Toby Young’s UKIP U-Turn

Cometh the darkest hour for Young Dave and his jolly good chaps, cometh the man ready to make a suitably pointless gesture in support. And today that man is the loathsome Toby Young, who in January, at the time of the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election, was advocating a “Country Before Party” approach, and suggesting that Tories and Kippers should form some kind of a pact.

How to make an even bigger dick of yourself. And then alienate even more people that you did the last time

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, rather a lot of Tories, and just about every one of Nigel “Thirsty” Farage’s saloon bar propper-uppers, detests the other party with a passion. In any case, it would have made little difference in Wythenshawe, where Labour romped home, leaving UKIP whining about postal voting – because they lost.

But when facts change, or even when they don’t, Tobes changes his mind, and today he has consigned the idea of pacts to the dustbin. “Tories calling for pact with UKIP should look at polling which shows party would lose more support in centre than gain on right as a result”. Perhaps he didn’t stop to think about this rather obvious consequence back in January.

At least he remembered the suggested pact: “An informal, bottom-up pact along lines I suggested would mitigate that problem, but I’m doubtful it would have much of an impact, if any”. So what’s to be done? “I’ve concluded Tories best hope is to keep their nerve and hope UKIP voters sober up when faced with the prospect of Miliband at Number 10”. That assumes the Tory-supporting propaganda gets through.

It’s all very Vicky Pollard: “yeah the pact is no good but no but it might be OK but yeah but let’s not bother with it”. So, on balance, he’s given up on Tories and UKIP doing any kind of deal this side of the General Election, which at least puts Tobes on the side of reality. Sadly, he then vaults the reality barrier in one go by asking “Can Douglas Carswell drag UKIP into the 21st Century?”

Is he having a laugh? Who’s in charge at Kipper Central right now? Mr Thirsty, that’s who. That doesn’t deter Tobes: “Carswell does indeed have a master plan to try and drag Ukip into the 21st century. But I also think that such a project is doomed to failure”. Does he buggery. Douglas “Kamikaze” Carswell jumped to UKIP because, had he remained with the Tories, the Kippers may have beaten him next year.

The bloke has no obvious clue what to do with Farage and Co., except to deflect the questions when Mr Thirsty starts frothing on about the country being overrun by Aids sufferers. Carswell did what he needed to do in order to survive. Toby Young is as clueless about this, and Carswell’s supposed modernising agenda for UKIP, as he was about forming pacts between them and the Tories.

Still, it means he’s leaving that school of his to people who know what they’re doing.