It didn’t have room to say much except that the candidate wants to ‘kick ass in Westminster’ (sic). Refreshing? Maybe!

Apart from the ones you’d expect there will also be a Monster Raving Loony. But the name that caught my eye was that of Mr. Ed Rosenthal.

He has been listed as the UKIP candidate. What’s interesting about that? Unless I’m mistaken he was, 12 years ago, a Lib Dem councillor in Tolworth East ward (now about 2/3 of Alexandra Ward). And he was very much a Lib Dem’s Lib Dem with a fine line in guitar playing and recycling tea bags and as keen on all things European as any! Since then he seems to have undergone a Damascene conversion, though I believe he still has the guitar and, I hope, still recycles his teabags!

I was very sad to hear last night, however, that there has been some fluttering in the UKIP dovecot and Mr. R is not to stand for Parliament after all – on a UKIP ticket, anyway.

Being a learned Telegraph man, I would have expected him to point out how electoral systems have effects on voter behaviour and how a national list system distorts the political system in favour of minor, fringe or extremist parties.

To fight the Euros, a party can establish itself as nationally significant by getting a mere 70-odd candidates from an electorate of 40 million plus. No big deal – especially when the List System means that it doesn’t matter if no-one has ever heard of any of them before. They get a free post so they can get their leaflets into every house or flat without having to go to the immense trouble of setting up and maintaining a large volunteer base to deliver them or establish a publicly visible candidate selection process. Their absence on the ground during the election locally was a good indication of their real level of support.

In some instances the press and TV give them loads of free publicity. Ukip is a case in point, very much so. The Telegraph and the broadcast media were strangely silent about the antics of many of the ‘Ukip 12′ of 2004 while saturating the papers and airwaves for three weeks non-stop – with the biggest headlines I have ever seen the Telegraph use – about (mainly) Labour and Tory MPs’ expenses. Mr. J is rather coy about that this morning too.

Well, I hope Mr. J and his friends are satisfied with the outcome. I have no doubt that his owners are. I write as a loyal Telegraph reader since 1961. Their expenses campaign, timed and drawn out as it was, has done a wonderful resurrection job on Ukip and paved the path to Brussels of Mr. Griffin and his chum in Yorkshire. As Nigel Farage asked last night,’who could have believed this could happen even five weeks ago?’ Who indeed!

It is right that angry people shouldn’t take out their wrath on innocent people like local government and MEP candidates who are blameless – and Cameron prefaced his actions on expenses in Westminster with dealing pretty harshly with troughing Euro-Tories. And no I’m not up for re-election this year, so it’s not a plea to vote for me!

Simon Heffer, however, doesn’t seem to agree with his editor. He launches an intemperate attack on Cameron for starters. Then for main course he repeats his threat to stand against Sir Alan Haselhurst at the GE unless he apologises in terms sufficient to gratify SH’s righteous indignation. Sir A must be shivering in his boots at that one. I rather hope Heffer decides to have a go, finding his own deposit and paying for sufficient leaflets to tell the voters of Saffron Walden what they’ve been missing in not having him as MP all these years. The leaflet might, perhaps, include details of all Mr. Heffer’s earnings for the last five years and copies of the relevant expenses claims and tax returns. Having been a Telegraph purchaser throughout this period (and much more) I and countless others like me have, after all, contributed daily to his support.

For dessert SH tells us, regardless of the Editor’s sage advice, he is voting for Ukip since, for all it’s had a few problems* in the last 5 years (I’ll say! – master of understatement as ever!!) its problems pale into insignificance beside those of the main stream parties. And to think I used to regard him as quite bright, really. Ah well………

There are two pieces of literature, a letter from David Cameron (DC) and a glossy leaflet also heavily featuring DC but also all 8 Conservative list members.

The letter from DC is a very meaty read, quite long and in small type. It deals with the expenses scandal and what DC is doing about it. This is not a European issue but the daily drip from the Telegraph, destined apparently to continue until polling day or just beyond interestingly enough, means that, in this election, it is likely to be actually THE issue. It does address European issues in far less frenetic terms than the other parties have done and without introducing extraneous or misleading statements about ‘two horse races’ or whatever. It repeats the pledge about a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and it calls for an immediate General Election for Westminster. This would be the text of a really good DC speech. My concern would be that people might not read it or have difficulty in doing so.

Both letter and leaflet are free of WW2 imagery. The front cover of the leaflet shows DC at a lectern with Union flag and ‘Vote for Change’ slogan behind him. Inside on the first page is a montage of anti-Labour headlines from the press and a poster showing Brown facing both ways on the Referendum issue.

The middle page entirely addresses European issues relating to the Budget, jobs, climate change, defence, the Courts, MEPs’ expenses (when is the Telegraph going to get around to that, I wonder, especially on UKIP? – but I digress). It compares votes on each issue by Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem MEPs, making the Tories the only party so far to do so.

The third inside page is devoted to London, showing pictures of candidates (unnamed) campaigning, probably in last year’s GLA and Mayoral elections. Below is a group photo of all the candidates, with names attached, with Boris Johnson. Numbers indicate their position on the list, headed by the two sitting MEPs, Charles Tannock and local resident Syed Kamall. No. 6 is Graham Postles, a man I have liked and respected since we were both candidates in the West Midlands in 1987. He’d make a very good MEP, but the list system and the antics of some MPs over expenses have made that highly unlikely – this time anyway.

There’s a further letter from DC and a page of candidates campaigning: Syed Kamall in Kingston market next to a piece about pounds and ounces; J P Floru with Zac Goldsmith talking to a shopkeeper alongside a piece about business; Dr. Ian Twigg with NHS staff (one presumes) and an ambulance next to a piece about the working time directive and the NHS; lastly Charles Tannock, Syed and Marina with DC and Boris, getting ‘the best deal for London’.

In all this is a serious piece of work which addresses the  European election  as an event in its own right and doesn’t try to present it as  a referendum on membership (UKIP and the BNP) or a platform for the candidate for the next Westminster election (the Lib Dems). It names all the candidates (unlike the Lib Dems and UKIP who only name one each!) takes the voters seriously and deserves to be taken seriously by them in its turn.

Like UKIP they are invoking the World War 2 spirit. UKIP have hijacked Churchill and the BNP have hijacked the Spitfire. They go further, invoking Trafalgar, the Somme, Dunkirk, D-Day, and the Falklands. Bit of a cheek, really, and not particularly historically literate. The crews on HM ships at Trafalgar were a much more multinational lot than you might imagine, containing various European nationals, Afro-Caribbeans and the odd American alongside our own Jack Tars. Like UKIP they hope that these images will evoke a response in those of a conservative cast of mind – don’t just hijack Churchill, but Nelson and Thatcher as well!

The invitation to say ‘NO to high taxes & Rip-Off Britain’ is appealing to the same group, but the real ploy is the echo of Gordon Brown’s ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ pledge, with attacks on immigration, the banks, big business and ‘globalisation’ which has been allowed to ‘destroy jobs and drag down wages’. All this is a result of ‘cut-throat foreign competition’. This is rather similar to the gospel accorging to ‘No2EU’ run by various left wing Trade Unionists like Bob Crow.

They affect to be all things to all people, of the ethnic majority, that is. Given the combination of Proportional Representation and the expenses scandal, there must be a real danger that members of this party will be elected to the Europen parliament (an institution which, like UKIP, they affect to despise). We already have a few of them on local councils and one on the GLA (PR again!) Thus do fringe parties like this gain influence, ‘respectability’ and, eventually, power. Voting for them would  an equivalent act to that committed by ‘the young lady of Riga’ in the limerick.

It might be worth pointing out that the sole MP  UKIP has ever claimed as a member (though he denies it, apparently),  Bob Spink, was the only person on the Opposition benches to align himself unequivocally and noisily with failed Speaker Michael Martin.

UKIP says ‘No to European Union’, yet it is fielding a Danish national as a candidate this time, and, I have it on good authority that, in 2004 one UKIP candidate was French.  You can’t get much more European that that, and, of course, it’s perfectly consistent with the Rules from Brussels!

UKIP has the gall to festoon its leaflet with a portrait of Winston Churchill on both sides, understandably, as it hopes to use his image to con Conservatives into voting for it. This is in spite of the wishes of Sir Winston’s living relatives that his image should not be used in such a manner.

As for the record of achievement by UKIP’s  MEPs elected in 2004, I have never heard of or from Gerard Batten, who tells us he has represented London for the past 5 years, and I am very active in politics. I have heard of Kilroy-Silk, who was all the rage 5 years ago, but who, once elected, failed to become UKIP leader and flounced off to start his own party (Veritas – remember it?), which bombed in 2005. Since then he has spent 4 years perfecting his sun tan in Spain, while remaining an MEP on salary and ‘exes’ galore! Two more are reputedly residing somewhere at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

For further reading I recommend this site.

I am afraid I cannot commend this party to you for support. Voting for it will not achieve any of the aims that Eurosceptics cherish. It will, in fact, do those aims considerable harm. Their claim to have ‘fought for Britain for the past five years’ is all baloney!