So farewell then £80,000 salary, £150,000 expense account, secretary, team of assistants, constituency office, first-class travel, immunity from prosecution, Brussels blowouts, ludicrous pension and all the other perks I’d been so looking forward to enjoying from May next year onwards. Ukip has decided that it doesn’t, after all, want to have me as one of its MEPs.
The rejection came as a bit of a surprise, I must say. When the party chairman, Steve Crowther, rang to break the news, I felt rather as Brad Pitt might on being turned down for a mercy shag he’d proffered Ann Widdecombe. No offence intended to Ukip — I think they’re great people and a very necessary prick to the Westminster bubble. But if I’d been them, I definitely would have gone for me. Sure it would have been a risk, which would probably have backfired horribly. Think, though, of all the fun we would have had before it did!
Apparently I did fine on the public speaking part. But failed dismally on the interview (too recent a party member; not enough evidence of involvement in the nitty-gritty of Ukip politics) and on the psychometric testing. So there already is another string to my bow: ‘James Delingpole — the man so barking even Ukip wouldn’t have him.’
By spooky coincidence, I got the rejection call just as I was putting the finishing touches to my 500-word statement explaining to the party membership why I deserved their vote. It began: ‘Nigel once famously said that trying to get Ukip-ers to behave is like herding cats. Well I want you to think of me as a one-man herd of cats.
‘As I told some of you when I spoke at the hustings in Birmingham, I’m not remotely interested in becoming just another ruddy politician.
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