Brompton ward in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is something different.
As of last Thursday it had a second by-election in a month, on the death of Baroness Shireen Ritchie of … err .. Brompton, step-mother of the less-distinguished and less-famed Guy Ritchie.
A blue-bottomed baboon would get elected here, purely because of its posterior — it would need to have a decent pedigree, but naturally.
Now look closely at the two elections:
- Con 650 (70.3%, down 9.3% since the last full Borough election, but down also from 728 on 9th June),
- Lab 103 (11.1%, +0.1, and up a magnificent two votes since 9th June),
- LD 101 (10.9%, +1.5), up from just 86 since 9th June),
- UKIP 71 (7.7%, +7.7 — and didn’t stand on 9th June).
Yes, it’s all small-scale stuff, but what that shows is, even in this nest of the most sophisticated and most blue-blooded of Tories, there is attrition by UKIP.
Even though, like the baboon, UKIP has some very unpleasant habits.
No wonder Cameron is so ambivalent with his EU-referendum notions.
Even more so, because someone at Tory Central must have read Peter Kellner:
UKIP came fourth in 1999, third in 2004, and second in 2009. Is it possible that in the next elections to the European parliament in 2014, UKIP could come top?
The short answer is yes. Unless there is a big change in fortunes of the main political parties, I expect a close fight between UKIP and Labour for first place, both winning around 25 per cent, with the Conservatives trailing third on around 20 per cent. (The Lib Dems could find themselves struggling to avoid fifth place, behind the Greens; but that’s another story.)
With UKIP, I suspect that when it becomes more exposed, its essential nature wil be apparent – the League of Empire Loyalists resurrected with respectable elements of the BNP (Saloon Bar falange) hiding below. Its MEPs are hardly distinguished, let alone in some cases honest, and my guess is that exposed by the exigencies of first past the post the shortcomings of its candidates list will be apparent. Junius runs a very funny blog on UKIP and its doings whic is well worth reading and a useful corrective to Nigel Farage’s posturing.
I can confirm, from the pained experience of a daughter, that not all UKIPpers are straight-arrows. She had the misfortune, briefly, to work for his law firm. Fortunately he has not elected.
“Saloon Bar falange”! Nice one! [Even if, after a week immersed in Paul Preston's book, it's hard to see anything amusing about Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista.]
UKIP dirt (and there’s plenty of it to go round) is dished by (I assume) Greg Lance-Watkins at Caterpillars and Butterflies.
All you need to do is to look at UKIP’s allies in the European Parliament and wonder how long it could survive the beasts of the Tory press once they get genuinely worried about the possibility of a Tory defeat as opposed to putting the frighteners on Dave and Gids.