I have been a bad blogger and having a ten mile walk for missions in the face of a head cold or severe allergy is not helping!
But I wish the VR Lear Jet wasn’t in the shop and I was not otherwise busy or I would have enjoyed a seat at the UKIP Party convention.
First, let’s cite this Irish Times article on the surprises of UKIP:
On Saturday, Nigel Farage, who is developing a habit of orchestrating political theatre, stood before his cheering supporters, who cheered even louder when he gave them the latest polling figures.
Reckless gamble
In Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, or Thurrock in Essex, Ukip is now leading, while it is a serious contender in South Thanet in Kent, or Eastleigh in Hampshire, the numbers claim.
Then he produced Reckless, and the packed hall went wild. Unlike former Conservative MP, Douglas Carswell, who is running for Ukip in Clacton in Essex, Reckless has taken a gamble.
It may well be a “Reckless” gamble for Mark Reckless (Doesn’t his name sound like a race car driver? It’s Reckless around the final turn and Mark Reckless wins the Daytona 500!) but his name will be heroic if he can win that by-election in Rochester and Strood (or Stroud)
And if UKIP can win the Labour-held seat in Heywood and Middleton, there could be Labour MP defections.
Again and again, Ukip speakers railed against Labour for failing to represent white working-class communities.
“The problem that Labour MPs have is that they don’t like the people they represent in places like Doncaster,” one Ukip delegate told The Irish Times, “They are metropolitan elites, and these people aren’t.”
Illustrating the gulf, north of England Labour MP, Michael Dugher warned that Labour has lost touch with the kind of voter who put up at St George’s flag in their garden.
The Clacton and Heywood byelections will be held on October 9th. It is also David Cameron’s birthday, Farage reminded his audience, urging them to give him a birthday to remember.
Possible Labour defectors
Miliband’s nightmare, even if the odds are against it for now, is that north of England MPs worried about their seats could defect. Almost as damaging, are rumours about such defections.
If there is a UKIP win in Haywood and Middleton October 9, it will be (another) earthquake in British politics. I’ll have more in the coming days!
About Elwood Sanders
Elwood "Sandy" Sanders is a Hanover attorney who is an Appellate Procedure Consultant for Lantagne Legal Printing and has written ten scholarly legal articles. Sandy was also Virginia's first Appellate Defender and also helped bring curling in VA! (None of these titles imply any endorsement of Sanders’ views)
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