There's no point to politics if it's all staged and scripted

I’ll happily walk down a street without having pre-canvassed it

This election campaign has taught me a very important thing: that politics and political philosophy is being degraded and debased by trivial questions from a trivial media obsessed with ‘fun’ stories and ‘listicles’ instead of the quality of the debate.

I don’t mean to single one person out in particular, and by my estimations the interview was generally reasonable, but I noticed that this week, when Newsnight interviewed me, there was a moment in the discussion when the presenter literally said the words, “this isn’t about policy”.

Therein lies one of the major problems in our politics: it is becoming less about policy and more about style, tone, and those funnily little moments that can be put on Vine, or Periscope, or tweeted.

But I make no apologies for the fact that for me, politics remains about policy. It remains about ideas, and solutions, and making sure things get done. Our politicians are routinely lambasted by the press and broadcasters persistently asking for big, set-piece events, while writing about how our politics is too staged. You can’t win.

That’s why I don’t even play the game. I’ll happily walk down a street without having pre-canvassed it. I’ll happily engage with people, on and off camera, who I know might disagree with me, and I’ll then wait for a story to be written about how someone in Newcastle disagrees with me, or how I encountered Ukip opposition in Birmingham. Because for me there’s no point in politics if it’s all staged and scripted.

And despite the public begging for this style of politics to come to an end – the other parties seem mindlessly wedded to it. A whistle-stop visit to a town centre gets spun as “spent the day campaigning there”. A closed event in a party donor’s shed gets billed as a “rally” amongst real people. It’s just not true.

What I’ve learned so far in this election campaign is that there’s no better way of making headway, there’s no better way of being flexible enough to alter your position or mindset, than meeting real people, and hearing about their problems and struggles.

Of course, if you are witness to the truth, and, god forbid, start to change the way you think about an issue; it becomes a “U-turn” or a “climbdown”. It’s a very immature way of doing politics, and I sincerely hope it comes to an end.

As people will know, I’m campaigning heavily in South Thanet, where I hope people will elect me as their Member of Parliament. But despite me being there almost every day at the moment, in addition to leading a national party and supporting our candidates across the country, the other parties still try to maintain I’m never there. The truth is, when I speak to resident here, they genuinely tell me that the others are too busy negatively campaigning about me to actually talk to them on the doorsteps.

“I’ve only seen you about…” or, obviously, “It’s nice to see you in the pub with real people” are phrases I never tire of hearing. Because I believe in old-fashioned campaigning.

If you recall, I was pilloried for claiming on a national televised debate – where it is now clear that the BBC stacked the audience – that the real audience was at home. I’ll never forget that.

I’ll never forget that the people that matter aren’t the ones sitting in Westminster, but rather, the ones tuning in at home who want their politicians to get real.

And I’ll never forget that in 2005, Mr Cameron promised an “end to Punch and Judy politics” – and has since embarked upon one of the nastiest smear campaigns of a political opponent, with his media allies in tow, that I can remember.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m not interested in negative campaigning, or being brought down to the level of the other lot. I’m focusing on what Ukip offers this country as a positive vision, and I’ll turn the other cheek for as long as I need to.