Against all popular opinion, Nigel Farage has denied that he has been sent to earth by God.
The Ukip leader told LBC radio on Friday morning: "I am not the messiah, I am a very naughty boy."
Farage was responding to a Ukip supporter named Jill who told a Channel 5 TV programme that she thought the Ukip leader was something special. "I think Nigel Farage has been sent by God, he probably doesn't realise it.. I think Nigel Farage is sent to protect us against the EU," she said.
Confronted by the quote on his Phone Farage call-in show on LBC radio, the Ukip leader laughed as he said: "Jill, I'm sure, is an absolutely delightful woman, but I have to disappoint her. Jill, I'm not the Messiah, I'm a very naughty boy."
Mr Farage warned that the campaign for the May 7 general election would be the "most negative, nasty and personal" in UK history - thanks in part to the importation by Conservatives and Labour of spin doctors from the US.
He made a personal pledge to avoid trading insults with rivals. He claimed to regard a rash of recent TV programmes raising questions over Ukip's suitability to govern as "an absolutely tremendous compliment".
"We are rocking the establishment back on their heels. They are scared, they are fighting back. Do you know what we are going to do? We're going to ignore them and keep on doing what we are doing," said the Ukip leader.
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But Mr Farage did take a pop at Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who dismissed Ukip on his own LBC show as a "pipsqueak party" and bet a caller six pints that Liberal Democrats would end up with more seats on May 7.
"A pipsqueak party, Mr Clegg?" responded Farage. "How many MEPs have you got, Mr Clegg? One. We've got 24.
"I think its encouraging that Nick Clegg is clearly learning and has decided that pub politics is the future."
He added: "I don't know how many seats the Liberal Democrats are going to win. I don't know how many seats Ukip are going to win. None of us have got a clue. This is the most open general election we have seen for 100 years.
"But all the bluster, all the negativity we are hearing at the moment is irrelevant. It won't be until after Easter that the great British public start thinking about this and I think all bets are off."
Mr Farage - whose self-deprecating insistence that he is not the Messiah was a reference to Monty Python's Life Of Brian - said that he was aiming to "turn the other cheek" when attacked by rivals in the election campaign.
"I'm trying not to return insults of any kind, and to turn the other cheek," the Ukip leader told LBC.
But challenged over Mr Clegg's claim that he had flip-flopped on immigration policy, Mr Farage said: "All I would say to Nick is that when it comes to inconsistency on policy, the Liberal Democrats are absolutely at the top of the tree. They have flipped and flopped and chopped and changed on everything."
He added: "We all know that in politics there is a bit of fun and mickey-taking and when it's done with a good sense of humour, it's fine.
Earlier this week Farage spoke in a London church under one of the ten commandments: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Asked by amused journalists whether it was Ukip's new slogan, Farage replied: "No. Not in a democratic party like ours."
