Nigel laughs last.....

Well, it looks as if Nigel has shot Dave’s fox.

 

There are deep suspicions that Cameron recalled Parliament on last Friday partly to overshadow Farage’s speech at the UKIP Conference. He was successful up to a considerable point. The media coverage was minimal, raising more suspicions that the establishment is up to its old tricks of blanking UKIP. SKY devoted its entire programme to the Commons vote apart from a couple of minutes squeezed in right at the end before the sports report. It needed a thorough search of the print media to find out just what Farage had said.

 

There was some appealing stuff, such as his proposed ‘wag tax’ that would levy a higher rate of VAT on luxury goods on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it was unfair that ordinary people buying necessaries should have to pay the same rate of VAT as the wealthy pay for £2000 handbags. He also plans to stop VAT relief for luxury purchases by wealthy Arabs  and other non-Europeans.

 

He would abolish inheritance tax which is a burden on asset-rich, cash-poor people and raises little revenue.

 

Now we have the defection of Mark Reckless announced on the eve of theory Party Conference, but obviously decided in advance. By a pure stroke of luck we also have the Minister for Civil Society (whatever that might be) resigning after being caught flashing on the internet.

 

These stories will run and run throughout the Conference. The Tories are not going to get the media attention that they anticipated.

 

Two can play at that game, Dave!