Britannist

Perhaps the most important thing at this point is that the europhile Liberal Dims are skint since their biggest financial donor in recent years ended up in the slammer a few months ago.

With the squeeze the two 'big' parties will put the Dim Liberals under at the next General and EU Election, this surely offers UKIP opportunities to try to get eurosceptic Liberal 'Democrat' voters (at least half of those who vote for the Liberal Dims) to switch to UKIP. Some of these voters will have already voted UKIP at the last EU Election.

The weaker the pro-EU Liberal Dims are financially, the better this is fort the electoral prospects of UKIP.

The party must take advantage of this situation - quickly (the Liberal Dims may panic again - as they did last January - and replace their leader).

With the Liberal Dims short of cash (and lower down in the opinion polls) UKIP must take advantage of this now by exposing the Dim Libs to the electorate for what they are - the political voice of the EU in the UK who would, if given power, destroy the British Pound and any remaining powers of the British Parliament.

BASILDON BOY

Any new cash must not be squandered or wasted (like the £70,000 in the Bromley bye-election) It needs to be carefully targetted where it will do most good. A suggestion would be the best 10 or so Constituencies where UKIP has got great European, General and Local election results. Target these areas and build strong campaigning branches.

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Mike Nattrass MEP is HOT HOT HOT!!!

Independent UKIP

Bromley is an old argument but it was the first time UKIP beat Labour in a parliamentary seat. It proved UKIP is capable of beating all 3 main parties in parliamentary seats under the FPTP system. And the media focused on the dire (winning) tory result and the dire Labour result, not the UKIP result.

I don't disagree with the other suggestion about targeting except that you might be the first to point out on another topic that there are no General Election constituencies where UKIP has got great results in the past beyond beating one of the 3 main parties. We won't win under FPTP without targeting but we are also unlikely to win any seats next time if we do target individuals seats; and such targeting will certainly take place unofficially without any prompting from anyone from this forum.

tamashi

I can't think of anywhere in the country where UKIP got great European, General AND Local election results. In 2004 we had some good second places in several areas of the country, in 2005 it would be difficult to say where we got anything other than poor GE results and in May 2006 we won ONE Council seat in the whole country.

I think for targeting we need to look at the results in May 2007. I personally wouldn't put one penny into any constituency that didn't fight the May 2007 Locals in at least half the wards on offer!

Tom Wilde

Devon.

Great Euro results in 2004 - UKIP came top in several constituencies in Devon.

Relatively good General Election results in 2005 - certainly the biggest cluster of saved deposits for UKIP, anyway. I believe nearly all the UKIP candidates in Devon saved their deposits, in fact, and there were several results there which were 7% and upwards.

Local elections: in 2003 UKIP gained three district council seats in Devon, all of them contested. This was out of a total of seven gains in Britain as a whole. No seats in Devon were up for election in 2006, but local elections will be held there this year.

22ANDUK

Can I just say that while Wheeler's interest in UKIP is great financially, it is also a boost politically.

Wheeler isn't just the 'Big Bucks Charlie' who Labour court - digging deep and throwing money at them for no reason than personal power gain, Wheeler possesses a keen political intellect and has (or had) been a member of the Conservative party for a long time.

His money would be a massive gain, but so would the influence he would have on others - rich and poor - on further legitimising UKIP as a leading UK party.

eublues

Talk in the Telegraph today of Stanley Karms (founder of Currys) having had a meeting with Nigel.

mkpdavies

I wonder if Sykes will come back, now Nigel has agreed to not stand against BOO supporters.

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Britannist

ITV 1 Teletext (analogue page 309 at 12.40 pm) reports today (15.1.2007) in an article titled 'Donor warns Cameron over EU' that "a major Tory donor has warned David Cameron to get tougher on the EU or face losing his support."

The report then says that spread-betting tycoon Stuart Wheeler, who donated £5 million to the Conservatives in 2001, has revealed that "he is thinking of backing the UK Independence Party"

Teletext claims Mr. Wheeler described David Cameron as "tremendous" but said he should "strengthen" his position on europe because "it has harmed" the country.

Presumably Mr. Wheeler meant that 'europe' has harmed the country and was not referring specifically to David Cameron.

Britannist writes: Mr. Stuart Wheeler is one of the most important donators to the Conservative Party. News of Mr. Wheeler's criticisms and of his alleged interest in UKIP will be the most damaging development - so far - to hit David Cameron since he became Conservative leader in December 2005.

Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Wheeler allegedly gave some financial backing to a select number of Conservative candidates in a number of constituencies at the last General Election. All were eurosceptic and anti-euro.

Conservative Home wrote some months ago that as long as donations came in and membership numbers were good David Cameron's position as leader of the Conservative Party was secure.

The pro-Conservative Daily Telegraph reported just after Christmas that the membership of the Conservative Party had just slumped by 15, 000. And now Mr. Wheeler has become the most senior figure in the Conservative Party to speak out about the leftward drift of the Conservative Party and the pro-EU approach being forced on it by David Cameron. The loss of Mr. Wheeler's support would be a blow to the Cameron-Conservatives and it might make other donators and fundraisers call it a day as far as the Cameron-led Conservative Party goes.

It will be extremely difficult for David Cameron and his pro-EU team to brush off the remarks of Mr. Wheeler because of his position as a major donor to the party and because of the respect Conservatives have for Mr. Wheeler an the support he gives the Conservative Party.

eublues

Cameron can't change course now, cos he's against his party being "blackmailed".