It had been a long week, for me as much as for Mr Farage. I’d been trailing him all across the north for days, and I fear my constant presence may have grown rather wearing. On Thursday afternoon he slipped out of the back of a pub for a cigarette and what looked like a tense conversation with an assistant. “He’s waiting for something to happen,” I heard her mutter to him. I realised who they were talking about, just before they realised that the subject of their exchange was eavesdropping on it.