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[/audioplayer]In Ukip’s Mayfair headquarters there is a copy of Banksy’s monkey with the sign around its neck: ‘Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge’. It seems appropriate. For years, Nigel Farage and his party were dismissed as a bunch of cranks. Within three months, they could be propping up David Cameron’s government, having named their price — perhaps an EU referendum before the year is out. Conservatives stopped sneering at Ukip a while ago. Now they’re more worried about its ambitions. What does Ukip want? Will it attack from the left or the right?
Ukip tends not to show people around its HQ: it mistrusts the media. It revels in its reputation as a shambolic salt-of-the-earth party whose policies are decided after the fifth pint rather than endlessly tested on focus groups. But now, with the election nine weeks away, Ukip is changing. After losing the Newark by-election, it decided to professionalise, and this 25-man operation in Mayfair is the result.
Ukip’s election strategist is Chris Bruni-Lowe, a straight-talking south Londoner who was a Conservative until a few months ago. He defected along with Douglas Carswell, and ran the effective by-election campaign in Clacton. His master plan is not, as is commonly believed, to win as many seats as possible in May. ‘Our aims are quite simple,’ says Bruni-Lowe: ‘Get Nigel elected in South Thanet, win a good number of seats, and then come second in more than 100 northern constituencies.’ Finding a Westminster perch for the leader is the top priority. A few more seats would be nice, but Ukip’s aim is to position itself for the 2020 election. The bet is on Labour’s support dissolving in the north of England, as it is already doing in Scotland.
Team Ukip: Farage’s Senior Adviser Raheem Kassam and Head of Campaigns Chris Bruni-Lowe.
You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it
Barely a month seems to pass without a public exhortation to ‘raise awareness’ about the plight of some marginal section of society, or for some worthy cause on behalf of the vulnerable. If you find this trend tiresome, irritating or indeed stressful, then help is at hand: April has seen the arrival of Stress Awareness
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