Ukip

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 9 May 2013

Home The UK Independence Party gave the government and opposition a jolt by doing well in the elections for 34 English councils, increasing its number of councillors from eight to 147 and gaining a projected national vote share of 23 per cent (compared with 25 per cent for the Conservatives, 29 per cent for Labour and 14 per cent for the Liberal Democrats). In a parliamentary by-election at South Shields, the Lib Dems were driven into seventh place, with only 352 votes, with Labour retaining the seat with 12,493 and Ukip coming second with 5,988. Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, grinned a good deal and said ‘Send in the

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Why do journalists think they’re not part of the ruling elite?

Look, we’ve known each other a while, you and I, so I think it’s time for a confession. It’s a big one, this. I haven’t even told my parents yet. But I think I might be a member of the ruling elite. Granted, it doesn’t feel that way of a morning, when I’m using my thumbnail to scratch baby vomit off my shoulder on the bus to Finsbury Park. But then, maybe it never does. Columnist for The Spectator, leader writer for the Times, the public school- and Oxbridge-educated son of a Conservative former Cabinet minister; hmm, hard to fight it. There have been five prime ministers in my lifetime,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the Tories need their own Nigel Farage

There are two talking points in Westminster this week. One is about who is up and who is down following the local council elections. This finds the Cameroons privately pleased that the Tory party has largely kept its head despite the Ukip surge, the Labour side worried about whether they are doing well enough for mid-term and the Liberal Democrats relieved that their vote is holding up in their parliamentary seats if nowhere else. The other conversation is more profound. It is about why close to one in four of those who bothered to do their democratic duty last week voted Ukip. The rise of any new party is a

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Hitler guide to rigging a referendum

In 1964 Harold Wilson was so afraid that a scheduled election-night broadcast of Steptoe & Son would cost him at least a dozen marginal seats that he successfully pressured the director-general of the BBC to postpone it. There are plenty of ways to manipulate an election, short of stuffing a ballot box. Another example is here, from 1938: This ballot paper crudely follows the advice of Dr Josef Goebbels, that ‘the most effective form of persuasion is when you are not aware you are being persuaded’. Translated, it reads: ‘Do you approve of the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938 and do

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Nadine Dorries reinstated as a Tory MP

Nadine Dorries has been given the Conservative whip back by Sir George Young, Coffee House can exclusively reveal. Sources in the Tory party tell me that the MP, who was suspended in November for appearing on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, has just been told she can now return from exile. This is a huge relief for many Conservative MPs, who have been growing increasingly worried that the continuing absence of the Tory whip was beginning to look vindictive and sexist, and risked pushing the Mid-Bedfordshire MP into the arms of UKIP. As David Davis argued this weekend, Nadine Dorries is a working

Monday

Sunday

James Forsyth

The Tory party holds its nerve – for now

The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of Old Etonians surrounding the PM and 20 MPs have called for a mandate referendum. But there is no sense of mass panic or revolt. Partly this is because David Cameron had already started doing the things he was going to be told to do after this result. As one Downing Street source remarks, ‘the shift is already well under way.’ He points to the tougher measures on immigration and welfare coming up in the Queen’s Speech and Number 10’s new

Friday

The Spectator

Local elections 2013: in numbers

335: total councillors lost by the Tories 291: seats gained by Labour 124: losses sustained by the Lib Dems 139: seats gained by UKIP 147 UKIP council seats after today’s results 10 councils lost by the Tories 2 councils gained by Labour 13 councils now in overall control, up 8 17: the largest gain by UKIP in any council, in Kent 24: the most councillors gained by Labour in one local authority, in Durham 6,505: Emma Lewell-Buck’s majority as the new Labour MP for South Shields, down from 11,109 achieved by David Miliband in 2010

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory MP suggests Nigel Farage takes Nick Clegg’s place in 2015 debates

Today’s results for UKIP have re-opened the question of whether Nigel Farage should join the three political leaders in the live TV election debates in 2015. David Cameron’s allies are clear they don’t want that, and Nick Clegg was very dismissive when asked about this on the BBC. He said: ‘I’m not going to start making up the minds of the broadcasters. I think the next general election will be all about who are the parties who can actually govern this country in Westminster. We’ve been here before where UKIP has done well and then not done well in subsequent general elections.’ If Clegg doesn’t fancy being savaged live on

Guy Lodge

English patriotism is one of the overlooked reasons for UKIP’s rise

What can account for UKIP’s remarkable surge in support in these elections? The conventional wisdom is that UKIP is now the ‘go to’ party for protest voters. Angry over Europe and immigration? Vote UKIP. Fear for your job and the future of the economy? Vote UKIP. Feel the main parties are ‘all the same’, run by metropolitan elites who don’t know how ordinary people live? Vote UKIP. There is doubtless something in all of the above, but there is perhaps another explanation – overlooked until now – for UKIP’s rise: the growing tide of English patriotism. Earlier in the year, figures from the 2011 census showed there had been a dramatic

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: ‘It’s no good insulting a political party that people have chosen to vote for’

As we revealed on Coffee House earlier, David Cameron has now distanced himself from the ‘fruitcake’ characterisation of UKIP that he’s employed in the past. Here’s what he said: Cameron: Well I think there are major lessons for the major political parties, for the Conservatives, I understand why some people who’ve supported us before didn’t support us again, they want us to do even more to work for hardworking people to sort out the issues they care about, more to help with the cost of living, more to turn the economy round, more to get immigration down, to sort out the welfare system. They will be our focus, they are

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sources tell Coffee House Cameron will mark an end to ‘fruitcakes’ name-calling

We could see a further tightening of the reconciliatory line that the Tories seem to be adopting on UKIP when the PM gives his response to the local elections later today. I hear from very well-placed sources in the Tory party that David Cameron plans to mark an end to the name-calling, acknowledging that it is time to take seriously the concerns of those who decided to vote UKIP yesterday. The Tory lines to take – reported by Guido – include this quote: ‘Of course we understand why some people didn’t vote for us – we need to focus even more on the things that matter to hardworking people: turning

Steerpike Steerpike

Was it The Spectator wot won it? Nigel Farage seems to think so

Ukip is the big story of the day, clearing out councils across the country in yesterday’s local elections. Mr Steerpike was interested to see the above picture on the wires as Nigel Farage took his victory lap around Westminster this morning. Behind every election victory is a copy of the Spectator. To find out more about why Ukip are winning subscribe from just £1 a week here.

Sebastian Payne

Welcome to Ukipland: where Nigel Farage’s dreams come true

‘Where do you expect to do well in these local elections?’ I asked the Ukip spokesman. ‘England!’ he boomed down the phone. On Wednesday afternoon, this seemed typical of Ukip’s bullish exuberance but judging by their predicted ‘phenomenal performance’ parts of Britain (like Boston) have become Ukipland overnight. Yesterday, I went to find some real Ukip voters in the Home Counties and discover why they have abandoned the three main parties. Nigel Farage stood in Buckingham at the 2010 general election and received just 17 per cent of the vote against Commons speaker John Bercow. The county of Buckinghamshire was once solid blue territory, but this green and pleasant corner of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories now see ‘fruitcakes’ and ‘clowns’ as serious voters impatient for change

We’ve only had a few results through in the local elections, but already the parties are giving their verdict on the way last night worked for them. One thing to watch today is the development of a Tory line on UKIP. There hasn’t been one in the run-up to polling day, but will there be a concerted effort from the Conservative leadership to produce a clear message about what Nigel Farage’s success means for the Tories? Grant Shapps certainly managed to stick to the Tinkerbell strategy of trying not to say ‘UKIP’ or ‘Nigel Farage’ in his Today programme interview. But he also stuck to the sympathetic portrayal of those

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nigel Farage, the anti-politician

Nigel Farage was in full anti-politics mode this morning on the Today programme. He railed against ‘three frontbenches that look and sound the same’ and ‘haven’t done a proper day’s work in their lives.’ Farage is determined that Ukip be can both a protest party and a party with policies. He wants to offer himself to anyone who is fed up with the established order and wants to stick two fingers up at the main political parties. But he also wants to advance a radical policy prospectus. Interestingly, he said he wasn’t a Tory but he had been a supporter of eighties radicalism. So far, the Farage approach appears to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Local elections: UKIP’s ‘phenomenal performance’

What few results there have been so far suggest that UKIP has scored about a quarter of the vote and gained more seats than Labour.  A ‘phenomenal performance’ says Prof John Curtice. Nigel Farage now looks like the main winner, suggesting that his party is mutating from an EU protest party into a being broader party of the working class. The local elections have nothing to do with the European Union so there’s no rational reason that one-in-four voters would chose UKIP — unless they believed the party was addressing their concerns on wider issues. The reason that David Cameron’s referendum pledge did not shoot the UKIP fox is that

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 2 May 2013

Home In the run-up to local elections, Kenneth Clarke, the Minister without Portfolio, described the UK Independence Party candidates as ‘clowns’. RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, assumed control of ten Reaper drone aircraft in use over Afghanistan. Irfan Naseer, 31, from Birmingham, the ringleader of a plot to use eight suicide bombers in attacks that could have killed thousands, was sentenced to five life sentences; of ten others charged, four men who admitted an offence of travelling overseas for terrorism training were sentenced to three years, and six men to between four and 18 years. Six men from the West Midlands pleaded guilty to planning to bomb an English Defence League rally

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour hold South Shields with Ukip 2nd and Lib Dems 7th

The result is now in from South Shields. As expected, Labour have held the seat. Ukip have come second, with the Tories third and the Liberal Democrats a spectacularly bad seventh. Ukip’s second is more impressive when you consider that they didn’t even stand in the constituency in 2010. It is a sign that they are fast becoming the default protest party across England. Only a handful of county councils are counting overnight, and they are all Tory controlled. But John Curtice, the elections expert, has already told the BBC that Ukip looks like doing as well as the polls suggested. At 12.15am, Ukip is averaging 26% in the BBC’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nigel Farage’s tax flip-flop shows us where he’s trying to take his party

We might this week have seen some scrutiny of UKIP candidates, but so far we’ve seen little scrutiny of their policies. But the better the party does, the more policy scrutiny it will start to come under. This is what makes UKIP’s changing tax policy so interesting. It tells us a lot about where Nigel Farage is trying to take his party. At the last election, UKIP was committed to a flat tax. There is an intellectual purity to this idea – see Allister Heath’s book on the subject – but it is hard to sell to voters as it would result in ‘the rich’ paying a lower rate. After