Nigel farage

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Is Douglas Carswell avoiding the HIV question — or should he be given a break?

Does Douglas Carswell agree with Nigel Farage’s controversial comments on treating foreigners with HIV? When I asked the Ukip leader, Farage responded ‘Yeah of course, he thinks we should have a national health service not an international health service.’ The question was put to Carswell directly on Question Time last night, when Piers Morgan took him to task if he was ‘ashamed’ at the comments. Carswell responded: ‘I think it’s entirely legitimate and right that we should expect that our National Health Service is a national health service and not an international health service. Now if someone was to fly into this country with no prior connection here at all and to fly in

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The BBC debate confirmed some unhelpful female stereotypes

If I were a nicer person, I suppose I’d have been rather more moved by what the Independent called the moment that summed up last night’s leaders debate, the ‘beautiful group hug’ by the three women leaders at the end while Ed Miliband looked on.  Rather, it summed up for me what I felt about the entire event, that it was a slightly embarrassing affair for women whose approach to politics is anything other than the sort of thing espoused by Greece’s radical left-wing party Syriza. If you take seriously the notion that the deficit is something to be addressed rather than put on hold, that the national debt is something to be talked

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Farage, the debate audience wasn’t left-wing but it was affected by groupthink

The BBC opposition leaders’ debate wasn’t great political theatre, but it did turn into a fascinating experiment in human behaviour. A third of the way through, Nigel Farage suddenly imploded, attacking the BBC for putting together a left-wing audience – which he then went onto to insult and dismiss as an irrelevance, the real audience being at home. On this occasion, Farage was almost certainly wrong about BBC bias. I am sure that David Dimbleby was telling the truth when he said that the audience had been put together by a polling company to reflect the balance of voting intentions. And yet Farage was right to detect that the audience,

Thursday

James Forsyth

Why Ed Miliband is taking part in tonight’s TV debate

Tonight Ed Miliband takes one of the big risks of the campaign. He debates with Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett. All of these leaders will be aiming to score points off Miliband. Those close to the Labour leader give several reasons for why he is taking part tonight. They argue that he does well whenever he’s given the chance to speak to voters directly. But the main reason for Miliband’s doing this debate is the Scottish situation. Labour feared that without Miliband present, this debate would have turned into a clash between Sturgeon and Farage — which would have benefitted the SNP north of the border.

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Nick Clegg tempts fate with BLUKIP photoshop

Today Nick Clegg revealed a new poster claiming that the Tories could form a coalition with Ukip. Speaking about the prospect of ‘BLUKIP,’ Clegg warned of the potential dangers of such a pairing: ‘The prospect of a left wing alliance between Labour and the SNP has been well covered. What’s equally possible is an alliance that will drag Britain further and further to the right: BLUKIP – a bloc of right wingers from UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP that could hold the balance of power. There is a very real danger that Nigel Farage and his friends could hold David Cameron to ransom.’ Still, Mr S can’t help but think Clegg is already pre-empting his

Sebastian Payne

Watch: Nigel Farage interview on South Thanet, tactical voting, Douglas Carswell and those HIV comments

Nigel Farage has been mysteriously absent from the election campaign trail. In the latest Mini Election interview, I spoke to the Ukip leader about his race in South Thanet and whether he any regrets about choosing a seat that was not particularly Ukip-friendly. ‘None’, he said despite the ‘vitriolic campaign against me’. Farage added, ‘Don’t forget I stood here in 2005 and I’ve worked with this branch since 1999 to try and build it up.’ Nor does Farage regret saying he would stand down as Ukip leader if he fails to win South Thanet — arguing that ‘it’s the right thing to do’ and this fight is his Becher’s Brook.

James Bartholomew

Easy virtue

Go to a branch of Whole Foods, the American-owned grocery shop, and you will see huge posters advertising Whole Foods, of course, but — more precisely — advertising how virtuous Whole Foods is. A big sign in the window shows a mother with a little child on her shoulders (aaaah!) and declares: ‘values matter.’ The poster goes on to assert: ‘We are part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food — one that champions what’s good.’ This a particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of what might be called ‘virtue signalling’ — indicating that you are kind, decent and virtuous. We British do it, too. But

Wednesday

Steerpike

Ukip win and lose a celebrity supporter in the space of an hour

Last year Mike Read had to withdraw his Ukip Calypso song from sale after a number people complained that it was racist. So Mr S was cheered to hear that there could be a turn in the party’s musical fortunes today after The Rifles voiced their support for Ukip. The indie band tweeted that Nigel Farage’s party are the only party ‘with the balls to make a change’: Alas, soon after the tweet was published it was hastily deleted and the band claimed that their account had been mysteriously hacked. Given that their most successful song reached only number 26 in the charts, Mr S suspects that the retraction of their support will not come

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Ukip pledge that other parties may well adopt

One of the Ukip manifesto pledges that’s making certain types a bit grumpy today is a pledge to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Unite has said that this ‘beyond barmy and would create chaos’. Unite is a union and is naturally keen to support the jobs of those who work for DECC and in industries covered by the department. But this particular Ukip policy might be one that a party of government ends up adopting. Nigel Farage’s party’s manifesto said today that DECC should be abolished because its ‘essential powers and functions can be merged into other departments’. Influential Tories agree with this: in 2013, the Free

Sebastian Payne

Ukip attempts a professional manifesto launch in Thurrock

There was one star of Ukip’s manifesto launch today: Suzanne Evans. For once Nigel Farage didn’t steal the show, it was the party’s deputy chairman — and the brains behind its ‘Believe in Britain’ manifesto — who came across as professional and reasoned. Over 100 people turned up at the Thurrock Hotel in Essex to see the release of the manifesto booklet. While it is a slick offering, and full of glossy pictures of its senior figures, it revealed nothing particularly new. The two main messages in Ukip’s manifesto were already briefed out in the Telegraph and Daily Express this morning: a pledge to increase defence spending beyond the 2 per cent Nato

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 22 days to go

Three manifestos down, two more to go. Yesterday, the Conservatives launched their plan for government and promised to be ‘the party of the working people’ while the Green Party promised to end the ‘disastrous policy of austerity’ and increasing government spending by £170 billion a year. Today, Ukip and the Liberal Democrats take their turns to explain what they’d like to do. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Believe in more spending Ukip is returning to Thurrock for the second time this week to launch its 2015 manifesto. Aside from the usual promises we’ve come to expect — leaving the

Friday

Steerpike

Have the Tories made an ‘electoral pact’ with Ukip?

This week David Cameron invited Ukip voters to ‘come home‘ to the Conservative party. ‘Come with us, come back home to us rather than risk all of this good work being undone by Labour,’ he pleaded at a campaign event. However for all of Cameron’s talk, Labour sources claim that the Tories would be quite happy to form a coalition with Ukip after the election. Now, Jonathan Reynolds, the Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, says that a pact has been made in Tameside, the Greater Manchester borough, between Ukip and the Tories. It’s claimed that the parties have agreed not to stand against each other in a number of wards for the local election in

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Why is Nigel Farage in Grimsby instead of battling for South Thanet?

Nigel Farage is in Great Grimsby today, campaigning with Ukip candidate Victoria Ayling. The last Ashcroft poll focusing on Great Grimsby put Ukip behind Labour by one point, and that was in December 2014. Farage started his day at the docks before visiting a local fish market, to highlight the problems that the European Union’s fisheries policies have caused in towns like Grimsby. But one of the questions is whether Farage can afford to be spending time away from South Thanet when his chances there are on a knife edge. Ukip has one safe seat, and that’s Douglas Carswell’s. Farage has to win his seat and the polls suggest he

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Another Tory ‘defection’ to Ukip – in a safe Labour seat

Nigel Farage has had a torrid few days – exactly as he’d planned. He had all six of his fellow contestants in the TV debate ganging up on him over immigration, just as he’d hoped. He’s provoked the Liberal Metropolitan Elite into attacking him over his comments about health tourism and HIV, just as he’d hoped. And today, to cap it all, he’s claiming a Tory defection. Mike Whitehead had been the Conservative candidate in Hull West and Hessle, standing against Alan Johnson in the Labour safe seat. The Tories came third here in 2010. Farage said this morning: ‘I am delighted to be welcoming Mike to the party at this exciting

Sunday

James Forsyth

Tories convinced ‘moment of maximum danger’ has passed

On Thursday night, David Cameron didn’t eviscerate the competition. But nor did he suffer any damage and that, to Tory high command, meant that it was job done. The Tory leadership didn’t want any debates at all, they’d rather not have taken the risk. So, to get through this one debate with the dynamics of the campaign unchanged was, to their mind, a result. As Cameron enjoyed a late night drink with Samantha Cameron, George Osborne and his key aides on Thursday, he reflected on how much better he felt than he did after the first debate five years ago when he knew that he had not only underperformed but

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Radio 4’s woeful ‘fact-checking’ is simply anti-Ukip bias

I’ve been away, in the north, free from Wifi and mobile phone reception, mercifully. I watched Thursday’s debate in a noisy pub so heard none of it and was forced to rely on ITV’s subtitles. I was greatly attracted to the Ukip cause by Nigel Farage’s bold assertion that “Britain needs plain-speaking partridges.” Yes indeed. I think we are all sick of equivocating pheasants and less than candid quail. The deaf must be rolling around with laughter every day. I caught Radio 4 PM programme on the way home, on Friday. Its coverage of the debate consisted of taking three statements made during the debate and subjecting them to what they called

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

The TV leaders’ debate was a well-mannered affair and no one messed up

That was a surprisingly well-mannered debate, tightly moderated, with the main chaos coming from the member of the audience who decided to start heckling (and then stopped, followed by an ominous thud). There wasn’t a big upset at any point, and even the big moments weren’t really big stories. Those big moments were Nick Clegg going straight for David Cameron at the start, Nigel Farage’s rather scary rant, Leanne Wood telling Farage he should be ashamed of himself, Miliband on zero hours contracts, and Clegg turning on Miliband at the end. But no-one messed up. David Cameron came across as being really rather uninspiring, but I suspect that this was the

Robert Smith

Cameron needs to be the reasonable statesman on tonight’s debate

Which David Cameron will take the stage for tonight’s seven-way showdown? Will it be the competent, likeable and reasonable statesman who has steered the economy onto safer ground? Or the tetchy one who calls Ed Miliband a ‘waste of space’ at Prime Minister’s Questions? On Monday, speaking at a lectern outside the door of Number 10, the Prime Minister decided to launch a personal attack on his opposite number rather than make a statesman-like pitch to the electorate. To have mentioned Ed Miliband by name once would have been historic – doing so three times smacked of desperation. listen to ‘David Cameron speech outside Number 10 as Parliament is dissolved’

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The media and political elite need to stop treating the electorate like dogs

There are many grating phrases in modern British politics. ‘Best practice.’ ‘Fit for purpose.’ ‘Let me explain’ (just bloody well explain!). And that tendency of Labour politicians to preface pretty much everything they say with a schoolmarmish ‘Look’, as in ‘Look here’. As in: ‘You donuts know nothing, so I am going to put you straight.’ But even more grating than those, sat at the top of the pile of temperature-raising sayings, is ‘dog-whistle’. Everyone’s talking about ‘dog-whistle politics’. It has become the media and chattering classes’ favourite putdown of politicians they don’t like: to accuse them of indulging in dog-whistle antics, of making an ugly shrill noise — that