To loose one MP is unfortunate….. To loose two is….. Reckless?

The UKIP party conference was what party conferences should be and what sales conferences invariably are: An opportunity to invigorate and boost the morale of the sales force.
A sales force is what party activists are or should be; Like double glazing salesmen, they canvass door to door and seek to make appointments for the prospective candidate or candidate to call and talk to the voter.
A well organised sales conference will leave the sales force imbued with a new found self confidence and belief in themselves and their product.
The Editor is a veteran of numerous conferences both party (not just UKIP) and sales and can remember being told from the lectern – generally by some highly paid speaker from the USA that no goal is unachievable if you believe in it.
Of course, the next day reality sets in.
When the Old Marlburian and Oxford (Christ Church) man Mark Reckless walked on to the platform at UKIP’s Party Conference in Doncaster yesterday he was greeted with rapturous applause (from all), cheering (from many) and a raucous chanting of “UKIP!!!!… UKP!!!!” (from some).
The most satisfying aspect to this was to see the representatives of the media scurry around to record this great surprise.
Mark Reckless was indeed the rabbit that Nigel Farage pulled out of the hat on Saturday afternoon.
Just before Mark Reckless’s arrival, Nigel Farage reported to the members the results of some recent polls conducted by the polling firm Survation. These showed a remarkable increase of support for UKIP.
Thus it was that many members went away with the belief that UKIP’s time has come and that UKIP will get some MP’s at Westminster soon and many more after the General Election in May 2015.
Not if the political establishment (and by that we do not only mean the Conservative, Liberal-Democrat and Labour parties) have anything to do with it.
UKIP’s biggest problem and greatest threat to its success will be the Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation.
When I arrived at the conference on Friday morning, I was very slightly irritated by Nigel Farage’s decision to choose to hold the conference in Doncaster. My irritation was very slight as it afforded me an opportunity to visit my home city of Leeds and to visit friends there. I knew why Nigel Farage had decided on Doncaster – it is the constituency of the unfortunate Ed Miliband (what else do you call a man who has a problem remembering a debt of Goto:http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/?).
This irritation was very quickly dispelled when I saw the numbers of UKIP members in attendance. Believe it or not Dear Reader, but the numbers were the equal of a Conservative Party conference. This was the opinion not only of this organ’s Editor but also that of the BBC’s journalist Michael Crick (we had a little chat).
Of course, this piece of news was NOT going to be reported to the BBC’s licence payers. That night on BBC 2’s “Newsnight” a reporter (NOT Mr Crick) stated that it was a “small conference.”
Be in no doubt Dear Reader, the BBC – the recipient of your licence fee – will spare no effort to minimise the coverage and to stifle UKIP’s message. They are constrained greatly as they have to pretend to be impartial. But they have and will continue to hinder UKIP surreptitiously and subtly.
Returning to the issue of Mark Reckless, he gave a nice speech to the conference. There was however a pearl, no a diamond of a remark: He said that the United Kingdom [amounted to] more than “….a star in someone else’s flag……”
That, Dear Reader is a tremendously powerful statement. It encapsulates the feelings of most Britons precisely.
Afterwards when the brouhaha had simmered down I had a word with Neil Hamilton and we agreed that the phrase was tremendous. I suggested that he suggests to the UKIP hierarchy that this phrase is repeated as often as necessary.