Godfrey bloom

Yesterday saw a turn in fortune for the Out campaign after Emma Thompson declared her intention to vote to remain in the EU. The Nanny McPhee actress managed to upset those on both sides of the debate when she explained that without Europe, Britain is simply ‘a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island‘. Quite rightly a number of Brexit activists called her out on her negative comments, while even supporters of the In campaign seemed less than thrilled by the declaration. Alas, one Eurosceptic appears to have gone a step too far. Godfrey Bloom — the former Ukip MEP who had to resign from the party after he called female Ukip activists

Katie Hopkins is not the first person who comes to mind when thinking about electoral reform, but she spoke at an Electoral Reform Society fringe event at Ukip conference to discuss the party’s performance in May’s general election. The former former Apprentice star and Mail Online columnist advocated gassing the House of Lords: ‘People like me, people I represent, the things I articulate for the nation, actually don’t really give a shit about the House of Lords because we think they’re actually a bunch of plonkers. They’ve just put Michelle Mone in there and frankly once you’ve got Michelle Mone in anywhere you really don’t really care about it. Frankly, I don’t

The briefing war inside Ukip continues with the Nigel Farage camp hitting back at Patrick O’Flynn, after his remarks in the Times today. The battle is between two sides: those who are close to and work for Nigel Farage, and others in the party who are concerned about who the Ukip leader is listening to. Team Farage believe the battle is about power and influence with the leader. But the attacks are getting personal: one source close to the Ukip leader suggests that O’Flynn has had ‘personal problems and this may be the manifestation of them’. Although Team Farage failed to deliver a victory in South Thanet, those who worked on his campaign are

On Thursday night I spoke at the Oxford Union on the motion ‘This House believes post-war immigration into Britain has been too high.’ In many ways this is an easy debate to explain and win, notwithstanding the fact that Lord Singh, Nadhim Zahawi MP and Monica Ali were lined up in opposition. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has said immigration has been too high and that he wants to bring it down. The Labour Leader Ed Miliband has said the same. As have all major, mainstream British politicians. And no wonder. A British Social Attitudes survey from last year showed 77 per cent of the British public want immigration

I guess the ‘unite the Right’ memo has not got through to some Tories, with Michael Heseltine calling Ukip ‘a racist party’ and James Wharton saying they’re ‘an awkward group of strange people’. That may be unwise — rather like attacking your customer-base — but it’s also untrue. Small Right-wing parties have a huge disadvantage because, although lots of people are socially conservative, soc-cons tend on average to be low in social skills and charisma and so the normals are easily driven away by the weirds, especially when immigration is an issue. But the early stages are the hardest, when any party right of the mainstream can become toxified and

I was at a funeral on Friday and so late catching-up with the latest entertainment provided by UKIP. But, gosh, thank heavens for Godfrey Bloom. Not just because he and his ilk have injected some welcome craziness into British politics – the circus always needs new clowns – but because by doing so they have reminded us of the stakes involved. Bloom – last heard decrying aid squandered on feckless Bongo Bongo Land – one-upped himself with his talk of sluts who fail to clean their kitchens properly. Sure, there was something refreshing about hearing Nigel Farage admit all this amounted to a disaster for UKIP but the bigger point is that

Barely a day goes by without Ukip’s gaffe-prone senior MEP Godfrey Bloom getting into a spot of bother. Fresh from arguing companies should be allowed to sack pregnant women, claiming ‘most women can find the mustard in the pantry quicker than a man and most men can reverse a car better than a woman,’ it was his ‘bongo bongo land’ comments that caused the most damage. Taking to the web might not be the best idea for Godfrey, as he discovered earlier when having a go at Channel Four News: @Goddersukip are you perhaps mistaking me for @krishgm? He is a different person. — Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) September 9, 2013

Lots of people are hating on Ukip’s Godfrey Bloom after he featured on the Today programme attacking foreign aid, which he said was used ‘to buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris, Ferraris’ and ‘F18s for Pakistan’. What made many furious was that he was recorded referring to recipient countries as ‘Bongo Bongo land’. I genuinely find it hard to believe that anyone is really offended by this. Maybe I’m missing some part of the brain that relates to outrage; I’m not even offended by jokes about Catholics, the Irish (or the English when I’m in Ireland), or anything else that might be targeted at me in particular. If it’s funny