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Friday 26 May 2017

UKIP Farce Endangers Tories

The dwindling and increasingly desperate convocation of saloon bar propper-uppers otherwise known as UKIP proved their genteel sensibility over the Manchester bombing by being the first political party to resume campaigning yesterday, when comedy party leader Paul Nuttall, aka the Bad Bootle Meff, stood before the press - and some of his more vocal supporters - to remind the world that Kippers were toughest on Scary Muslims (tm).
As ITV News observed, UKIP “has put public safety and immigration issues back to the top of the political agenda … The main focus of the manifesto launch was security and the threat from radical Islam … Paul Nuttall promised an extra 20,000 troops and 20,000 extra police”. He also claimed that the manifesto had gone to press before the Manchester attack. It certainly plays on voters’ security fears.

After Nuttall “said he favoured a ‘far more muscular approach to social integration’, wants to ban the burka and said he made no apology for repeating his claim that radical Islam was ‘a cancer that needs to be cut out’”, he had more pearls of wisdom to dispense. “‘It is not good enough to light candles and proclaim that extremists will not beat us,’ he insisted … ‘Action is required on multiple fronts’”.

And with that, he and manifesto author Suzanne Evans tried to play down the suggestion that they were somehow blaming Theresa May for security failings which may have made the Manchester bomber’s task easier, while making it clear that they really did blame Theresa May for what happened in Manchester - well, perhaps.

The questionably argued presentation then descended beneath farce as the assembled media representatives pitched their questions. Nuttall and Ms Evans were more than happy to field them - the problem was that the UKIP supporters in the room did not approve of anyone suggesting that their manifesto, and their great leader, were anything less than Very Wonderful. The heckling spilled over into direct abuse.

So that might have been that, except that later in the day the first post-Manchester poll, a YouGov one for the Murdoch Times, showed that the Tories’ lead had come down to a mere five points. Their vote share was now 43%, with Labour up to 38%. That would translate into an overall majority for The Blue Team of just five seats - in other words, if accurate, the Tories would actually lose ground compared to two years ago.

Why should UKIP have any influence on voters after such a farcical manifesto launch? Simples. The Tories’ numbers have been reckoned to have been swelled by voters deserting the Kippers. If enough of those voters now conclude that Theresa May isn’t as serious as Nuttall and his pals about security - with their promise of more Police and troops - then they might think about moving back to UKIP.

That means the Tories and their press pals could end up fighting a war on two fronts - continuing the barrage against Jeremy Corbyn on the one hand, while having to fend off UKIP on the other. Politics, as ever, remains excellent spectator sport.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If we're going to talk "spectator sports"......

Far more interesting was the way loony gobshite UKIP members dealt with gobshite mainstream media megaphones like Kuenssberg of BBC "News" and Crick of C4 "News". To my great satisfaction it was like watching rat eat rat. Especially when said media rats tried to look hurt when they got a dose of their own poison.

It should go without saying that politics is not a "spectator sport", though that is what the establishment have tried to make it. Literally too many lives and communities are at stake. Do we really need to recount British history since 1979 to again make this point?

The current election will be a stark choice between more of the greed-driven, mass-murder corrupt mayhem of the last 38 years and a society of reasonable mutual understanding at peace with itself and the rest of the world.

Take one look at May and listen to her standard pr scripted - she's quite incapable of speaking spontaneously - sour-mouthed, accordion-breathing delivery and see if HER intentions bode well for this country. If she does regain office we know perfectly well what will come. Which means more horror and more thievery.

No, this is no "spectator sport".

Arnold said...

"continuing the barrage against Jeremy Corbyn"
Not going too well.

"Corbyn faces furious backlash over 'inappropriate and crass' bid to exploit Manchester bombing by blaming British warmongering"
The highest rated comments agree with Corbyn.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4544384/Corbyn-faces-backlash-bid-exploit-Manchester-bomb.html

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or do the Tories literally never read anything Corbyn says or proposes before dismissing it out of hand?

I can look at Corbyn's foreign policy speech from a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think there's much in there that should've in any way sounded weird had it been said by almost any decent Tory (or even quite a few of the less decent ones).

Yet all the Tories can respond with is generic wibble that doesn't address any of the content of what was said.