an empty house.
Defending his campaign while being harangued by reporters, Nuttall claimed the seat was only 17th on his party’s target list.
He said: “We are not going anywhere and I am not going anywhere. We will go on and have success in the future.”
Anyway, as you can imagine people have been having a lot of fun this morning.
Elsewhere, former Ukip leader, Nigel Farage is on TV tonight talking about sex and death.
It’s what Friday evenings were made for.