You can almost smell the warm ale and faded dignity already: two blokes, one jukebox, and a sea of folded arms in a working men's club somewhere between the ghosts of the abandoned pits and the promises of levelling up. One's a polished barrister trying to be heard over the fruit machine, and the other's Nigel Farage, pretending he's just popped in for a swift one after a hard day down the mines - a place he knows about as well as he knows a shift rota, although he could recite the foie gras menu at 5 Hertford Street by heart.

Let's not fall for the act. Farage is not one of us. Never was, never will be. The man's a privately educated political chameleon with a Marlboro habit and a soft spot for offshore wealth. It seems to me he's got more in common with the Cayman Islands than Castleford. And yet, he gets the room. Or rather, he works the room. Like a pantomime villain who's learned all the lines and none of the responsibilities.

Now he's challenged Keir Starmer to a head-to-head in a working men's club, like it's the opening scene of a Guy Ritchie reboot called Lock, Stock and Two Broken Manifestos. Farage reckons he'll mop the floor with him. Pint in one hand, right wing populism in the other. He'll rant about bills and borders and "taking back control" while someone in the back whispers, "He's got a point," because Labour still hasn't figured out how to say something that cuts through.

But there's one thing Farage must be terrified of his working class supporters finding out.

It's the thing Starmer needs to remember before he even steps foot on that carpet that's older than both of them: Farage is a fake.

Reform is not the party of the worker. It's the party of the dodgy bosses.

This is the man who ordered his parliamentary colleagues to vote against the employment rights bill. Against protections for workers. Against banning exploitative zero hours contracts, against better conditions, against the kind of stuff people in the working man's clubs he uses as a political football, fought for decades for. Then he had the brass neck to brand it as red tape. If Farage ever turned up at a picket line, it'd be to tell them they're blocking the car park.

So Keir - if you're going to walk into that club and sit opposite this snake oil salesman in brogues, don't play nice. Don't do the usual Labour thing and try to come across as reasonable". Bring the receipts.

Turn to the room and tell them that Labour aren't here to tell them that they're wrong. That Labour is here to put things right, after the decade-and-a-half of tory austerity. Acknowledge that normal people in this country are getting shafted on rent, shafted on pay, shafted on energy bills while people like Farage light cigars off the sparks.

This week, Andy Burnham took the stage at the Compass conference, in the Ministry of Sound no less, and basically said: enough with the caution, it's time to be Labour again. And Louise Haigh? She wasn't offering policy tweaks - she came armed with a political flamethrower. Because if you're going up against an operator like Farage, focus-grouped fluff won't cut it. You need your sleeves rolled up, your boots on, and a message that says: we're here to fight for you, not shake hands with the people who gutted your town.

Burnham gets it. He doesn't waffle on about ambition like it's a TED Talk. He talks about building council houses - properly, at scale - and giving our young people free travel and something even rarer these days: respect. He knows people don't just want support. They want pride. Dignity. A future that's about more than just scraping through to the next payday.

And Haigh? She's not finessing press lines - she's swinging for the fences. She thinks that Labour should be tearing up the self-imposed tax rules, and go after massive private wealth with both hands. That we should stop pouring public money into the pockets of landlords and slapdash outsourcing firms. Because she knows that voters don't want neutrality, they want to know exactly what side you're on.

Starmer should walk into that working men's club with Burnham and Haigh in mind, not as spin doctors, but as the spirit of the fight. And he should say it straight: "I'm not Farage. I didn't go to Dulwich College. I don't sip claret in City wine bars. I believe in trains that turn up, jobs that pay well, and housing that doesn't bleed you dry."

Because Farage is all theatre. He's the political version of someone who turns up late, buys one round, and leaves before the cleaning up starts. Starmer has to be the one who stays. Who listens. Who owns the mess, and offers a way out. Who doesn't just talk about change, but makes it sound like a reckoning.

That's the only way to beat Farage. Not by matching his pint for pint, but by fighting his performance with substance. Fire with truth. Pint glass with policy.