Like those of all political upstarts, Nigel Farage’s career is marked by generous helpings of luck. His story is full of tantalising what ifs, and in this definitive biography Michael Crick makes the most of them.
Farage has survived three near-death experiences: twice in his early 20s, when he suffered a life-threatening car crash and then, months later, a misdiagnosed case of testicular cancer; and once in 2010, when on election day the plane in which he was flying for a publicity stunt got its banner caught in its tail fin and crashed in a field. Each time, Farage thought he would die; each time, somehow, he didn’t. He also benefited hugely from one death that did happen. In the 1997 general election James Goldsmith’s Referendum party outpolled the nascent Ukip by 8:1 and looked set to swallow its smaller, underfunded, chaotic rival. But then Goldsmith suddenly announced he was pulling back from politics and died of cancer 10 weeks after election day. Ukip picked up Referendum’s momentum and Farage never looked back.
