And we reject the extremism of UKIP and the dispossessed and increasingly desperate, Mr Kilroy-Silk.
Even the massed ranks of UKIP could scarce forbear to cheer.
Then Goldsmith died, leaving a vacuum which UKIP filled with vicious infighting.
He went on to describe UKIP's allies in the European Parliament as " xenophobic and anti-Semitic " and " bloody right-wing nutters.
Traveling back to the airport in a van with a whole platoon of the grumpy old men I found he had stirred UKIP too.