C_steam

Well not standing against BOO candidates makes some sort of sense anyway - the BNP, surely, must be in BOO by definition - so i take it we won't stand against them?

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Independent UKIP

It is better placed BOO candidates not any BOO candidate. And reality politics will mean, or bloody well better mean, that the leadership will not recognise the BNP being in that position.

Simon Muir

Sorry, I misread that and thought you were expecting sophistication there for a sec.

You didn't actually mean that bit about the leadership recognising something political, did you?

Just do what I'm doing now: sit back and listen to the shouts from below for more shovels and bigger buckets getting fainter as the hole gets deeper and deeper...

__________________
Macduff, becoming tired of tomfoolery, flung his sword aside, and seizing hold of McGonagall, brought the sublime tragedy of Macbeth to a close in a rather undnigified way, by taking the feet from under the principal character. (review, Dundee 1858)

Bluemerle

Populist Lee - Oliver Letwin will not sign the BOO, he has already committed himself to staying in and changing things. I had long arguments with OL in the past, he kept telling me that I would let Blair back in.

He thought he would lose last time and the Tories had to spend a fortune. The Lib/Dim candidate thought she had beaten him. The Tories behaved appallingly towards our candidate at the count. If looks could kill, she would have dropped dead on the spot.

Where abouts in Dorset are you??

Bluemerle

Simon. Love your new avatar.

Independent UKIP

I'm not totally sure where you're coming from there, sorry. My point was that I don't think the leadership are so stupid (or sympathetic to the BNP for that matter) that they will seek to not stand in parliamentary seats where the BNP (individuals who have signed up to BOO) are standing; where the BNP are in real terms better placed to win the seat than UKIP. If I am wrong about that then I won't be sitting back I will quit UKIP altogether.

Simon Muir

The present leadership of UKIP would have difficulty finding its collective bottom with a bottom-finder.

If the party doesn't CLEAN UP its act and stop thinking there are short cuts to being effective (i.e. things that avoid the need for proper processes and organization), the moment it becomes more than a buzzing nuisance will be the moment it discovers what dirty tricks in politics really mean.

That's no threat from me. It's a sanguine assessment of what our opponents will do to the movement as a whole.

For everyone involved, the EU means jobs, presteige, pensions and big money now (and that includes UKIP's MEPs). The more effective the realist movement becomes, the more we threaten all that, and Maslow applies with a vengance. They will be forced to try to take us down, and right now they easily can. AIUI there are quite sufficient skeletons in cupboards to go around, and it's not just the protagonists who know where they are. It's the press and our opponents too (who control those 'levers of power' we want to get our hands on).

If Nigel truly understood the peril he's in, he'd be desperate to find an excuse to step down. I think he may feel trapped - that he has no alternative but to lead the party - but not seeing a right course is rarely a good reason for adopting a wrong one. Now he's leader, his private life, his accounts, his family and children, his businesses, his speeding tickets or parking fines or mistresses or any other indiscretions, even his choice of clothes and holiday destinations become 'legitimate' targets for the press. Roger found that out to his cost. If he hadn't gone anyway, I expect the Battle of the Attic would have caused his resignation (people didn't push for it primarily because there wasn't any point).

The BOO issue is a sideshow really. We'll have no impact on the Tories either way through it (with two exceptions, those MPs who've signed have pretty strong majorities anyway), but telling them this far ahead that we'll not fire is a tactical blunder, taking the heat off when it's most important.

As I said, for the time being it seems the call is for more shovels, not to stop digging.

By the way, I have no idea how many (if any) parking tickets or mistresses or whatever Nigel has - the point is that someone does, and will make that knowledge into nuisance at the worst possible moment they can, if Nigel ever gains any sort of traction.

Simon Muir

Just for the record, here are the majorities of the BOO MP signatories to date:

<pre>Carswell (C, Harwich): maj. 920
Davies (C, Shipley): maj. 422
Hollobone (C, Kettering): maj. 3301
Mitchell (L, Grimsby): maj. 7654
Winterton (C, Congleton): maj. 8246
Winterton (C, Macclesfield): maj. 9401</pre>

Mikeuk

All this is very unfortunate, but you have to take some hard knocks in politics. I suspect Richard has been the victim of attacks by freelance trouble-makers, and of course it would not be realistic to expect our new leader to apologise on their behalf.

Here I disagree with Richard. Nigel's strategy is absolutely spot-on. UKIP is in pole positon to benefit from the increasing fallout from the hijacked Conservative Party.

That does not man that we can't pick up disenchanted Labour and LibDem supporters also. In my experience many of them are very conservative and patriotic. However we must not pass up the opportunity to displace the Tories as the real Conservative option today.

The flat rate tax pamphlet is a significent move forward in this direction. Many of our people are champing at the bit to savage Cameron and his preening clique of degenerates.

Let's put this nonsense on one side and move to destroy the enemy! :twisted:

brian lee

I understood Bob Spink, Con, Castle Point, Majority 8,201 was one of the first to sign.