Ukip

Michael Crick’s Channel 4 report into Tory election spending has led to an investigation by the Electoral Commission into the hotel bills and advertising bills the Conservatives failed to declare as election expenditure. So it’s safe to say that Crick is unlikely to be the flavour of the month over at CCHQ. In fact Lord Feldman has so far ignored interview requests from Channel 4 when it comes to explaining his party’s spending. So with Feldman not returning his calls, Crick saw his opportunity after he spied the Conservative Party chairman walking in the Westminster area. The story hungry hack sprinted after him, eventually catching Feldman for an awkward exchange. MC: Why don’t

The government, or at least David Cameron’s bit of it, seems to think that trade is something that takes place because of a trade agreement. The order is the other way round. People trade, and have done for several thousand years, because it is to their mutual advantage. After a bit, governments come along and try to direct and often impede it, but in the modern world of instant communications, ready transfers of money and container shipping, this has become blessedly difficult. A friend, Edward Atkin, who has made a large fortune out of Avent baby bottles and like products, tells me: ‘I have never known or asked whether any

Imagine if Nigel Farage declared that police should be ready to shoot migrants trying to make it from Calais to Britain; saying: ‘I don’t want to do this, but the use of armed force is there as a last resort.’ And imagine that in spite of this — or perhaps because of it — Ukip were to overtake the Labour party in a national poll to become the most popular opposition party. This, in effect, is what is happening in Germany. The words above were spoken by Frauke Petry, leader of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the insurgent party which is threatening to make large gains in state elections in three

If all goes according to David Cameron’s plan, then the EU referendum campaign will be under way very shortly. Cameron himself will be the main figure on the In side of the argument. The Home Secretary Theresa May will also throw herself into the campaign, as Rachel Sylvester wrote this week. Another face of the effort to keep Britain in the EU will be Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, who is running the Labour IN campaign. The Remain side of the argument will, as the above list shows, be able to call upon a formidable amount of political firepower. But what is not yet clear is what kind of

Here is a thought for all those Tory MPs calculating their personal advantage in the forthcoming EU referendum: unless the vote is an absolutely overwhelming Remain, the next leader of the Conservative party — whose day is no longer so far off — will come from the Leave camp. This will happen, obviously, if Leave wins, but also if Leave loses but does well, because most party supporters will only back someone who feels their pain and can reconcile them afterwards. Another thought: why would Nigel Farage want Britain to vote Leave? Then he would be redundant. Study him in the light of this thought and you will see that it explains

Ukip’s announcement this afternoon that it will be backing Grassroots Out in its bid for designation as the official ‘Leave’ campaign in the EU referendum has caused consternation in its ranks. The party put out a press release saying that the National Executive Committee, MEPs and its Local Councillors Association are backing GO, which was set up by Peter Bone and is supported by Leave.EU. But I understand that there was no formal NEC meeting about this, and that the last meeting that discussed the designation was a few months ago. When I asked the party how the NEC was consulted, I was told that there was a telephone discussion

Could ethnic minority voters swing it for the out campaign in the EU referendum? That’s the hope of UKIP’s Steven Woolfe at least, who in a speech this morning at British Future will be urging ‘Leave’ to reach out to black and minority communities. Speaking on the Today programme this morning, he said such groups would be crucial to the campaign’s success. He said: ‘There has always been this kind of assumption that, for example, minorities are more likely to vote for the Labour party rather than the Conservative party and we now know that’s not the case. What the research is saying is that the community don’t see the

The publication of expenses for last year’s election is a useful reminder of the reality of much of politics. It turns out it’s not all barnstorming speeches and televised debates. There are an awful lot of invoices involved too. The claim everyone is obsessing about is that Labour spent just £16,000 on Facebook adverts, compared to more than a million spent by the Conservatives. Indeed, Labour seems to have spent less on Facebook adverts than each of the Liberal Democrats, Ukip, and Greens. No one disputes the fact that the Conservatives outspent Labour on digital campaigning. For public consumption, Labour used to pretend that this didn’t matter – and that their grassroots

Although the first rule of spin doctoring is to never become the story, Leave.EU’s Andy Wigmore appears to be taking the Alastair Campbell approach when it comes to managing the campaign’s comms. After the Mail on Sunday revealed that Nigel Farage may have been the victim of an assassination attempt — after a wheel on his Volvo fell off his car in suspicious circumstances while he was driving on a motorway — Wigmore took to Twitter to mischievously suggest the culprit could be Douglas Carswell given his strained relationship with the Ukip leader: Douglas Carswell???? He's pretty cross at the moment #justsaying https://t.co/icykZ0Vvh0 — Honourable Andy Wigmore JPs (@andywigmore) January 3,

Nigel Farage popped up on the Daily Politics today to warn Douglas Carswell that critical comments about his leadership cannot continue. The Ukip leader said the Clacton MP’s views don’t have any particular significance, despite the fact he is the only Kipper who was elected in May’s general election: ‘Well he did but so what? He’s one person. So what? We cannot have one individual every single time there’s a Ukip conference and it finishes with a story of disunity and it’s all being caused by one person. And frankly, I think it’s going to have to end.’ Farage was quite shifty on what the ‘end’ might be, although he did point out ‘it will not

Last year, the United Kingdom came within 384,000 votes of destruction. A referendum designed to crush the Scottish nationalists instead saw them win 45 per cent of the vote — and become stronger than ever. Since then, the SNP has taken almost every Scottish seat in the Commons and is preparing for another landslide in the Holyrood election next year — giving Nicola Sturgeon the power to threaten a second referendum. We may be just a few years away from a second battle for Britain. In her short time as First Minister, Sturgeon has established herself as one of the most formidable politicians in Europe. She has raised a rebel army that