Who are the best that these 80 Conservative MPs, with their conveniently elastic terms for renegotiation, can produce by way of leadership?
John Redwood, one of those Enoch-like monks of academia on whom the real world never intrudes. Redwood has long since recanted his vote in favour of the Iraq War, which makes an awful lot better than some. But even so.
And Owen Paterson, so much a caricature of a thick toff that one would almost assume that he were doing it on purpose. But he is not. Still, he is not as offensive as his brother-in-law. You would be drummed out of London public life if you had caused a bank to collapse and be nationalised by the British State anywhere in the world. Anywhere, that is, apart from in Britain outside London. In that case, it would seem that no one even realises, never mind cares.
Of course, every man jack of them will come into line behind whatever Cameron brings home. That is the whole point. Leaving whom? After all:
Ukip’s ground machine is laughably amateurish. Why do you think they lost so badly? We crushed them in Thanet South, which was their only real target seat. They have almost no activists and very weak central organisation. Their digital operation was flimsy and poorly targeted. And Douglas Carswell won in Clacton only because he was Douglas and has been the MP for a decade.
There will be a No Campaign, of one kind or another. But it had been assumed that UKIP activists would be kicked pout of its meetings or turned away at the door, like the National Front in 1975. For those things to happen, however, there would have to be any UKIP activists to start with.
Ukip’s ground machine is laughably amateurish. Why do you think they lost so badly? We crushed them in Thanet South, which was their only real target seat. They have almost no activists and very weak central organisation. Their digital operation was flimsy and poorly targeted. And Douglas Carswell won in Clacton only because he was Douglas and has been the MP for a decade.
There will be a No Campaign, of one kind or another. But it had been assumed that UKIP activists would be kicked pout of its meetings or turned away at the door, like the National Front in 1975. For those things to happen, however, there would have to be any UKIP activists to start with.
No Tory would appear on a platform with Ukip. With Dennis Skinner or the editor of the Morning Star but never with Ukip. I am writing this inside the Palace of Westminster where you have many readers as you know. Ukip are a joke. One MP, and the feud between his supporters and the other Kippers on Tendring Council meant that there had be bouncers at the last meeting. Whoever told you Kippers would be barred at the door of No campaign rallies was spot on. Ukip are pariahs, lepers, no-one will have anything to do with them. But expect the BBC to smear the No campaign by bringing them up, no matter how many times we make it clear they are nothing to do with us.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you are also right that we won't have anything like 80 Tory MPs. Most of those 80 are exactly as flaky as you say. Plus we too despair of the clever but no popular touch Redwood and Thicky Paterson as leading figures.
Ukip couldn't even win South Thanet and they didn't even try to hold Rochester and Strood, their party organisation in Clacton is a cause of public disorder. Buffoons in the tradition of the League of Empire Loyalists, already off the map of serious politics.
ReplyDeleteI cherish the hope that the League of Empire Loyalists is still out there, somewhere.
DeleteThe pro-Empire but anti-immigration line was particularly lacking in clarity of thought. The johnny-come-lately support for the Commonwealth on the part of people who do not know what it is, is very much in the same vein.
Cameron retreating already before the Tory Right.
ReplyDelete""Eurosceptics victorious as PM retreats over EU poll""
Downing Street was forced into an awkward climbdown today as aides insisted that reports that David Cameron would sack ministers who wanted to take Britain out of the EU were “over-interpreted”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/
And?
DeleteAny Tory majority below 100 is really a hung Parliament, we all know that.
Ukip will be all over the media coverage of the referendum so as to make the No side look as weird as possible. Eve though the official No campaign will have nothing to do with them. You comparison with the League of Empire Loyalists is spot on, someone needs to investigate any shared personnel over the decades.
ReplyDelete