Ukip

In a close campaign, you would normally expect the smaller parties to get squeezed as voters decided that is really a choice between Labour and the Tories. But this time, thing might be different. Why, because the general expectation is that there will be another hung parliament and the coverage of the campaign is being reflected through that prism. This emphasis on the likelihood of a hung parliament could change how people actually vote. As I write in the current issue of the magazine, the British Election Study shows that among voters who expect another hung parliament support for both Labour and the Tories is radically lower with the minor

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

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

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

Immigration is a pretty important driver for voters who turn to Ukip. So you would have imagined that the party might have spent a while really making sure that its own policy on the matter is crystal clear. This morning in Dover, Nigel Farage said ‘I’m saying a net level of about 30,000 a year is roughly what we had for 50 years from 1950 almost until the turn of the century’. This seemed to be a bit of an about-turn from the Ukip leader’s decision earlier this month to ditch the 50,000 cap on the number of migrants arriving in the UK each year. Farage dropped the 50,000 target

Ed Miliband’s so-called ‘Paxo bounce’ in the opinion polls is ebbing away. The polls out this evening have the Conservatives either level pegging with Labour or slightly ahead. Tonight’s latest from YouGov/The Sun has both parties neck and neck, with the Conservatives and Labour on 35 per cent — a three point rise for the Tories on Sunday — while Ukip is on 12 per cent, the Lib Dems on eight and the Greens on five. In his weekly national poll, Lord Ashcroft has the Tories two points ahead on 36 per cent, up three points from last week. The Tory pollster has Labour on 34 per cent, Ukip on ten, the Lib Dems

The stakes have been raised, at least psychologically, for Thursday night’s debate. Today’s YouGov poll has Labour four points ahead, in contrast to a two point Tory lead in their last survey. This is being seen in Westminster as a Paxman bounce for Miliband. If this Labour leads is still in place at the end of the Easter weekend, Tory nerves will begin to fray. Thursday’s debate will be a crowded affair with seven leaders on stage. Despite it being a two hour debate, there’ll only be time for four questions. As I say in the Mail On Sunday, the debate will almost certainly turn into Cameron versus the rest as they

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English,

David Cameron has just addressed the last meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers in this parliament. He was given the traditional desk banging reception. Indeed, the loyal, pre-election tone of the meeting was set when John Baron, for a long time viewed as Ukip defection risk by senior Tories, announced that he had put money on a Tory majority. After paying tribute to the Tory MPs who are stepping down at this election, Cameron began his pre-election rallying call. He told the MPs, don’t let people forget the mess that he inherited. He then, to the surprise of some in the room, talked about the health service in

Faragephobia reached dizzy new heights on Sunday afternoon, when a bunch of thespians and circus freaks invaded Nigel Farage’s local pub and hounded him and his family out. Behaving with grating and probably knowing irony like small-minded Little Englanders, though dolled up as punkish outsiders, the protesters were basically saying to Nige: ‘Your sort aren’t welcome here — you’re barred!’ And so was a public figure humiliated while doing that utterly non-public thing of lunching with his wife and young daughters — turfed out of his own local hangout by people who don’t like his policies on immigration, the NHS, and other stuff. But this was more that Faragephobia, more than

After months of negotiations, a final deal on debates has now been reached. There will be no head to head debate between Cameron and Miliband. Instead, there will be one seven way debate on April 2nd broadcast on ITV. There will also be an opposition leaders’ debate on the 16th of April on the BBC featuring Labour, the SNP, UKIP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru. On top of these debates, David Cameron and Ed Miliband will both do separate interviews, taking questions from a studio audience on Thursday for a Channel 4 / Sky programme. Then, on 3oth of April, Cameron, Miliband and Nick Clegg will appear separately on a

After the Ukip MEP Janice Atkinson was suspended from her party following claims that a member of her staff tried to get a fake receipt to increase an expense claim, media pundits have claimed that Ukip is in crisis. However, according to Nigel Farage’s right hand man, this is not the case.  Raheem Kassam has taken to Twitter to say that things are going so swimmingly for Ukippers that he even has time to play on his Xbox, while members of the press office have been spending time in the pub. That’s all cleared up then.

I think I have seen Nigel Farage’s future, and it is not pretty. A copy of Farage’s The Purple Revolution reached my desk today. The cover instantly reminded me of a cover manifesto for Ron Paul, the once inspiring libertarian radical who has turned into something of a crank. On Farage’s book, the word LOVE has been mirrored on to the word Revolution. Ron Paul posters used to employ the same silly trick. As did Russell Brand. It is becoming a sort of logo for anti-establishment feeling. It is also hilariously crap. ‘Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,’ said Eric Hoffer. The quote certainly