After his party’s success in the local elections, UKIP leader Nigel Farage went fishing for bass off the South Coast. Did he use a hook, a net or a stick of dynamite?
Saying he’ll consider an electoral pact with the Tories ‘as long as David Cameron is no longer leader’ isn’t fishing subtly for support in the Tory ranks. It’s inviting the Conservatives to commit suicide on UKIP’s behalf.
When Nigel manages to win a Parliamentary seat, that might be the moment to talk about re-aligning British politics. At present, he’s running before he can toddle.
Most of us didn’t bother voting in the local elections. The minority who did vote last week weren’t concerned about re-moulding politics.
They either voted for the party they usually support, on the basis of tribal affiliation. Or they voted for UKIP — their protest party of choice — in the hope this might incline their usual tribal leaders more in the direction they seek. Which, currently, is against Europe, out-of-control welfare, immigration etc.
This is how our ‘democracy’ works. We make our tribal choice, either Tory or Labour. When they neglect our core concerns (for Tories — welfare dependency, cutting EU power, taxes and immigration; for Labour — improving welfare benefits, taxing the rich, promoting ‘fairness’), we flirt during local elections with a protest party.
Which usually means the Lib Dems. But they’ve gone into coalition temporarily with the Conservatives. Which, by muting Tory policy, has leaked support to UKIP.
Come the General Election in 2015, the coalition will be dissolved. The main parties will have shaped their policies closer to what core supporters want. As a result, some — perhaps many — Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat defectors to UKIP will return to their tribe.
But they’ll never get everything they really, really want. Tory and Labour leaders know they need the support of floating, non-tribal voting types.
So their policies can’t be extreme Right or Left. The trick is to sound Right or Left while, in the small print, being moderate.
More... David Cameron under pressure to hold 'mandate referendum' on EU to halt UKIP rise as Nigel Farage says he may 'consider' working with a different Tory leader Even Tories admit Dave needed this 'kick in the ballots' PETER HITCHENS: Fruitcakes and closet racists? Cameron's talking about YOU!Politics being the art of the possible (as Prussian politician Otto Von Bismarck remarked), the Tories will seek a mandate to renegotiate the return of some sovereignty. Only if it is granted, and the negotiation fails, will they consider offering an in-or-out referendum.
Yesterday, occupants of the Westminster Village, keen to keep political excitement high, were talking up UKIP’s prospects in next year’s European elections, and what effect this will have on the Tory-led coalition.
But, outside unpredictable events, there’s really only one issue: what are the problems facing the two main contenders in 2015, David Cameron and Ed Miliband, and what are their chances of overcoming them?
Come the next General Election, the main parties will have shaped their policies closer to what core supporters want. As a result, some Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat defectors to UKIP will return to their tribeCameron is handicapped by the perception that he isn’t Tory enough, lacks real-life working experience and hires too many fellow Old Etonians; Miliband, that he trails behind his party in popularity terms, doesn’t have the vision to project himself as a national leader and also lacks any real work experience outside politics.
Judged on these terms, Cameron’s chances of success may be greater than Miliband’s. He has had to lead the country — and his party — in fractious coalition with the Lib Dems through a recession bequeathed to us by Labour.
Ed Miliband has had it easy. He has done little apart from oppose Cameron in the Commons, a weekly exercise which is usually unsuccessfulThis gruelling, on-the-job training compensates to a degree for his off-putting (to some) poshness and fancy connections.
By contrast, Miliband has had it easy. He has done little apart from oppose Cameron in the Commons, a weekly exercise which is usually unsuccessful. He hasn’t had to moderate any great disputes in his party. Nor has he risked putting his name to any important new policies which might be attacked by rivals and regretted by friends.
It’s possible, of course, that Cameron’s ratings will plunge over the next two years and Miliband’s rise to match those of Blair at their peak.
‘Events, dear boy, events,’ was how Harold Macmillan described the unforeseeable triumphs and disasters that alter party fortunes.
Or, to put it another way, from the Bible: ‘I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.’
Author Damon Runyon, whose stories of New York were adapted for the musical Guys And Dolls, reduces this to its essence: ‘The race might not always be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.’
Or, as a plugged-in Westminster source tells me: ‘At 6 to 8 points behind Labour, the Tories are historically in a very strong position. They need to keep their heads.’
Margaret Thatcher’s official biographer, Charles Moore, commenting on the local election results from Sussex, says: ‘In conversation with a youngish, local Labour upper-working-class man, the name UKIP came up unprompted.’ Up the upper-working classes! Jobs for the girls could save BBCLooking shifty and evasive, the BBC Trust’s chairman, Chris Patten, appeared on TV again, this time to answer questions about broadcaster Stuart Hall’s guilty plea to sex crimes.
Patten said Dame Janet Smith will be looking into the matter raised by Hall, referring to the judge who is sifting through the sordid Savile mess.
For more than three decades, the BBC appears to have had a kind of semi-permanent bouncy castle on which BBC DJs of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties sexually assaulted their fans without the knowledge of senior management.
We’re told by Patten that feminism brought this culture to an end. Is this the first hint of how the scandal will be presented in the end?
Admit there was utterly disgraceful behaviour, but say it was in tune with the sexist times, largely concealed from senior management, but brought to an end by courageous feminists determined to protect the sisterhood and Auntie’s reputation.
Conclusion — more women needed at the very top of the BBC (and better than the ones already there when the abuse was going on). Sorted!
Don't fancy yours!: Kylie Minogue is accused of a fashion solecism with a green and white stripe dress she wore at the Dolce & Gabbana flagship store opening in Manhattan at the weekendEveryone’s favourite chanteuse, Kylie Minogue, is accused of a fashion solecism with a green and white stripe dress she wore at the Dolce & Gabbana flagship store opening in Manhattan at the weekend.
Happily, songbird Paloma Faith arrived alongside Kylie restoring a sense of proportion. What beauties. Don’t fancy yours!
When politicians speak about the death of our troops, they always preface their words with the rubric: ‘Our thoughts are with the families.’ It’s both insulting and devious. Insulting, because we don’t have to be told to think about the families. Devious, because it’s also a means of blocking any discussion of why they died.
Can Cara keep her nose clean?The hectic social life of top model Cara Delevingne, 20, might be endangering her health, we’re told. A ‘really giggly’ Cara drops a packet of ‘mysterious white powder’ outside her London home. The late Amy Winehouse’s father, Mitch, is consulted about the matter. He says: ‘We have got to speak to the kids. We’ve got to intervene earlier and we’ve got to put them in the right direction.’ Surely Cara won’t have lacked parental intervention, given her mother Pandora’s problems with drugs in the past.And I am not sure why Mitch’s failure in this area qualifies him as an expert. But what do I know?
Hall's haulRecently, Stuart Hall, 83, transferred ownership of his Cheshire house, said to be worth £2 million, to his wife, Hazel, 75.
Solicitor Alan Collins, who is representing six of Hall’s victims — and more than 50 of Jimmy Savile’s — says: ‘Victims have enough on their plate already, having to deal with such a horrible personal tragedy and a criminal court case.
‘Then, when they try to get their little bit of justice in the civil courts, they find they are getting a second dose of injustice.’
By ‘little bit of justice’, I presume he means money. Isn’t it also in the interests of the lawyers that there’s Hall’s money to seize when it comes to paying for civil court costs?
Since Hall has admitted his guilt, I don’t think anyone would object to him going to jail. But should his wife be made homeless to pay ‘compensation’ to his victims and the fees of their lawyers?
Education Secretary Michael Gove is to have ukulele lessons at the Idler Academy near the family home in West London, after Mrs Gove gave him the instrument as a birthday present. Why waste time learning chords on the limited ukulele when he could aspire to the sublime orchestral heights of bluegrass banjo?
Check out maestro Earl Scruggs meeting guitarist Doc Watson on YouTube.
