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Campbell Bannerman to be next leader? Bad news for Tories?

Excerpt: No, you haven't fallen through a time-warp back to 1898. It relates to the news that leadership of UKIP is up for grabs. This particular Campbell Bannerman is David, the great-great-great-great-nephew of Sir Henry. He is a former Conservative, and now UKIP Chairman. The favourite is MEP Nigel Farage.
Submitted by Tabman on 28 July 2006 - 11:18am | Categories:

No, you haven't fallen through a time-warp back to 1898. It relates to the news that leadership of UKIP is up for grabs. This particular Campbell Bannerman is David, the great-great-great-great-nephew of Sir Henry. He is a former Conservative, and now UKIP Chairman. The favourite is MEP Nigel Farage.

UKIP is, famously, a party concerned with a single issue, albeit a pretty important one for those energised by such matters. But the astute and televisual Farage has been seeking to widen UKIP's appeal with a move towards a broader, more traditional (ie Old Tory) right wing agenda. Despite the most uncritical and slavishly hagiographic media reception of any recent political leader, today we see further news that Cameron is beginning to lose his appeal. Perhaps Lord Tebbit's words are apt:

"Bromley suggests that while Conservative voters do believe that the new Conservative Party is unlike the one they used to support, Mr Cameron's target Labour and Liberal voters do not, and the Tories are in danger of missing the electoral opportunity of a lifetime," he wrote.

I wonder if UKIP are astute enough to sieze that opportunity.


Comments

On 31 July 2006 - 9:59am, Julian H wrote:

Tabman, you cannot escape me.

Should the headline not read "Campbell" instead of "Cambell"?

I'm not so convinced that taking the "traditional" Tory vote will work for UKIP. As I've posted elsewhere, much of their support is not and never has been Tory voters.


On 31 July 2006 - 1:32pm, Tabman wrote:

Julian! Thanks you for correcting my mistake. Oops.

I've written an expanded article on this theme for PBC which should appear in the next couple of days. Should generate some interesting debate!

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