Lawrie Boxall

Actually there is not much more to say (you will be pleased to here) except:

a. Nigel says he has now learned from previous general elections that fighting them on the single issue of the EU does not work. One can only laugh at such a statement of the bleedin' obvious.

Nigel - we knew that after the failure in 2001 and we have been trying to get it into your thick head in time to prevent you making the same mistake in 2005. Pity you don't listen. As well as having relevant policies you also need to run a national campaign by the way if the 300 candidates are not going to see their effort completely wasted. It is no use whatsoever when the party leader and the party spokesman disappear from public view to fight their own constituencies as happened in 2001 or go off in a sulk because no-one wants to talk about the EU as you and Roger did in 2005. So now you have woken up you want to lead the party?

b. Nigel gets a Vision - problem is it's only a vision of himself as the party leader. But he now understands that he needs a vision for the UK as well - that's progress - obviously he reads this stuff. Whether he yet realises that a free trade agreement does not amount to a vision for Britain we will have to wait and see because right now he does not have one. You can be sure that if he did have a vision he would tell us what it is. But he can't because he is still thinking about what his vision should be - there's political leadership for you - Nigel says "vote for me and I will have a vision later". Fantastic! We have already been down this road with Roger Knapman who could not stir himself to have a meaningful political thought in 4 years. So why do it again?

c. Nigel loves London - we must have an office in London he says where access to the national media is crucial. Too true - but excuse me Nigel didn't you close down the London HQ and move t to Birmingham in one of your frequent bouts of paranoia. And excuse me again Nigel but did you and Roger not pitch your tent so small that you alieneted the UKIP members in the London Assembly to the point where they were forced to defect to Veritas. You probably thought it was great victory at the time, certainly Roger did. What you did was to shoot UKIP in the foot. If only you had been wise enough to build instead of destroy that fantastic poltical and administrative resource would still belong to UKIP and the party would twice it's current size.

But OK it seems Nigel has learned from his mistakes and we should give him credit for that. Under his leadership UKIP will have a poitical resource in London with access to the national media. But why then base yourself in Brussels and appoint a proxy to run the party. That is just plain daft. If as Nigel claims he wants to make UKIP relevant to UK politics and all that entails, then he should acknowledge that the leader needs to be in the office in London where the action is, not spending most of the week mucking around in another country.

Percy the Poodle

But you're forgetting he is "The man who tranformed UKIP into a serious electoral force" :roll:

prober

Percy, as a 2005 candidate I am still angry at being so let down by the leadership (with late logistics & when they abandoned us when predictably other parties would not play ball with UKIP on making the EU asn issue & UKIP had no plan B). Knapman could have resigned with bountiful praise after the 2004 result, and respected for doing the decent thing if he had resigned after the 2005 result. He would have retained some respect if he had resigned at the beginning of 2006 when he admitted he was "demob happy" & he knew he had no ideas. He didnt and the resulting internal damage to UKIP & loss of opportunity of UKIP making an external impact has thus been enormous. It is rather difficult therefore to join in the standing ovation expected at national conference.

Biscuitman

You got one of the vowels wrong Percy.

:wink:

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IF THE EU WAS THE ANSWER, IT MUST HAVE BEEN A STUPID QUESTION!