NHS - UKIP Cat Out Of Bag

Nigel “Thirsty” Farage negotiated his appearance on The Andy Marr Show (tm) this morning with his customary aplomb, but overnight the realisation must be dawning among his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers that some of those taken on board to supposedly help the Kipper campaign may be becoming a liability, and that this has come from the appointment of some deeply conservative people.

Squeaky conservative infiltration finger up the bum time

While Mr Thirsty was pretending that the defection of MEPs was a mere bagatelle, readers of the Sunday Times and Sunday Mirror were learning that his Party Secretary, Matthew Richardson, had not so long ago called the NHS “The Reichstag Bunker of Socialism”. Richardson had made his remarks at a Young America’s Foundation event. This body has been copied in the UK by the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF).

Richardson, who also called the NHS “the biggest waste of money in the UK”, is not the only one linked to the YBF to hold, shall we say, interesting views. YBF President Dan, Dan The Oratory Man called the NHS “a 60-year-old mistake”, and the group’s CEO Donal Blaney has said “Would it not now be better to say that the NHS – in its current incarnation – is finished?” And there is worse to come for the Farage fringe.

As the deeply subversive Guardian told before the last election, “At least 11 prospective Tory candidates, an estimated seven of whom have a reasonable chance of winning their seats, have been delegates or speakers at training conferences run by the Young Britons' Foundation, which claims to have trained 2,500 Conservative party activists”. Among them was Mark Clarke, who is now at CCHQ where he’s behind the Road Trip 2015 campaign.

Another with links to the YBF is Farage’s new spinner Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam, who has previously styled himself a “Goldwater Conservative”. Richardson and Blaney are the first legal port of call for the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. Staines has previously indicated his preference for “The Blue Team”, which means not Mr Thirsty’s gang, but Young Dave and his jolly good chaps.

At this point, the thought may enter with some readers that the Tories and the Kippers hate one another with a vengeance. What Farage and his pals are now seeing is that their party has been infiltrated by a group that, if it has to choose loyalty to one party, it might come down on the side of the Tories, if only because of all that business coming its way training activists. And the Kippers are seeing only the downside of the YBF’s pals.

It’s a big ask to get the more outlandish views on the NHS into the Tories’ manifesto, especially with Cameron wanting to demonstrate his support for it. Far easier to infect UKIP with the idea of moving to a US-style system. Those who believed that Matthew Richardson would keep “bad stuff” away from UKIP may start to rue the day that they let him through the door. The “bad stuff” is coming in with him.

Farage is too indecisive to sack Richardson or Kassam. So he’s well and truly screwed.