UKIP announces its Shadow Cabinet

A Fruitcake

Leader and would be Prime Minister   - Nigel Farage
Deputy Prime Minister                          - Nigel Farage
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer - Nigel Farage
Shadow Home Secretary                     - Nigel Farage
Justice Secretary                                 - Nigel Farage
Shadow Foreign Secretary                  - Nigel Farage
Chief Secretary to the Treasury           - Nigel Farage
Business, Innovation and Skills           - Nigel Farage
Defence Secretary                               - Nigel Farage
Transport Secretary                             - Nigel Farage
Overseas Development                       - Nigel Farage
Health Secretary                                  - Nigel Farage
Education Secretary                            - Nigel Farage
Environment and Rural Affairs             - Nigel Farage
Work and Pensions Secretary             - Nigel Farage
Leader of the House of Commons      - Nigel Farage
Leader of the House of Lords             - Nigel Farage (he'll work out a way somehow)


Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change - Department Abolished

Departments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be merged in a new Department run by the Secretary of State for Nigel Farage.

Ed Miliband's interview - The Directors Cut

Q. How would you reduce the deficit

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. How would you avoid cuts to public services

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. How will your VAT cut be funded

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. And if the Euro crisis continues 

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. What is your policy on membership of the EU

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. Is this your answer to everything

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. What is your star sign

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. If you were a type of cheese what would you be

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. That's the end of this interview

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. Can you please leave now Mr. Miliband

A. TAX THE RICH

Q. Haven't you got a home to go to

A. TAX THE RICH  TAX THE RICH  TAX THE RICH  TAX THE RICH  TAX THE RICH

Vote UKIP get BNP?

Back in 2011 I was campaigning in Leigh to fight the Council elections for the Conservative Party. Leigh is not exactly rich pickings for us but I'm very pleased to have raised the Tory vote from a low of about 10% to a steady 30% and rising. I'm also quite chuffed the BNP were soundly beaten. Then in 2012 something strange happened. The same candidate contested the same ward but as an independent. This was pointed out to me by my Labour opponent and we both realised what was going on. BNP had its hiatus a few years before. The year that, thanks to PR, Nick Griffin became my MEP. Since then the BNP vote has collapsed and my BNP opponent suddenly became an independent. It almost worked. I campaigned hard and beat the 'independent' into 3rd place but his masquerade as an independent had gained him votes. Looking at some of the UKIP candidates it looks as though those with a right of right view on politics are still abandoning their natural home of the BNP and finding a new home in UKIP. Nigel Farage cannot be blamed for those with vile views and opinions gravitating to his party but he can be blamed for doing nothing about it. To now he appears in complete denial. A message to Mr Farage is please learn from history. The BNP grew out of the slump in the polls experienced by the National Front. As if to repeated history the BNP is slumping in the polls now as they did in the 1980's except this time they are finding a surrogate party in UKIP

Passing of a Local Lass Who Did Her Dad Proud

This is a picture from google streetview of 25 Westgate, Grantham. It's now the HQ of Grantham Taxis. Before that it was the HQ of Grantham Antiques where my mum was the shopkeeper and I lived in the flat above the shop, sharing a room with my brother and an outside privvy. Today there have been many tributes to a great lady with similarly humble beginnings, Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who lived with her family in a flat above a shop. The very things that made her a Conservative also shaped my Conservative values - hard work is its own reward, the state should be a hand up, not a hand out and a determination that people should be in charge of, and responsible for their own destiny. Mrs Thatcher took full control of her destiny rose from the daughter of a Grantham shopkeeper living in a flat above a shop to becoming the greatest peacetime Prime Minister we've ever had living in the flat above the shop, as she affectionately called her Downing Street digs. Being the son of a Grantham Shopkeeper living in the flat above the shop you see in this picture only I can determine where I'll end up but one thing is sure Margaret Thatcher is one tough act to follow.

That's Why Britain Needs Trident

North Korea Won't Spare Manchester

I was on holiday at the Woolacombe Bay holiday camp on the 9th September 2001 and a news flash announced that "a light aircraft has flown into one of the World Trade Centre towers".  Of course what transpired was the horror of the terrorist attacks which took almost 3000 lives. After the towers collapsed Osama Bin Laden was quick, unusually quick, to deny any involvement and it's no coincidence that there has not been such a devastating attack again. It's difficult to get into the mind of a mindless terrorist like Bin Laden and his followers but the person who can justify such an atrocity could also seriously think that the US would contemplate using nuclear weapons in retaliation. To the ordinary westerner this would be as unthinkable as flying passenger jets into giant skyscrapers, to the crazed Jihadist maybe not so. Bin Laden's reaction to the attacks made it clear that he did not expect them to be as destructive and world changing as they were. Maybe for a moment he feared that Afghanistan would become only the second country in history to suffer a nuclear attack. Maybe, just maybe, even the most hardened Al Qaeda terrorist has curtailed such attacks because they fear nuclear reprisals. It's ironic that we waged war on a country to rid it of weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be non-existent. In North Korea we have a country which is horrid to its people and openly shows the world hard evidence of its nuclear programme and we show restraint. A timely and convenient reminder to the world that we need a nuclear deterrent that can be launched from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. This is what Trident gives us and we must not be left with aging and inferior technology than those of despotic states. But strong nuclear deterrents also deter non-nuclear threats from the warped minds of those who might think we would actually use it.

That's why we need Trident

Leigh East to Eastleigh

The Grant Shapps Pixie

The last time I was in Eastleigh I was on business doing some work for the audit commission. This was my latest client until its doom was signaled by the Government in the great bonfire of the quango's. Then Chris Huhne became the latest Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds and Eastleigh beckoned again. I went down the Eastleigh to play my small part in the campaign. Any news coverage concerning Eastleigh had an obvious focus on the fever pitch electioneering and this was the image I had in my head. Driving into the town there was no doubt an election was going on, huge signs for Lib Dems and the Conservatives lined the road into town. What struck me after then was just how little the local population cared that there was an election going on even one as hotly contested as this. The main focus for the vast majority was shopping, eating, just about anything except politics. To them, the election is something which is happening on the 28th Feb and until then, not interested and why should they be, getting on with life is much more important. This confirmed what I have always known, that politics is not a mass participation sport. Canvassing and campaigning over the years confirmed to me that people vote mainly out of habit, then on issues and lastly on conviction. It's only the political classes who take a deep interest in party politics. This also means there is everything to play for in Eastleigh. The voting by habit proportion I put at roughly 50/50 so the campaign needs to be about trying to break the habit amongst a very small number of voters. It's nigh on impossible to identify who would break the habit so the saturation approach needs to be taken and the Tories are taking that exact approach. When I was leafleting in Eastleigh at the weekend a good many houses had Conservative leaflets already by the door and when I was telephone canvassing a good many had not yet made up their mind (or at least that's what they told me). I'm confident the campaigning will work, not because I'm a dyed in the wool Tory but because this is exactly the approach I adopt in Leigh East, a very safe Labour seat in Wigan Borough. Saturation campaigning has lifted the Conservative vote in Leigh from about 10% to almost 30%. If the same campaigning technique I've witnessed in Eastleigh creates a similar shift then the seat is a dead cert.

I Love my Kids, that's why I Support Equal Marriage

The votes have been cast and the Commons have agreed that marriage is for all and not just the straight community. I have a feeling that the vote has been won but the debate has only just begun and this is far from the last we have heard of this. Even before the moment David Cameron very publicly declared he is for gay marriage because he is a Conservative I instinctively knew that it was wrong to deny the right of marriage to couples who want to commit their lives to each other. From the start my friends in the LGBT community had my complete and unconditional support. It was during the debate, however, that I had my most profound epiphany moment, I support equal marriage because I love my kids. Love for my family is also unconditional. Should any decide they want to commit to a same sex partner my Christian values and beliefs would insist that God plays a part in their partnership. It would be their choice, of course, but if they had the same insistence then they should be allowed to have their marriage witnessed by God in Church. For the state to effectively forbid this is an abhorrence and has no place in a modern society. As for the picture, this is St Mary's Church in Leigh where I was married and all my children baptized. It would be great if they were also to get married here, no matter who they fell in love in with.