Nigel farage

Douglas Carswell has just re-entered the House of Commons as a Ukip MP. Nigel Farage was in the peers’ gallery to watch his first elected MP take his seat. So were many Tory MPs, who watched Carswell walk through the Chamber in deadly silence. If Mark Reckless does win the Rochester by-election, how to receive him in the Chamber will be the least of MPs’ concerns. MPs tell me there had been much debate beforehand about how to receive Carswell. There was no formal instruction from the whips, but the consensus was that it would be more dignified to remain silent. Some had considered booing, but others pointed out that

Ever the insurgent, Nigel Farage decided to give his post-Clacton interview to BBC Sunday Politics today rather than Andrew Marr show. He would have regretted fairly soon: the line of questioning was all about Ukip policies, which are notoriously flimsy. What about Patrick O’Flynn’s idea for a SamCam tax on luxury goods? Farage dropped it, but said today there was nothing to drop. He once said on Telegraph TV that the NHS should be run by businessmen – is that Ukip policy? There’s a “very strong argument” for that, he said, but was it policy? He didn’t say. Lucky the BBC’s current inability to beam in an interview in to

Al Gore is an unlikely source of inspiration for Ukip – in fact the party once pledged to ban the former Vice President’s controversial climate change documentary from schools, calling it dangerous global warming ‘propaganda’. But might they have more in common than either of them would care to admit? During the count for the Heywood and Middleton by-election last night, Nigel Farage conceded defeat in the race early in the night, only to demand a recount hours later once it started looking very tight; just as Al Gore did in the 2000 US election. Not that it did either of them much good.

An opinion poll to be published next week will reveal that Labour leader Ed Miliband is slightly less popular with the public than the vibrant Islamic State commander ‘Jihadi John’ and the late BBC disc jockey Jimmy Savile, and only two points more popular than His Infernal Majesty, Satan. The same poll will also put Labour slightly ahead of the Tories and therefore on course to be the largest party in a hung parliament come next May, with Ed Miliband as prime minister. This is but one reason why the next general election will be the most fascinating within living memory; the pollsters do not really have a clue what’s

Back in February, Benefits Street star ‘White Dee’ promised to give David Cameron a ‘run for his money’. In her Spectator diary, she described how ‘Ladbrokes has made me 50-1 to be the next MP for Birmingham Ladywood, and until I read that patronising nonsense I wasn’t going to stand. Now, I think I will. As an independent, mind. How far will I get? Let’s just see.’ Dee hadn’t yet made it clear which party she was thinking of joining. She’s speaking at the Tory conference today, although she has been a strident critic of their policies. Previously, she has indicated that she used to vote LibDem, until they joined forces with

When Mark Reckless stands for election as a UKIP candidate for Rochester and Strood, The Spectator will be against him. But we were against him when he stood as a Tory in 2005. Indeed, in that general election The Spectator backed the Conservatives (as you’d expect) but made a specific exception for Reckless, running for what was then Medway. Peter Oborne, then political editor, went so far as to draft a campaign statement for Bob Marshall-Andrews, the Labour MP whom Reckless was trying to depose. Marshall-Andrews, Oborne argued, was the true Conservative candidate. Peter Oborne’s leaflet was distributed very widely during the campaign and Reckless was defeated by a fairly narrow margin (213 votes). So we’re bold enough to think

Not long after John Bickley had appealed to Ukip delegates to help him win in Heywood and Middleton, Nigel Farage conceded that it wasn’t going to happen. In a briefing with journalists after his speech (the Ukip leader is very generous with his time for the London-based media establishment, far more so than any other leading politician), he said: ‘I think it’s too big a mountain to climb in that short a space of time, and I think the Labour party is saying that because they’ve got a very divided local party, they’re not happy with the candidate, they can’t get anyone out to canvass, and when they put the

Ukip’s party conference is underway in Doncaster. The party is hoping for an event that runs more smoothly than last year, where Nigel Farage sacked Godfrey Bloom for hitting a journalist and calling women ‘sluts’. It certainly has more in its favour this time around, with Tory defector Douglas Carswell to address the conference ahead of what looks like a victory in the Clacton by-election. But there are also rumours that two more Conservative MPs are about to defect. Adam Holloway’s name was winging round the lobby today, but he says he won’t be going anywhere because he is terrified of the prospect of a Labour government. He said: ‘I’d much

By the time a politician stands up to give a speech, it has been briefed out, pre-butted, rebutted, shredded in print and spat out on TV. Politics has become a boring conveyor belt, meticulously organised and frankly dull. Focus-grouped and polled to death. The only unexpected drama comes when things get dirty — from verbal fisticuffs to the dark arts. But now even that is under threat. ‘I honestly believe that we need a new politics,’ said Brownite gruppenführer Tom Watson recently. ‘Service, love and compassion,’ dreams the man whose plotting brought down Blair. Reformed boot boy Watson embodies the startling emaciation of Westminster. Another Labour hard man suspended his

Where is this burning point of principle that drove Douglas Carswell into the arms of Ukip? I’ve read lots about his defection, and I’m still none the wiser. We’re told that he was talking to Farage for almost a year, which would have overlapped with the time he told me that the Tories need to unite behind Cameron because he was the only one promising an in-out referendum. What has changed? Carswell says that Cameron is not serious about Europe. The Prime Minister has become the only leader in the continent to promise an in-out referendum. I’m not sure how much more serious one can be. Should he lay out,