article: Nigel Farage is a 'Victor Meldrew in stilts' whose remarks about immigrants and ethnic minorities reveal the 'truly odious nature of his views', Nick Clegg claimed today in an extraordinary attack on the UKIP leader. In an interview with MailOnline, Mr Clegg said Mr Farage's 'mask is slipping' to reveal a man uncomfortable talking about people who are not white 'lashing out' in a scrabble for headlines. The Lib Dem leader condemned David Cameron's appeal to UKIP supporters to 'come home', warning the 'bandwagons of the far right' are encircling an 'increasingly hapless Conservative leadership' which is losing all grip on the party. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg claimed Nigel Farage's 'mask is slipping' to reveal a man uncomfortable talking about people who are not white 'lashing out' in a scrabble for headlines . Mr Cameron issued an appeal to people planning to vote UKIP to instead support the Tories in an attempt to block a 'toxic tie-up' between Laabiur and the SNP. But Mr Clegg condemned the 'worrying' suggestion that his former coalition partners should seek to build a majority by appealing to people on the 'far right'. Speaking in his bright yellow campaign bus as he headed to the South West, Mr Clegg: . Mr Farage has courted controversy throughout the election campaign, in an apparent attempt to generate headlines and shore up Ukip's core vote. He was condemned in the first TV leaders' debate for saying people with HIV should not be allowed into Britain and in the second for attacking the audience for being too left-wing. After criticism that the Ukip manifesto featured almost all white faces, he insisted yesterday that there was a 'half black' party spokesman featured prominently - and 'one fully black person'. The Lib Dem leader told MailOnline's political editor Matt Chorley that the 'bandwagons of the far right' are encircling an 'increasingly hapless Conservative leadership' Miriam González Durantezhas been writing a food blog . Nick Clegg is such a bad cook his wife Miriam only lets him do the washing up. The Lib Dem leader admitted his 'rubbishness' in the kitchen after it emerged his wife and sons had been secretly running a food blog - MumAndSons - posting recipes and photographs online. Mr Clegg said he had played no part in the culinary operation, but had helped with taking pictures for the blog: 'I'm sure you can see my hand in a couple of them.' But his own cooking abilities do not stretch to more than peanut butter on toast. 'I'm a sort of sous chef, Mr Clegg told MailOnline. 'I provide helpful moral backing and assistance. I'll do the washing up, and tasting and preparatory tasks.' Asked if there was nothing he could cook, Mr Clegg replied: 'I'm sure I could but I'm great eater, I'm just really not a very good cook. 'If I had to, if I was starving... Peanut butter on white toast obviously, with jam on top. I'm seriously into jam on top.' Ms Gonzalez Durantez said she had run a cooking blog with her children  for three years . Mr Clegg said the comments revealed Mr Farage's true nature: 'The mask is slipping. I think the more he thrashes around to get attention the more the mask slips and the truly odious nature of his views become more and more obvious. 'This is someone who is clearly uncomfortable talking about people from different ethnic backgrounds, calls them 'half' and 'fully' black, but is also someone who advocates basically turning our backs on people who are very sick and kind of indulging in a language that is so divisive, so odious.' Mr Clegg, who boasts that the Lib Dems will win many, many more seats than UKIP on May 7, accused Mr Farage of 'running a truly incompetent campaign'. 'He is just lashing around, thrashing around, lurching from one odious gaffe or assertion to the next. There is no pattern. 'One moment he claims he wants to take his manifesto seriously and the next he is talking about fully and half black candidates. 'You are either serious or a kind of Victor Meldrew on stilts. Which one are you? 'It just beggars belief that it is that kind of person that the Conservative party thinks they need to bring back into the fold.' He said Mr Cameron's appeal to Ukip voters 'could not have been more explicit - people like Farage, please come back home'. 'I don't think the Conservative should have a home for those kind of views,' he added. Mr Clegg, who visited the Airbus HQ in Filton, Bristol before travelling to Wales, said he would use the final 15 days of the campaign to tell voters of the 'danger of these kind of really odious views basically taking over or encroaching upon how a mainstream party like the Conservative party thinks and acts'. He warned that without the Lib Dems back in coalition, the Tories would be dragged to the 'extremes' by right wing backbenchers, Ukip and the DUP. He said that it is a 'tragedy' that a centrist politician like Mr Cameron had lost control of his party. 'What's happening is you are seeing the bandwagons of the far right encircling an increasingly hapless Conservative leadership. 'And the Conservative leadership will become just victim to and puppets of an array of hardline right wing voices from UKip, from DUP, from their own backbenches, which will do huge damage to our country. Huge damage. Mr Clegg, who visited the Airbus factory in Filton, Bristol today, said the Lib Dems would act as a 'bulwark' against the Tories lurching to the right . Mr Clegg claimed right wing Tories want to 'enter into coalition with Ukip, some of them want to bring back the death penalty, they want to ban the burka' Mr Farage - appearing on ITV's Lorraine this morning - has courted controversy throughout the election campaign, sparking accusations from Mr Clegg today that he was an 'odious Victor Meldrew' (pictured right) Mr Clegg claimed right wing Tories want to 'enter into coalition with Ukip, some of them want to bring back the death penalty, they want to ban the burka'. 'They have got very hardline views on people who need help from the state because they have fallen on hard times,' Mr Clegg said. 'And they take this very ideological view that basically the state and support for public services should be remorselessly cut back and cut back and cut back and cut back for no reason other than some kind of hardline ideological preference for it.' Mr Clegg went head to head with Mr Farage in two TV debates last year, ahead of the European Parliament elections, which UKip went on to win while the Lib Dems lost all but one seat in Brussels. Mr Clegg insisted most people in Britain are 'decent and pragmatic', and that the Lib Dems are most 'in tune' with public opinion. But he admitted he faces a 'challenge' to turn that into votes after a devastating collapse in popularity since entering coalition five years ago. We're the guarantee that will not let the swivel-eyed brigade take over. He added: 'We are the only bulwark, we are the only barrier, we are the only dam against this increasing pressure from people with some very, very nasty views which would lead to ideologically imposed cuts on nurseries, on schools on colleges.' David Cameron came under fire from Mr Clegg as he visited Advantage children's daycare nursery in Surbiton with London Mayor Boris Johnson . Mr Clegg said he defended Mr Farage's right to say controversial things in an open democracy, but hoped they would be defeated on Election Day. 'I really really abhor what Farage stands for but I don't begrudge the right to say what he says and seek to represent those views in Parliament. 'What worries me much more is not whether he gets a number of MPs in the House of Commons, those seats then become the tail that wags the Tory dog. 'Democracy should be able to encompass views that I would find absolutely beyond the pale, that's what being a free country is about. 'It's about disagreeing with those views, taking them on, arguing against them and defeating them in an argument. 'It's not about saying they shouldn't be expressed. That would be very illiberal.' A Ukip spokesman said: 'This smacks of desperation from a Clegg, horrified by his disastrous polls, trying to punch above his weight. If only he'd do it with policy, rather than these venting, personal attacks. A trick he has obviously learned from Mr Cameron.'
highlights: EXCLUSIVE Nick Clegg warns the Ukip leader's 'mask is slipping'
  Condemns Farage for comments on migrants and 'half black' candidates .
  Warns Cameron will be pulled to the right by his own MPs and Ukip .
  Some Tories want to bring back death penalty and ban the burka .
  Lib Dems are 'in tune' with public, but struggling to turn into votes .
  Admits to being such a bad cook that wife Miriam only lets him wash up .
  Condemned Nigel Farage for referring to 'half black' candidates and wanting to 'turn our backs on the very sick'
  Insisted the majority of people do not agree so the 'odious' and 'divisive' rhetoric of the far right and Ukip .
  Warned the Tory leadership has lost control of the party, and is in hock to right wingers who want to bring back the death penalty, ban the burka and slash the state .
  Claimed the Lib Dems are most in tune with public opinion, but admitted he is struggling to turn it into votes .
  Revealed he is such a terrible cook that wife Miriam, who has revealed she has been running a secret food blog, will only let him do the washing up .
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