Reckless M P Quits To Join Ukip

[Jomlett]

BBC News - MP quits Conservatives for UKIP http://bbc.in/1mB0oU6

[mikey4444]

Somebody called Reckless, leaving the Tory Party for UKIP !...you couldn't make it up. Not so much leaving a sinking ship as leaving a rapidly sinking ship, for another that is rudderless and adrift in open water.

Also according to todays papers, UKIP plans to apply a "luxury tax" on shoes, and handbags :::

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11123922/Nigel-Farage-woos-working-class-voters-with-wag-tax.html

So that is how they intend to plug the huge gap in their spending plans then !

[mikey4444]

I have just looked up Reckless's constituency, of Rochester and Strood :::

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_and_Strood_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

UKIP didn't even put a candidate up in 2010. Is this how UKIP intends to win seats in Westminster, by pinching them from the Tories ? dave now has 3 by-elections in the next three weeks...I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for him now !

[Farriercm]

Handbag??? was that someones nickname Mikey?

[naomi24]

Don't crow too soon chaps. It looks like he had a fairly large majority so I doubt very much that the electorate will vote for him, personally, rather than the party he represented. ;o)

[mikey4444]

I think its about time I posted the cover of Private Eye, as its bang on the button ::::

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1374

[naomi24]

Love Private Eye. It's humour doesn't change this situation though. Never mind, Mikey. :o)

[mikey4444]

Well, that is two fans of Private Eye on AB then Naomi ....one more than I thought !

But you have to admit that the cover is ever so slightly prescient !

[Obiter]

One of the bye elections is in a safe Labour seat so Cameron won't be bothered about that on.

[agchristie]

Hat-trick! I like Private Eye too ;-)

[vetuste_ennemi]

Remember "Naked Bunny in centre pages"?
And Rudi Dutschke, Tariq Ali and Danny Cohn-Bendit in Highgate Cemetery?Bubble from Marx's mouth: "Kindly leave the stage".
Wells (or was it Rushton) later commented: should have been: "Kindly leave the sage".

[Gromit]

At the time of the Carswell defection, UKIP boasted of having several other Tory MPs ready to jump before the election. After the result at Clacton, I assume we will see a string of by elections up to May.

In the long run, this could help the Conservative Party. For 30 years they have been split over Europe. Every leader has had a hard time keeping the Euro Sceptics and the Europhiles happy in the same party. If the sceptics decide UKIP is their natural home, then the Conservative Party could be more united in future.

[Gromit]

Mikey,
Once upon a time, Private Eye used to regular buy and print my cartoons.

[mikey4444]

In time it might help the Tories Gromit, but it is begger all use to them in the run up to next years Election. The Bar Stewards, as John Major called them, have been a thorn in the side of the Tories for many years now, and if the Party is to have any long-term future, it must rid itself of this canker, once and for all, much in the way of a previous Night of the Long Knives.

But when you embark on a cleaning mission of the Augean stables, then you must expect that the horse poo will fly around all over the place, and it will take some time for the dust to settle down down again. I maintain that a few months before an important Election isn't the time to start.

[mikey4444]

Gromit...how interesting ! Where these under the name of Gromit, and how far back was it ?

I used to read the Eye on a regular basis when I was in my teens and twenties. I remember that W H Smith wouldn't stock it and I had to buy it from a small, very brave Newsagent !

[Svejk]

very impressive, gromit.

[Gromit]

Through the 1990s, under my real name. It was very speculative. I would send half a dozen cartoons every fortnight, it took me half a day. If they didn't buy anything I had wasted my time. When they did bite, they often took two or three and it was a great bonus. Also, collectors buy originals, so I often sold the drawings and so got paid twice. Stephen Fry bought one.
As I got busier with real work I didn't have time to do work I might not get paid for, so I didn't send stuff regularly. I occassionally send a batch now but without success.