Britannist

James Whale, the eurosceptic, who presents a programme on TalkSport radio, said on 10.12.2006 at 10.24 pm (in a discussion on his programme about how politicians in the Commons were (in his words) “mostly unfit to govern us”) “If there were a General Election tomorrow I wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for. There seems to be no party which represents my views.” :shock:

His remarks ends speculation that he might stand for the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) as its London Mayoral candidate :shock: .

Mr. Whale allegedly indicated that he would be UKIP candidate in 2008 (against the europhile Labour leftist Mayor of London ‘Ken’ Livingstone) after interviewing Nigel Farage on his late night programme for three hours.

On 24.10.2006, the London Evening Standard said that James Whale was to stand for UKIP against Livingstone. UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP told the Standard “Mr. Whale not only has guts, but has an understanding of what real people think.”

At 11.32 pm on 25.10.2006, an interview over the telephone (on his TalkSport Radio programme) with the Conservative Alistair Burt, Mr. Whale said in response to a question (from Mr. Burt) if he would stand in the Mayoral election in London “Who knows? But the Tories (Conservatives) have been knocking at the door.”

It appears that europhile ‘Conservatives’ may possibly have contacted Mr. Whale after the London Evening Standard story and warned him not to stand for UKIP .

Mr. Whale also said during the programme in which he interviewed Mr. Burt in October 2006 “I was impressed (with Mr. Farage when I interviewed him on Talksport Radio on 22/23rd October 2006). Quite a lot of the followers of his party (UKIP) are a little strange but that may change. That might also apply to the other parties. So far David Cameron hasn’t had the courage to come on this show. The EU has just said that it won’t pass (approve) its own accounts for the 12th year running.”

Anthony Butcher

Well we didn't see that coming :roll:

For anyone who doubts the prescient powers of the forum members, here is the old thread on this topic:
http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=145920

Britannist

Anthony, I notice on the link you've put up (above) that you said (in a posting to the thread the link goes through to) "UKIP is almost certainly jumping the gun on this (reports that James Whale would be UKIP's London Mayoral candidate in 2008)."

You obviously saw - back in October - that there was (it seemed) nothing in writing from Mr. Whale (confirming his interest to UKIP in standing as its candidate for the London Mayoral Election in 2008) and, indeed, no formal selection procedure. Surely London UKIP would conduct a full selection process rather than the candidate for the London Mayoral Election 2008 'emerge' via a newspaper article deep inside the London Evening Standard?

My impression is that Mr. Whale was initially interested in standing for UKIP but may have been dissuaded from doing so by someone not keen on UKIP - possibly a europhile 'Conservative' (aftter the London Evening Standard had published the article claiming he was to be UKIP's candidate for the Mayoralty in the capital in 2008).

I started to have doubts about whether Mr. Whale would actually proceed with his reported interest in being UKIP candidate for the London Mayoralty in 2008 because he never (it appeared) actually joined UKIP. Anyone keen on being candidate for UKIP in such a high profile contest should be expected to join UKIP as a full member, I would have thought.

I do not know if anyone up at the top of UKIP have received an actual 'No' to the candidacy in London (in writing or verbally) from Mr. Whale - but it does rather look like the formal rejection by Mr. Whale (to standing for UKIP in London in 2008) came in the words in the quote of what he said on his radio programme last night (which are in the first posting to this thread) :shock: .

The other thing I just thought I'd mention is the fact that I am pretty sure there is a rule which prohibits any radio and television presenter from standing in an election and remaining 'on air' during the election campaign. If Mr. Whale were to have been UKIP candidate for the London Mayoralty in 2008 he would have to stop broadcasting for the duration of the campaign.

Leftist europhile George Galloway is a member of Parliament who has a weekend evening programme on the same station as Mr. Whale (TalkSport Radio) and, he too, would have to stop broadcasting during election periods. I think I'm right in saying that during the May 2006 local election campaign, Mr. Galloway was not 'on air' on TalkSport because his Respect Party was contesting the 2006 London Borough Elections.

Mr. Whale may take the view that he would not wish electioneering to disrupt his programme schedule. He may, quite simply, have decided to put his popular 'phone-in programme (the most listened to programme on UK radio at that time of night/early morning) ahead of politics.

eublues

Speaking in Garstang last Thursday Nigel said he thought it was unlikely Whale would be standing due to the broadcasting regulators making it difficult for Whale to do his radio job while standing for mayor.

It would be interesting to know if Whale ever did join UKIP. The hyping of this by UKIP at the time is annoying - the opposite of crying wolf.

Anthony Butcher

Yes, as I and others said at the time, UKIP oddly formally announced that Whale would be standing for the party via the website (as good as). Indeed the website quoted the Evening Standard without comment: "Broadcaster Whale joins UKIP to run for Mayor" and "The outspoken TalkSport broadcaster will challenge Ken Livingstone for the capital's top job in 2008 as the UK Independence Party candidate."

If this was only a possibility it is very odd for it to be leaked to the press before the deal is signed, and even stranger for UKIP to formalise it on their website. It is almost as if they were trying to deliberately sabotage it. Either that or we have witnessed one of Farage's 'gambles' that didn't pay off (i.e. trying to force Whale's hand).

The story is still there:
http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2687

Oh, and you are living in a dream world if you think selection procedures are necessary. Does anyone recall a selection procedure for Bromley?

eublues

At a guess the Evening Standard was running a story given them by the UKIP press office, and then the UKIP press office thought: let's run a story about what the Evening Standard has reported!

Very tiresome.

mkpdavies

Not really very good is it.

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prober

Those that listen to Whale's programme would have noticed that very shortly after the UKIP claim , he was back tracking/fuging it in response to phone in questions. It all had a whiff of RKS about it anyway and if he had signed up its likely it would not have lasted.

Lets put Nigel onto Mr Bean. He may be more consistent.

mkpdavies

Yes, it all seemed to be a bit of a decision based on a whim. As soon as he was on the t.v. in that interview, it was clear he was at best undecided, but clearly he wasn't commited to running for UKIP.

No real harm done though.

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ChrisB

Thank goodness for that. He smelled like trouble right from the beginning to me.