I am not a Tory

[Barman]

Excellent post over at Wolfers...

The Tories are wrong. On a number of levels they are wrong. They are wrong on so many things it would be quicker to write a list of what it is they are right about. That list would be short.

One of the things they are wrong about is that people who vote UKIP are Tory disaffectees.

I will be voting UKIP, I am not a Tory. I never have been a Tory.

One of the things they are wrong about is that UKIP are stealing or splitting Tory votes.

I will be voting UKIP. I am not a Tory. My vote does not belong to you. It belongs to me. In an article over at the Torygraph, Vicki Woods launches an attack against UKIP and Farage that is so personal it made me cringe. Vicki, love, when you use the phrase ‘the sort who you know would or should be voting Tory because they always have’ you represent the exact problem your party has. Who the hell do you think you are to demand, suppose, believe, expect that because someone voted Tory at some point in the past that they are now duty bound to do so for the rest of their lives?

This is the attitude from all the big 3 parties; ‘you belong to us’. Uh-huh, this is why UKIP are spiking at present, you treat people like chattels, like vassals, you insult them, you dictate to them, and then you expect them to support you. It is like an abusive relationship, perhaps now the abused are starting to hit back.

I suspect that Vicki Woods has been got at, because it appears that the Tories have been spending a good deal of money on trying to dig up dirt on UKIP candidates in next week’s council elections. It’s pretty strong stuff, one candidate owns a bar where adults can go and see another adult take their clothes off. The leader once went into a place that was similar.

I don’t much care. I suspect most other people won’t. Those that do care will say something along the lines of ‘I knew that bloke Farage was no good.’ It is intelligence that will reinforce, not change, opinion.

Over in the comments on the Telegraph someone has listed the convictions and arrests regarding Tories. Lots of them. Lots of kiddie fiddling stuff. I have no comment to make on that.

The thing is this, the Conservatives must be running scared to do this. By doing it, and by being so slapdash as to be caught out doing it, they’ve just reinforced the line that they are a bunch of unscrupulous arses who would do anything to anyone to hold onto power. Nice.

The other thing is that they still believe that UKIP voters belong to them. I don’t. We don’t. We belong to ourselves. Why is this concept so difficult for you to grasp? Why do you think I owe your party any loyalty? I owe them nothing. I’m loyal to UKIP, I’m a member. If the party’s views change and I end up disagreeing with more than I agree, then I’ll leave. My loyalty is to my views. There is talk of no pact whilst Cameron is leader of the Tories. This is good. There is talk of a pact if Gove became Tory leader. This is bad. If such a merger or pact came about, I’d be off. Why? Because I’m not a Tory. I’m not using UKIP as some kind of regent until the Tories come to their senses. I don’t view UKIP as a safe harbour as a storm blows on the Tory seas. I’m not a Tory.

The Tories seem to think all UKIP could, would, should and did vote Tory. I don’t. This is not some Tory second XI.

I had an interesting discussion with the Tory candidate for my county council ward the other day as he called round doing the doorstep thing. I actually quite like him, he’s a good bloke, and he’s done a lot of good work. He was the driving force in the county council to get the city council’s support of the aforementioned and disastrous Westgate Towers traffic scheme overturned. He is hoping to get the aforementioned Kingsmead field designated as a village green to scupper the city council’s plans to develop it for housing; a plan that is widely hated in the community, and widely supported in the city council.

The city council has 49 councillors, only 15 of them are not Tories. They are detested, in Canterbury. You couldn’t hope to find a place more blue. The county councillor for this ward is hated by the city Tories as he keeps frustrating them at county hall.

My appreciation for his work aside, a couple of the things he said to me in trying to get me to vote for him really pissed me off. When I pointed out the lunacy of a Tory councillor constantly trying to undo the work of the other Tory councillors, when I pointed out that they hate him, when I pointed out to him that he was in the wrong party, he laughed. ‘But if I joined UKIP, I wouldn’t get elected.’

BAM! There we have it. He’d rather be in office than address the obvious issues within his party. Big black mark from Wolfers there.

Second, he trotted out the line than really gets my goat; if you vote UKIP you’ll get Labour.

Even now that makes me bristle. I will always, always vote FOR what I want, and never against that which I do not. If there is nothing I want, I will spoil my paper. If what I want doesn’t get in, it doesn’t matter to me what does. Don’t threaten me with the Labour bogeyman, they are the minority on the city council, perhaps if they’d been the majority, the traffic trial and field sale wouldn’t have been on the agenda. Maybe if they returned a county councillor he would also oppose what the Tories had done on the city council, I mean, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a Labour person would try to generate capital for their party by opposing the other side, is it? And, just in case I haven’t expressed this enough, because I am not a Tory, the thought of Labour does not give me an attack of the vapours.

Then today we receive a letter where he states, quite incorrectly, that he is the only candidate who lives in the ward. I know this is not true as I know the UKIP candidate and he most definitely lives in the ward.

So, I will not be voting Tory. I will not be voting Tory because:

    I do not trust or believe their leader.
    I do not trust or support their policies.
    I do not like their negative campaigning techniques.
    I do not support, in the slightest, their local policies.
    I do not like their obvious in-fighting locally.
    I do not like their candidate’s attempt to scare me into voting for him.
    I do not like their inaccurate and misleading communications.

Most importantly, I will not be voting Conservative mainly because I am not a Tory.

Clicky...

[Tipsy Gipsy]

Britain is reduced to people who vote and people who don't.  Why is the question I would ask.  When will the majority appreciate that participation is required.   

[Uncle Mort]

You really wouldn't know there's an election happening in my district. It seems the politicians can't be bothered either. I have only received one leaflet for the upcoming election; from UKIP.

[Marley's Ghost (Imbiber of Spirits)]

You really wouldn't know there's an election happening in my district. It seems the politicians can't be bothered either. I have only received one leaflet for the upcoming election; from UKIP.

Very true Uncle - I suspect this may have something to do with tory expectations of a massacre and labour expectations of a landslide

Neither taking any notice of th fact that UKIP are gaining masses of support

I predict some very surprised candidates after the elections . . . .

[Barman]

You really wouldn't know there's an election happening in my district. It seems the politicians can't be bothered either. I have only received one leaflet for the upcoming election; from UKIP.

Very true Uncle - I suspect this may have something to do with tory expectations of a massacre and labour expectations of a landslide

Neither taking any notice of th fact that UKIP are gaining masses of support

I predict some very surprised candidates after the elections . . . .

Oh I do hope so! 

[Tipsy Gipsy]

So do I, serve em right. 

[Barman]

He posts again! 

On reflection.
Posted on 28/04/2013   

I was quite hard on the Tories yesterday. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still think they’re dumber than a bag of hair, but it occurred to me this morning that they’re actually doing us (UKIP) a big favour.

You see there was a statement on the UKIP facebook thingy the other day. It was quite clear and simple; ‘We rely on people to tell the truth. We trust people to be honest. We ask people questions. If they lie, we sack them.’

Now, I’m not a candidate, but I am a member. When I joined I had to give a statement to the effect that I was not, nor have ever been, a member of the BNP and other ultra-left racist national socialist groups. I would imagine that when one asks for the nod as a candidate, one of the questions asked is probably ‘are you a terrible racist who is going to cause embarrassment to UKIP and bring their name into disrepute?’

The thing is, despite a massive increase in membership this year (around 40% when most parties are haemorrhaging numbers) the numbers who run the party admin are quite low. With the best will in the world we cannot conduct in depth investigations into the histories of each candidate we are putting forward. Thankfully, the Tories have spent a good deal of money doing that for us. And as soon as we find someone who says stupid and racist things like John Cherry, they can be kicked out in short order.

Oh, dammit. Would you look at that? John Cherry is a Tory. We’ll colour me surprised. There was me thinking the Conservative’s poo-poo didn’t stink.

Anyhow, cheers for that Tories, you’ve saved us a huge amount of cash and effort there. That’s bloody decent of you.

Now, there’s one more thing you could do for us. Would you be so good to ensure that your dead tree press shock troop hacks keep writing about us until Thursday? Today in the Wail it’s the turn of former Tory dep-chairman, non-dom billionaire Tory funder Michael Ashcroft.

He’s again trotting out the line vote UKIP, get Labour. Apparently, if you vote UKIP you won’t get the Tories, and there goes all hope of an in/out referendum.

Point one: I am absolutely convinced that either a) the ‘negotiations’ that Cameron wants to conduct will come to nowt, and as a result he’ll say, ‘well I did say a referendum was dependent upon having a package to refer’ and it won’t happen, or b) it will be a consultative referendum which is not binding, or c) it will be binding and we’ll have to just keep on voting until we vote to stay in. Either way, I don’t believe Cameron, not even as far as I can spit, and given his track record, only a fool would take him at his word. Jam tomorrow? How about sod off today?

Point two: Because you lot are so dim, you still believe that UKIP supporters are Tories who are a little bit upset. You think that if you keep making the hollow promise of a referendum, perhaps, if the conditions are right, at some point in the future, we’ll all come crawling back.

Now, the UKIP line on the EU is hugely attractive to me, it’s one of the reasons I joined, but it isn’t the whole story. For many who support UKIP the EU thing is nice, but it isn’t the main thing.

You see Mike, the reason we’re picking up support is that we’re not you. We’re not Labour, we’re not the LibDems. We haven’t made a career of insulting the electorate, offering positions that differ from the others by fractions of a fraction. We are different. I don’t doubt that if we were ever to take a parliamentary majority we’d find the occasional shyster, feather-bedder and general arse-clown. But you lot, you make them ministers, you keep them as ministers, or you make them spend a few months on the naughty step before letting them back into class. You stole from us. You lied to us. You patronised us.

Yet you still bang on about the one issue. Jeez, move on, can’t you? We have. You realise you look like the person who has only just discovered the MP3 player and spends all the time telling everyone about what it does?

Yeah mate, we know. Get with the times, Grandad.

This ceased to be only about Europe some time ago. People are realising, at long long last, it doesn’t matter which of the big three they vote for, because the result is always going to be the same no matter who wins.

Do I think UKIP is some sort of panacea? Of course not, I’m not that naive. But why the hell should they not have a crack? Is it because the track record of your three mobs, with your cosy little club rules, your understandings, your nods and winks, studiously ensuring the horses remain unscared and that the pachyderm in the chamber remains steadfastly unidentified, is so Earth shatteringly awe-inspiringly golden and successful?

You can’t scare us anymore, because given the last Labour government, and the current coalition, nothing (beyond a Green or a BNP government) could possibly be any worse that what we’ve lived under for the last ten years.

You keep writing about how awful it would be if UKIP ‘stole’ votes from ‘your’ voters. You keep making out that people have a duty to vote for your miserable, incompetent mob. You keep making out that you own people. You keep telling people how we’re dangerous, a bit dodgy, suspect, something not right about us.

Every time you do it, people are looking at you. And damn, are you ugly.

So keep it up. Please.

[boogs]

You really wouldn't know there's an election happening in my district. It seems the politicians can't be bothered either. I have only received one leaflet for the upcoming election; from UKIP.

Very true Uncle - I suspect this may have something to do with tory expectations of a massacre and labour expectations of a landslide

Neither taking any notice of th fact that UKIP are gaining masses of support

I predict some very surprised candidates after the elections . . . .

Oh I do hope so! 

 

[Steve]

On reflection.
Posted on 28/04/2013   

I was quite hard on the Tories yesterday . . .etc etc etc for line after line . . . .
 . . .
So keep it up. Please.

doth protest too much, methinks

[Uncle Mort]

Methinks we don't protest enough.

[Barman]

Methinks we don't protest enough.

Indeed Uncle... 

[Steve]

But no sodding RMLP candidate on our ballot 

[Barman]

But no sodding RMLP candidate on our ballot 

UKIP then! 

[Steve]

. . .
UKIP then! 

Well one is standing

He is a bit handicapped by being the only candidate not to have been seen in the village and I did read his manifesto

But hey ho on the bright side for him he hasn't got the RMLP to beat so he can't come fourth