Today’s MP register of interests publication has had a fair amount of news squeezed from it. Guido covered Tom Tugendhat registering £124,000 in leadership donations among other candidates’ registrations; and the Mirror’s totted up that MPs have received £82,000 of freebie tickets to sporting and music events, including £6,200-worth of Ed Sheeran tickets. Scrolling through the register this morning, Guido almost got whiplash double taking at one entry submitted by hard-left MP Sam Tarry. A £10,000 donation from the unlikeliest of names…
Has the UKIP leader quietly announced the biggest change of political heart since Christian Wakeford? Fortunately for UKIP, they don’t need to start the search for their twelfth leader in seven years. A UKIP spokesperson confirms Tarry’s coffers have definitely been topped up by a different Neil Hamilton…
Last night the BBC told readers that Labour, the LibDems and the Greens could stand aside in the forthcoming North Shropshire by-election, to stand an anti-sleaze unity candidate against Owen Paterson’s replacement. While they managed to put egos and party differences aside in 1997 to defeat Neil Hamilton, it looks like that’s too much of a stretch in 2021. Last night Labour sources briefed out that wasn’t going to happen. This morning a LibDem official told the FT’s Jim Pickard:
“there was a scintilla of examining… an independent unity candidate of a Martin Bell nature… compliance rules & electoral legislation has changed dramatically since then making it virtually impossible”
Just days after a new book revealed Labour could have taken out Iain Duncan Smith, and the LibDems Dominic Raab if they’d stood unity candidates in 2019…
Talking of Neil Hamilton, he’s been on TimesRadio this morning saying he has a “certain sense of deja vu this morning… nothing much has changed” and arguing “The whole process is flawed”. Guido presumes Paterson did not have Neil Hamilton at the top of the list of people he hoped would be arguing his case this morning…
Neil Hamilton was last night confirmed as UKIP’s leader – their twelfth formal leader and interim leader since Farage stepped down in 2016. Last year their last leader, Freddie Vaccha, was suspended for as-of-now still unknown reasons, replaced by Neil Hamilton. Over 400 days after Hamilton took over as interim leader, the party’s confirmed him as their new permanent leader. He beat someone called John Poynton by a margin of 57%, on a turnout of just 20.7% among the 3,047 membership…
As Guido recounted after Vaccha’s defenestration in 2020, UKIP’s post-Farage leaders have been a procession of glittering luminaries:
- Diane James: Resigned claiming she did not have the full support of her colleagues and officers
- Farage, interim leadership encore
- Paul Nuttall: Resigned after the party’s miserable 2017 election performance
- Steve Crowther, interim leader
- Henry Bolton: Resigned after leaving his wife for Jo Marney, a model 30 years his junior. Marney was suspended from the party for leaked texts containing racist comments about Meghan Markle and attacking Grenfell Tower Victims. The NEC passed a VONC
- Gerard Batten, interim leader
- Gerard Batten: Resigned after UKIP’s 2019 EU Election wipeout
- Piers Wauchope, interim leader (who?)
- Dick Braine: Suspended from UKIP after being accused of stealing membership data, and after 81 days of constant mockery over his silly name
- Patricia Mountain, interim leader. Remembered for her hilarious 2019 election interview in which she said “other racist parties“, didn’t know where the party was standing, and said UKIP didn’t have any black candidates but “might” have an Indian man
- Freddy Vachha: Suspended by the party after 82 days – no one’s sure why. He claims he is still the leader of UKIP. His CV boasted fluency in four languages (including English and American) and says he’s “never ever” boring despite minimal drinking and only ever having smoked two cigarettes
- Neil Hamilton: interim leader
- Neil Hamilton: leader
Guido’s just heartbroken Dr Peter Gammons didn’t get a look-in…
An elected Tory Party Chairman in Cardiff spent over a month also working for UKIP’s Neil Hamilton in the Welsh Assembly, before quitting after pressure from the Welsh Conservative Whip, Guido can reveal. He’s been Ukipping with the enemy…
Chris Harries – who was elected to the board of the Cardiff Central Conservatives in March this year – remained on the UKIP payroll until the start of May, according to leaked emails.
Hamilton’s now-former part-time communications staffer joined the UKIP Welsh Assembly Team in January 2019, a month after Farage quit the toxified party, and was still a member of staff to the former Tatton MP at the end of April – over a month after taking up a formal role with the Tories’ Central Cardiff Branch.
Harries’ name was only removed from Hamilton’s staff list on the Welsh Assembly intranet on 13th May, apparently after awkward questions from the Tory Whip. Here’s hoping Chris has a Wale of a time in his new party, and that this embarrassment doesn’t dragon too much…
How is Neil Hamilton getting on as leader of UKIP in Wales? A politician you could never accuse of being out-of-touch, Hamilton this week announced he is opening a new office in his constituency. Unfortunately Team Neil spelt the name of the town and county wrong in the press release. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. But four times.
“People wanting to know more about the party and speak to either Neil Hamilton or his advisors will be able to do so at Whitlands (sic) Town Hall, in Whitlands (sic), Camarthenshire (sic) from Monday January 16… Neil has been busy planning where to site an office in his constituency and is delighted that he is now being able to open one in the town of Whitlands (sic)”.
Aides blamed computer issues for the faux pas. Fel rhech mewn pot jam…
UKIP’s party chairman is facing calls from prominent Kippers to suspend Neil Hamilton after he told the BBC Steven Woolfe had “picked a fight and came off worse”. Hamilton handled the issue with his customary charm as Woolfe’s condition remained unknown. It has gone down very badly with the party hierarchy.
