Nigel Farage debut at LBC: a case of life imitating art or art imitating life?

For four nights a week it’s Nigel hour now

Nigel Farage hosts his first evening show on LBC (PA)

With vital establishment brickwork still to be undone, Nigel Farage had no choice but to host his inaugural LBC radio phone-in show from an undisclosed but presumably gold-leafed location, ‘here in America’.

It’s only eleven days until his new BFF has some inaugurating of his own to be getting on with, and with upwards of 45 people and possibly even three of the original line up of Buck's Fizz expected to gather on the national mall in DC next Friday, you can’t blame Nige for wanting to beat the traffic.

Besides, Brexit is nothing if not a global business, and he was only moments in before he was taking calls from an angry Texan and a British call centre manager in the Philippines.

Not every caller began their three minutes of chat with the great man by telling him what ‘a privilege it was’ and how he had ‘changed history’, but most did and there was no immediate evidence to suggest that Nigel minded too much. ‘Well that’s very sweet of you,’ he told one. ‘Now back to my question. Do you trust Theresa May to make a success of Brexit?’ (The short answer: no).

An opinion microscope powerful enough to distinguish between Nigel Farage and Alan Partridge has not yet been invented – (though there are strong hints that Partridge might not be so willing to condone an inadvertently self-confessed sexual assaulter) – and as such it is difficult not to work out whether Farage’s forays into phone-in radio are a case of life imitating art or art imitating life?

As the four-time Ukip leader reached the end of an extended crescendo on the Prime Minister’s dastardly prevarications over the triggering of Article 50, it came almost as a shock when he didn't then reach for the lever on the mix deck and announce: ‘Keep your clubs away from his young, it’s Seal!’

I counted a rough ratio of five leave callers per remainer, not quite in proportion with the 48-52 national split but when put through the self-selecting prism of people who want to spend their Monday nights on the phone to Nigel Farage these weren’t terrible numbers.

And there’ll be more tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Four nights a week it’s Nigel hour now, 7pm to 8pm.

As Wilfred Owen once almost pondered: ‘Was it for this I wanted my life back for?’