With the prospect of a dismal showing at local council elections next week, the Conservative government’s decision to hold an emergency cabinet meeting on the cost-of-living crisis looked painfully opportunistic.

Billed as a meeting in which the cabinet would thrash out some radical ideas, it seemed like a last-ditch attempt to display to voters that it was taking the crisis seriously.

From reports, it didn’t sound as though the cabinet worked its way through much of Downing Street’s stash of Post-it notes as they struggled with that mainstay of management coaching courses – the ‘brain-dump’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps came up with the idea of car MOTs being required once every two years, an initiative which was instantly derided on the grounds that it would put mechanics out-of-business, increase pollution and risk more accidents.

He might just as well have suggested that councils save on their paint bill by only having single yellow lines on their roads.

As to other contributions to this political “show and tell” exercise, they were equally underwhelming.

The apparent paucity of ideas probably did nothing to enhance the prospects of the party at next Thursday’s poll and will have left some candidates feeling that it would be best if their leaders just kept quiet for the next few days.

Former Ukip party leader turned TV presenter Nigel Farage was back on familiar stomping ground when he returned to Kent this week.

He pitched up in Rochester for a live broadcast of his show on GBNews. Had things turned out differently in 2015, he might have become the party’s first MP but a coalition of forces conspired to halt his efforts to win in Thanet South.

Asked whether he still regretted that he had not won, he admitted that, with the benefit of hindsight, he was rather glad.

“As it turned out, it was a good job I didn’t because it left me to lead the fight back with the Brexit party," he said.

"If I’d won the seat and kept it, Mrs May would have been there for another year, there would have been another referendum and then God knows where we would be.”

"He was the right man for that in every way – not the right man now. If they stick with him as the leader, they will lose the next election."

Now he is out of the political frontline, Farage feels liberated to deliver his verdict on those running the country.

And his verdict on the PM? Aside from Ukraine, he's not that impressed.

"Boris was the right team to sort of finish that Brexit chapter," he said.

"He was the right man for that in every way – not the right man now. If they stick with him as the leader, they will lose the next election."

Which brings us to the prospects of the Tonbridge and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat getting his mitts on the keys to Downing Street? "I'd save my money and put it on someone else," Farage tells us.

Kent can, however, boast a new leader and it's an historic first.

Mike Baldock has taken the reins as the new leader of Swale council – as an independent with no mainstream political affiliation.

He will have the tricky task of keeping the rainbow coalition which runs the council intact but it has shown more durability than some forecast.