Tuesday 12 May 2015

U-turn (if you want to)



Everyone is trying to predict what John Whittingdale is about to do to the BBC, but apart from that I was a bit confused by Matthew Goodwin’s performance on the Daily Politics just now. I understood that Dr. Goodwin was an extremely left-leaning academic, but he seems to have acquired some expertise on UKip.  Not entirely hostile, I thought.
The Daily Politics was teetering on the edge of deep sarcasm re Nigel Farage’s ‘U-turn’, aka ‘the shortest reinstatement after a resignation known to man’. But they moderated the cynicism by mentioning other, similarly swift political post-resignation reinstatements.

Jo Coburn is not known to be well disposed to Farage, as her irritable conduct during the election debate attested. 
I was pleased to hear Dr. Goodwin explaining what I had been waiting to hear someone say, if only because it seemed such an obvious hypothesis.  Surely Farage made his promise to step down if he was defeated at Thanet on the assumption that a defeat would indicate a general lack of support for UKip, in which case he would be quite right to give up on the project. 

As it was, the public's vote of confidence spoke otherwise. It would be a big snub to his supporters if he abandoned them after winning so many votes, even if not seats. 

We might also take into consideration that the scare-mongering - the horrifying threat of a Labour party/SNP coalition - probably threw may potential Ukip voters into the arms of the Tories. If the polls had been less misleading who knows what the outcome would have been for Ukip.


The media should start taking UKip more seriously, even if only so as not to antagonise the public.

1 comment:

  1. Goodwin gets a good research berth for looking into UKIP-but he`s been fair and knowledgeable, bit like David Goodhart is.
    But the BBC oafs are beyond reason-which is why they were stumped last Thursday on polling day,
    And even in the last week-with all sorts of advice from the likes of darling, Mandelson, Milburn, Johnson-let alone Parris, Messina and O`Neill...the Left are bound to the rotten hulk of Kinnocks droolings...and while the rest of us go out to work in the day,these fantasists dream of us all becoming Children of Their Revolution of the Mind...like Brand, Gallagher or pixie tricks like Umunna.
    Not a clue-and UKIP will wipe them out next time.
    Hence the death throes of bile being thrown at them over nothings like short money or if Nigel is a bit grumpy or not,,,the Left are on the run, hunting is legal again for their likes-and we need to get them out, before they come back for us with their pals in ISIS.
    Unelectable-May 7th showed that-but we did dodge a bullet there-never again!

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