Farage wants Britain to leave the EU and also to have less bureaucracy[TIM CLARKE]However as Ed Miliband's orchestrated but hapless attempt to eat a bacon butty demonstrated a few days ago it's a tactic that can backfire.
Whether they love him or loathe him, no one can accuse Ukip leader Nigel Farage of suffering from such problems.
The 50-year-old former City trader enjoys a pint, puffs away quite openly on a cigarette and isn't afraid to turn the air blue.
When he opens his mouth you get the feeling that he's genuinely speaking his mind.
He has become one of Britain's most recognisable politicians.
Not bad for a figure whose party, despite this week's strong showing in local government elections, doesn't yet have a single MP in Westminster.
In his own words, Farage and his Ukip colleagues are now "serious players".
But behind the booze and fags what do we really know about the man who wants to take us out of Europe and just what is the secret of his success?
Nigel Farage grew up in the Kent village of Downe and still lives around the corner from his mother Barbara.
His father, Guy Justus Oscar Farage, was a stockbroker and heavy-drinking bon viveur who left the family home when Nigel was five.
"We are a middle-class southern family," he says.
"There's no point pretending to be anything different."
The elder of two brothers, he was educated at fee-paying Dulwich College in south London, where former pupils include PG Wodehouse and polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
The young Farage excelled on the cricket field but less so in the classroom.
He admits he was a "bolshie" teenager who upset some teachers with his strong political views.
They included defending Enoch Powell - listed by Farage as one of his heroes - and his hugely controversial "rivers of blood" speech against uncontrolled immigration.
The classic route into the upper echelons of politics would next have taken Farage to Oxbridge but after A-levels he decided to go into the City.
It was here, working as a commodities trader in tin and cocoa, where Farage's character was shaped.
The risks and rewards were high and he learned to think on his feet.
The atmosphere was laddish and politically incorrect and after work Farage would end up in the pub.
In that environment if you weren't outspoken you tended to be ignored.
He says: "In the 1980s the City was a great place to be.
"It was unbelievable.
He says that Ukip are now a 'serious' political party [TIM CLARKE]Perhaps they don't see me as a politician. Perhaps that's the point
"It was competitive.
"It was quite brutal.
"It was tough but very exciting.
"And then there was the money.
"I was handling millions and drinking more or less continuously.
"If I'd concentrated on business I would have been a very wealthy man."
Farage, who still retains trader friends, believes that his stint of nearly two decades in the City gave him a vital taste of "real life" and makes him a more rounded character.
In contrast many career politicians go straight to Westminster after university, starting out as researchers or junior party workers.
After one boozy night out he was almost killed when he stepped in front of a car.
He suffered serious injuries and doctors feared he would lose a leg.
Months later he was diagnosed with testicular cancer but despite fears the disease had spread to his lungs he made a full recovery.
Grainne Hayes, his nurse after the accident, became his first wife and they had two sons but the marriage ended in 1997 just as his political career was beginning in earnest.
He married his second wife, German Kirsten Mehr, in 1999 and they have two daughters.
Kirsten keeps a low profile and Farage has denied claims of an affair with one of his assistants.
He has also dismissed an embarrassing kiss-and-tell story in which a 25-year-old Latvian revealed his prowess between the sheets.
His distrust for the European project developed while he was still working in the City and was crystallised by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 that ensured closer political and financial links between the UK and the Continent.
He's a supporter of capitalism and free trade and began to fear that the traditional British way of life, which he loves, was under threat.
Until that point he was a Conservative.
Farage joined Ukip in its earlier guise and rose through the ranks.
There was one spat with Robert Kilroy Silk, the former Labour MP who left Ukip to launch his own party and was later described by Farage as a "vain, orange baboon".
Farage became Ukip leader in 2006 but didn't initially cause much of a ripple in British politics.
It was another brush with death, on election day in 2010, that unwittingly helped raise his profile among voters.
Farage was in a light aircraft trailing a Ukip banner when it became wrapped around the tail and the plane went into a dive.
The politician had time to tighten his seatbelt but after surviving the impact with 10 broken bones he was trapped in the wreckage.
He says: "I could feel my chest was smashed in.
"Then I thought, 'I'm going to burn to death' because I was covered in petrol, in my hair, everywhere, and that was pretty scary I tell you.
"When the rescuers came and asked me calmly if I was all right they got an earful of Anglo-Saxon."
The Ukip leader says that people see him as approachable [GETTY]He's particularly outspoken about petty rules and bureaucracy.
He says: "Within reason we should all have the freedom to do what we want to.
"I hate big government.
"I hate being told what to do.
"Look at the world we live in now, speed cameras everywhere."
But he adds: "I'm a pretty ebullient sort of character.
"I try to enjoy life."
Farage has been a regular at the George and Dragon pub in his home village for 30 years and uses the place as a sounding board.
A fan of the comedy Dad's Army, he's also a keen fisherman and enjoys watching cricket.
The crisis in the Eurozone fuelled Ukip's rise, along with the feeling that Britain lost control of its borders when hundreds of thousands of Poles and Lithuanians arrived.
However, there has been another reason for Farage's surge in popularity.
There is a growing sense of disillusionment with mainstream politicians.
It's a common complaint among voters that they don't really know the difference between the traditional political parties.
Even worse, politicians in important positions are dull, resolutely on-message and virtually indistinguishable.
If they speak you can't be sure whether to believe them.
Asked to pinpoint his appeal, Farage says: "Look, people see me as approachable.
"Perhaps they don't see me as a politician.
"Perhaps that's the point.
"Maybe the others are a bit too polished."
As a result, with its colourful leader Ukip has become the protest party of choice, surpassing the Greens.
Farage is now probably the nation's most charismatic politician alongside Boris Johnson and is regarded as a breath of fresh air.
In one memorable broadside at the European Parliament Farage ranted at a shell-shocked Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council: "You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.
"Who are you? I've never heard of you."
He once called Belgium "pretty much a noncountry".
A recent Channel 4 documentary sought to discover "the real Nigel Farage" and concluded rather tamely that he genuinely does like smoking and drinking.
What you see is what you get.
"There isn't a hidden side behind the bloke with the pint," said programme maker Martin Durkin.
"He is as he was as a boy, bolshie and perverse.
"He has the normal views of people of an older generation."
In fact there's more depth to the Ukip leader than simply his "ordinary man" facade although that undoubtedly adds to his appeal.
Behind the fug of cigarette smoke there's a man of real conviction who can draw from his own rich experiences of life and of coming close to death on several occasions.
Farage also doesn't pretend to be infallible or set a perfect example and people appear to like him all the more for that.
His detractors have unsuccessfully tried to depict him as a clown, while David Cameron once claimed that he presided over a party of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists".
But Nigel Farage could yet have the last laugh
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