Grant Shapps defends ‘successful’ defection of Ukip MEP Amjad Bashir

January has been 30 days of chaos for Labour, according to Grant Shapps — but what about the Tories’ bad headlines? In a press conference this morning, Shapps outlined all of the negative press Labour has received in 2015 so far (pdf of the document here). But he ended up having to defend his party over the defection of Ukip MEP Amjad Bashir. ‘I welcome anybody, regardless of where they’ve been in the past —with the exception of extreme parties,’ Shapps said in response to a question about Bashir’s alleged membership of the Respect party. He contended that he’s more concerned about people’s ‘ideas’ and ‘how they see this country developing’ instead of their past lives. Given the negative headlines relating to Bashir, I asked Shapps whether he still considered his defection a success for the party. ‘Yes’ was his response, before attacking the media for believing these ‘desperate’ accusations:

‘Look I can’t believe that cynical hacks are believing this stuff to be honest.