A strong whiff of smoked kipper

In the absence of further flesh-rending among the comrades, and it all being remarkably quiet among the May-bellines, silly-season attention turns to the political equivalent of Johnstone’s Paint Trophy

For UKIP are electing a new Führer

As might be expected, this is a spat between Arthur Daley wannabes and similar assorted also-rans.

To save the rest of us the bother, Ian Dunt at politics.co.uk gives us a run down of the names in the frame. Stay awake at the back!

He is ambiguous about the One Who Is Blocked: since I’m one serially “blocked” by any Twittering Kipper, I know how it feels.

This is Stephen Woolfe MEP, who — it seems — is to the outgoing Leader as Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz was to his prototype.

Yet Woolfie has credibility issues

For a start he “forgot” his conviction for drunken driving, both when he stood as Police and Crime Commissioner and in his electoral campaign for the European Parliament. In the former of those cases the conviction would be an instant disqualifier — and the application/nomination process is adamant on the issue.

Tim Fenton, of zelo-street (“the Crewe end of the telescope”) is close enough to Woolfie’s stamping ground in Chester to peer under the stones, and argues that the claim to be a barrister is … err … not quite kosher:

… he has given the impression that he is a barrister, when he is not. Nor has he explained how he came to cease being a barrister. Indeed, the Sun’s take on him, claiming “The barrister wants the party to fill the space left by Jeremy Corbyn and his warring factions” is still live.

That story goes on “The 48-year-old barrister is favourite to take over from Nigel Farage in a leadership race which starts in earnest today”. But the Barristers’ Register of the Bar Standards Board cannot locate anyone called Steven Woolfe. The BBC has hinted at his no longer practising, telling “Steven qualified initially as a barrister but moved into financial services and is presently legal adviser to a company whose clients include hedge funds”.

And The Week describes him as “The former barrister hoping to lead Ukip”. Yet Woolfe has not yet moved to explain why this should be. Why did Woolfe cease to be a practising barrister? Did some event occur that caused the BSB to take action? Was it merely a personal choice? And why is he waiting for the questions to be asked before getting the information out there? There’s another one for the party’s vetting procedures.

What a tangled web we weave

There’s a running battle going at wikipedia about Woolfe’s entry: at least a dozen attempts at correction in just the last week, some a couple of dozen more over the last month.

When first we practise to…

Stop it right there, Sir Walter! We are in the presence of lawyers!

I took a look at Mr Woolfe’s Linked-In page, I detected a distinct odour of the Leadsoms. Consider:

• LL.B., Aberystwyth, 1990.
• Inns of Court Law School, 1991-2 (this would presumably be the “conversion course”). I might have expected to be told here in which of the Inns was Mr Woolfe “called to the Bar”.
• “Barrister practising In London Chambers in commercial, criminal and common law”, 1992-6. That’s a pretty loose description. Usually a particular Chambers, especially were it one with prestige, would be named.
• UBS, Equity Derivatives and Wealth Management Compliance Analyst, 1996-7.
• Counsel, DLA Piper, 1999-2000.
• Standard Bank, Deputy Head of Compliance, 2003-4.
  — those three latter posts all being no more than a year each. Why?
• Aurelius Compliance Consultants, “Senior Compliance Consultant & Partner”, 2000-2007. There a further puzzle here: this firm was dissolved 20th September 2005, as on the same day was Marcus Woolfe Ltd, operating out of Flat 15A, Clapham Manor Street, SW4. A “Company Check” leads us to Mr Steven Marcus Woolfe.
• Boyer Allan Investment Management LLP, 2006-2012. Should we detect a a further oddity here: according to Mr Woolfe’s claimed employment history, there’s an apparent — and impossible, in the light of the firm being dissolved — at least twelve month overlap between those two posts. Is this another of Mr Woolfe’s lapses of recollection?
• MercuryJove Advisers (I tried to find it, but —search me!), General Counsel Consultant 2012-2014. Again we have two missing months between these last two appointments — “Gardening leave”?

In the days when I sat on appointment panels, there would have been enough meat on such bare bones to put an applicant though the mincer.

I kicked off with Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, which was sponsored by “a paint to be proud of“. Modern paints go far beyond simple whitewash,  but that seems to be adequate in this case.