Paul Nuttall

Paul Nuttall in his acting days as Ade Edmondson.

Paul Andrew Nuttall (born 30 September 1976) is was the interim leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, until former leader Nigel Farage takes back control.

Nuttall is bald, boring and right-wing. He originally took the helm of the UKIP on the strength of a CV that boasted of his working-class roots in Liverpool, and that he gave up a career in football and education to get involved with UKIP back in the late 1990s. His coiffure has always been intermittent, but since 2000 it has been more reliably missing entirely. His core constituency is men who like their heads shaven and their beer cold — as they go on pub crawls/marches/fights in the name of British Nationalism — and it is always refreshing to find an example of either outside the United States.

Did I mention he was bald?

Early few careers

Paul Nuttall worked as a Michelin Man in France during his 'missing years'.

Nuttall, his real name, has been a close friend of Nigel Farage since their days of pissing in doorways whilst out on a booze cruise to Brussels in 1999. He has claimed many honours along the way. He played centre forward for Melchester Rovers before stripping off his kit to enter academe. There, he became a lecturer in the Art of Sticking the Boot In, and appeared destined to join the British National Party (BNP). However, he met Farage, who persuaded him that the BNP were good lads but lacked the right 'look' to appeal to shy racists in the more Major parties.

In 1999, the introduction of Proportional Representation to all European Union Parliament elections gave parties like UKIP the chance to enter a legislative body without having a great number of voters actually vote for any given individual. Thus, Farage got to the EU parliament; but Nuttall had to wait ten years longer to join his mate.

During his sojourn governing the European Parliament without having been elected to it, he successfully joined the Conservatives as an unofficial UKIP mole. This let him acquire an understanding of how a political party worked, until he was discovered and was asked to leave. He did so only on acquiring a cover story that it was a protest against David Cameron becoming its leader.

The rise of UKIP

"On me 'ead, son!" Nuttall sometimes remembers his days scoring goals for Liverpool.

Nuttall's job at Brussels gave him — like all other UKIP representatives — the chance to appear on TV in the guise of a real political party. His grating voice provided "regional accent balance" on the BBC's political programmes. He and Farage became a two-man act — the skinhead and the stockbroker. Nuttall considered getting a few face tattoos to increase the support of the extreme right, but was talked out of this by a few saner members of UKIP.

In 2010, Farage survived an aircraft crash but was out of action for months. Nuttall was seen as a possible leader then but backed out and supported the return of Farage, as the party's donors made it clear — no Farage = no money. In 2014, UKIP won the most seats in an election to the European Parliament. They celebrated by turning their backs on the "smelly foreigners" and drinking dry every Brussels bar that would have them.

By now, UKIP had become a big threat and with the promise of a referendum on membership of the European Union, Nuttall got his mug (and voice) on countless political shows. One could not escape either. When UKIP received over 12% of the vote, but only one seat in the 2015 general election, Farage resigned. Nuttall deftly stepped aside and let Diane James lead the party. She lasted 18 days, at which time there was no alternative to Nuttall as leader of the UKIP.

Elections and resignations

Nuttall quickly revealed that he was no Nigel Farage, no matter how much time he spent with him. The look of a nightclub bouncer going shopping in the daytime turned people off, and the campaign website claimed many wonderful achievements, until compared against other sources, which distinguished the "enhanced" career achievements from the outright lies. The media even began fact-checking his claim to be from Liverpool in the first place.

A wazzock, for comparison.

In a 2017 by-election in Stoke, which had voted heavily for Brexit, Nuttall could not win the seat off Labour, despite trying to look normal by wearing a flat cap and walking a dog to appeal to the "werking class."

Later in the year, when Theresa May called a snap general election, Nuttall tried his luck in Boston and Skegness. He ditched the cap and the dog and talked about banning Batman, as he wore a mask like a Muslim and offered to become a hangman if capital punishment was re-introduced. Despite a frenzy across Britain to find something other than the Conservatives to vote for, Nuttall came in a bad third. That was it. He resigned the party leadership and made the obligatory phone call to Farage to explain why he had been a total wazzock (pictured).