"You don't have to watch sheepdog trials to hear a dog whistle," former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said of Farage, speaking to the Times of London.

On the day Farage began his campaign in Clacton, a young female onlooker, who was later arrested, splattered him with a milkshake on the steps of a well-known seaside pub, the Moon and Starfish. This was not the first milkshaking of Farage's career, and he handled the incident with a degree of aplomb, grinning for cameras later that day with an order of banana milkshakes in hand.

Three weeks later, though, the man who made bellicosity his political trademark was clearly still harboring a grudge.

"Politics has changed," he said. "People hurl things at you."

His divisiveness was attested to by a Clacton couple who were dining on a recent afternoon on the terrace of the pub where the milkshake episode occurred.

Paula Bracegirdle, a part-time cook who said she hoped to retire soon, had qualms about Farage — "a bit extreme, I think," she said. But her husband, Paul, 60, who works part-time with elderly people with dementia, called him a truth-teller.

"I think he's straight with what he says," he said.

They disagreed on Brexit, too: She voted in 2016 to remain in the EU. He supported the Leave campaign that Farage helped spearhead, and like Farage, he now blamed the Conservatives for having failed to manage the departure effectively.

The pair agreed on one thing, though: Clacton, they both said, was no better off than before.

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