Simon Heffer has written about Essex County Council? today in The Daily Mail:
Tory-controlled Essex County Council decided this week not to sue their disgraced former leader Lord Hanningfield for the ?287,000 of ratepayers’ money he spent flying around the world with cronies and dining in style.
This is a rash move. In four and a half months, the council is up for re-election.
I am appalled that Essex Tories have such a cavalier view of financial accountability. Anyone who votes to put them back into office next May is mad.
Did they take this view about Hanningfield because some of them, too, have things on their conscience?
Hat-tip: Nick Barlow
UKIP ‘Now The UK’s Third Largest Party’
UKIP has become the third most popular party in Britain – pushing the Lib Dems into fourth place, according to a new poll.
http://news.sky.com/story/1026043/ukip-now-the-uks-third-largest-party
“Popular” and “largest” are actually two very different things… Where the Lib Dems have hard workers in an area we can still do well, but we can’t rely on a protest vote coming to us any more.
I think it is more than protest voting. UKIP are perceived as listening to concerns about Immigraton and Europe in particular. Lib Dems are completely pro-Europe and I don’t think the Conservatives can make their mind up one way or the other at the moment. Labour reneged on the promised referendum but are basically pro. If all the main parties continue to ignore what people are feeling about these two issues then I think they can all expect to loose votes to UKIP come the next election. None of the main parties have very high satisfaction ratings at the moment, it could be an opportune moment for another party to step in and really make waves. If they can get the money to stand in every constituency next time round I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them win a fair few seats. Probably enough to upset the balance of power.