Michael Crick chases UKIP’s comms chief Paul “Gobby” Lambert down the road in Margate: “Are you going to resign, Mr Lambert?”
Yesterday the immigration figures were out and they were a disaster for the government. After promising to reduce them to “tens of thousands” they overshot by hundreds of thousands, with 187,000 Bulgarians and Romanians alone applying for National Insurance numbers in 2014, entitling them to work and claim welfare. This is UKIP’s signature issue, EU immigration. After the LibLabCon parties mocked the idea of a flood of Bulgarians and Romanians coming it was an open goal for Nigel to show he had been proved right again on the issue that really moves the dial for UKIP. Where was he?
Speaking to an empty room in Washington D.C. to a handful of political nerds before flying back for UKIP’s spring conference this weekend. The media priorities are crazy, the press operation is amateurish, Paul “Gobby” Lambert was brought in to get a grip on the party’s media handling. Gobby knows that forward planning is key to setting the media agenda. Nigel himself may be on his way from Thanet to Westminster, however there is still a long way to go for UKIP HQ…
It’s taken six months for UKIP to find a new Director of Communications and Paul Lambert has certainly been showing some ankle elsewhere. There was talk of him going to ITV, Sky or even to run Miliband’s operations. Now Guido can reveal Gobby applied to work for Theresa May’s Home Office before accepting the UKIP gig. Both the party and Mr Lambert declined the opportunity to comment. Not so gobby now…
I am delighted to announce that Paul 'Gobby' Lambert is set to become UKIP's new Director of Communications. He's one of the best in town.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 7, 2014
In view of today's announcement think I shall be applying for the now vacant job of shouting "Are you going to resign Minister?"
— Media Guido (@MediaGuido) December 7, 2014
Gobby is quite simply a Westminster legend. His actual name is Paul Lambert and he says “UKIP is today the place to be if you want to be a part of a party that is changing the face of British politics for the better…”. When a senior UKIP source told Guido this was on the cards last week, Guido just did not believe them. Let’s see how he copes with being on the other side of the camera…
