After a dire election performance and the departure of its fourth leader in less than a year, Ukip is in desperate need of a saviour. Step forward David Coburn. The Ukip MEP - who once said running the party would be like 'herding cats' - announced this morning that he was planning to make a leadership bid to save Ukip from 'single issue loonies':
I am announcing my candidacy for UKIP Leader this time to stop Entryists Diletantes and Single issue loonies i have had enough
— David Coburn MEP (@DavidCoburnUKip) June 12, 2017
Coburn is no stranger to controversy. The 58-year-old once called for Brits to breed more as a way of solving the country's dependence on immigration. The Scot was also reportedly banned from Wikipedia after an article about him was edited 69 times in under a week. While Coburn has also come in for criticism from a former staffer who said the MEP was Scotland's answer to Austin Powers, because it was 'as if he was frozen in the 1960s or 1970s and unfrozen thirty years later'.
Coburn could offer something to the Ukip faithful though: his promise to crack down on 'Pashmina politics' will go down well and his pledge to stick up for 'patriotic working people' will also strike a note with 'Kipper voters. Mr S thinks that if Coburn is to be a success, he has his work cut out, however. His former aide said that Coburn 'doesn’t really have any leadership skills' and knew little about Scottish politics. Mr S hopes his grasp of British politics is somewhat better if he hopes to emulate his hero Nigel Farage...
UPDATE:
Coburn isn't alone in putting himself forward for the top job. His fellow MEP Bill Etheridge says he will also run for the leadership in order to 'move away from (the) nationalist nastiness characterising policies of red Ukip'. Mr S hopes that Etheridge has more luck with his fundraising drive this time around. In last year's leadership contest, his crowdfunding effort only managed to raise £8...