Which murder victim’s ambulance does the would-be statesman chase? Can you be said to “speak for England” if there are other times you wimp out on speaking at all, either out of self-preservation or moral smallness, or just not actually giving much of a toss? The questions arise after Nigel Farage moved himself into pole position with an explicitly incendiary speech in the wake of the appalling murder of Henry Nowak.

The good news for Nigel is that he has struck political gold: increased numbers of people saying “I don’t like him, but I agree with him on this”. The less good news for the nation he’d like to lead is that, when dealing with murders that rightly horrify and outrage the country, you can’t be sure which Nigel Farage will turn up. If, indeed, he turns up at all. Today, I’d like to look at three murders spread evenly over the past decade – all of which caused national outrage – and how Farage conducted himself in the wake of each.

The first murder is that of Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, who was murdered outside her constituency surgery during the 2016 EU referendum campaign by a far-right terrorist who shouted “Britain first” as he shot and stabbed her. She was 41. While other political leaders met the moment, Farage vanished from it entirely. He did not, as he did this week, hire a........

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