Junius and Dr Edmond on UKIP’s Exeter Flop

As you can see from this photo I was totally unimpressed by the speeches made at Exeter. By the end of the day I was wondering why I had wasted both my time and my money listening to the same old garbage.

Farage was his usual arrogant self. A few sound bites and nothing else.

Andreasen was a joke. You could barely understand a word she said. She was also extremely nervous and spent most of the time following Farage around like a little puppy.

Deva Kumarasiri was uninspiring, but at least he got paid for his trouble.

Stuart Wheeler was competent. It’s a pity that he has chosen to align himself - albeit loosely - with such a corrupt and dishonest leadership.

I was not in the hall for all of the speeches and so missed several speakers, including Gawain ‘don’t’ mention the blog’ Towler.

The Exeter rally was undoubtedly the last gasp of a party led by a man who, since he became leader, has led UKIP from one disaster to another.

After June 4th both Farage and UKIP will be history.

Here is Dr Edmond’s view on UKIP’s damp squib:

I did not attend this rally. I watched what has been posted on the Democracy Forum linked to YouTube. It may just be me but I did find the sound quality poor and the speeches difficult to hear. I have not seen a copy of the full speakers list but I do find it surprising that neither Trevor Colman or William Dartmouth have You Tube links on the forum or any where else. I cannot believe the two lead candidates in the South West were not speaking at this event.

I looked at the speeches by NF, Stuart Wheeler, Gawain Towler, Marta Andreasen and Deva. Of these Stuart Wheeler's was by far and away the best. It was witty and pertinent. NF's was his usual rant that we have all heard many times before. It clearly pleased the audience but will not resonate outside UKIP circles. Marta's effort was boring and dreadful, I do hope they do not push her on to Question Time. Gawain's was serious and factual but did not enthuse the faithful in the hall. Deva, the sacked bloke, the former LibDem looked out of his depth. All in all it will not do anything to persuade the uncommitted to vote UKIP.

UKIP is clearly worried about the BNP. Farage tried to steal their clothes on immigration in his speech. All the other parties particularly Labour are playing this me to game as well. People know full well that this is the BNP core policy and if they want to vote to stop immigration they will vote BNP. Worse the ridiculous Bannerman has tried to copy the Nick Griffin poster of NG with Churchill by appearing in a similar position either on a copied poster or photographed in front of such a poster. This is a bad move. The electorate detects phoneys very quickly and when you start doing a me too on opposition ideas it does look phoney. It could get worse if Bannerman is still trading under the Campbell Bannerman badge. The media will investigate and demolish Bannerman.

I have carefully stayed away from the South West campaign so I cannot be accused of influencing ordinary UKIP members. I noted the part of Farage's speech about his ruthlessly getting rid of the bad apples. Well it looks to me like its the good apples that have been forced out, David Abbott, Petrina, Del Young to name but three and the bad apples are still there. Nigel has to have someone to blame for his incompetence as have dictators through the ages. In the last days of Hitler the true Nazis blamed their failure on the German people who were not worthy of the great leader. Sounds familiar.

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