Bill Cash Jr defects to UKIP

The son of Conservative MP, Bill Cash, has joined UKIP and been appointed Heritage spokesman.

Bill Cash Jr owns business and finance magazine, Spears and is a heritage consultant for the British government and other organisations. Like his MP father, Bill Cash Snr, he has been a long time critic of the EU but unlike his father he has decided to do something about it rather than propping up the most europhile Tory government since Ted Heath.

Tories threaten potential defectors with character assassination

The Conservative Party have issued a warning to any Tories thinking of defecting to UKIP that they will face character assassination by the whips.

The openness of the threat to orchestrate a smear campaign against anyone defecting to UKIP is quite unprecedented and shows how desperate the Tories are to stem the tide of defections. It might put off some people but in reality it is likely to convince wavering defectors that the Tories really are the nasty party.

Former Conservative Deputy Mayor of London defects to UKIP

Boris Johnson's former right hand man, Richard Barnes, is the latest Conservative defector to UKIP.

The former Deputy Mayor of London said that the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems don't speak the language of normal people and that only UKIP has the right answers on immigration, HS2, Heathrow expansion and the EU.

There seems to be a detachment from ordinary people’s lives in the Westminster Village.

The parties just don’t seem to relate and talk the language of normal people.

Ken Clarke and Boris Johnson: UKIP voters are elderly men with disappointing lives who have sex with vacuum cleaners

Shortly after Conservative MP, David Davies, warned against insulting UKIP voters, Ken Clarke and Boris Johnson both launched attacks on UKIPpers.

Ken Clarke said that UKIP voters are largely "elderly male people who have had disappointing lives". The elderly male MP who has had a disappointing life said that he wasn't surprised that Douglas Carwell and Mark Reckless had defected to UKIP and was surprised that they hadn't joined UKIP before. Membership of UKIP's youth wing, Young Independence, has more than doubled this year.

Boris Johnson also said that Conservatives defecting to UKIP are "utterly bonkers" and are the type of people who go to hospital with injuries from having sex with vacuum cleaners. He then went on to suggest that Nigel Farage should join the europhile Conservative Party and campaign to stay in the EU with David Cameron.

Labour Mayor of Hartlepool in trouble again

The Labour Mayor Hartlepool is at the centre of more controversy after local radio station Radio Hartlepool reported him to the police and the council for his behaviour.

Cllr Stephen Akers-Belcher was sacked from his day job as a team leader for Newcastle City Council's Community Mental Health team earlier in the month for gross misconduct and is currently appealing that decision. Now Radio Hartlepool have reported him for what appears to be exerting undue influence over the station not to criticise either the Labour Party or himself. Very few details have been made public but Cllr Akers-Belcher told the Hartlepool Mail from his holiday in Mexico with the leader of the council (his civil partner, Cllr Christopher Akers-Belcher) that his only contact with the station was to tell them not to be political.

Preston Conservatives choose 20 year old election virgin to run their election campaign!

Preston Conservatives have elected a 20 year old parish councillor who has never voted in a general election as their chairman.

Cllr Daniel Dewhurst wasn't even old enough to vote in the last general election but he will spearhead the Tory election campaign in Preston aiming to get the first Tory elected in the city for 42 years by overturning Labour's 7,733 majority and seeing off a challenge from UKIP.

Who are Clacton voters backing next week?

Tory activist and half of Guido Fawkes, Harry Cole, went to Clacton with a video camera to find out who people there are intending to vote for. I don't think he was expecting not to find a single person intending to vote Conservative ...

Two Teignbridge Conservatives resign to sit as independents

Two Conservative councillors in Devon have resigned from the party and are now sitting as independents.

Teignbridge District councillors Joan Lambert and Lorraine Evans have left the Conservatives saying they couldn't represent the people that elected them whilst remaining members of the party. It means that Conservatives now run a minority administration with 22 out of 46 councillors.

This is a common thing with councillors leaving both the Conservatives and Labour who whip their elected representatives right down to the lowest level, preventing them from representing the interests of their local area if it conflicts with party policy. This is one of the biggest differences with UKIP - we have no whip at any level and all UKIP elected representatives from MEPs down to parish councillors are expected to do what they think is right, not what the party tells them to do.

Rochester Conservatives organise fake protest against Mark Reckless

Members of Rochester Conservatives organised a fake protest against Mark Reckless in Rochester yesterday with members falsely claiming to be ordinary residents or representatives of residents groups.

Channel 4 reporter Michael Crick became suspicious of all the people suddenly slagging Reckless off until one Conservative activist let the cat out of the bag and told him they were all Conservatives, including the person claiming to be the chairman of Rochester Residents' Association who said that Reckless is a drunk.

Nigel Farage's opponent in South Thanet, Craig Mackinlay, was also present at this failed attempt to mislead the media and presumably helped to organise it. Prospective MPs usually save the lies and deceit for after they've been elected, Mackinlay seems to be bucking that trend.

Mark Reckless' defection speech in full

Vi Hong La's first ever public speech

Former Labour supporter Vi Hong La makes his first ever public speech. He did it in front of 2,000 people and live TV cameras!

Conservative Minister resigns over sex scandal

The Conservative Party conference starts tomorrow and it should have been a triumphal moment for Dave. His personal ratings are moderately acceptable, Labour are getting some stick over the child abuse cover-up in Rotherham and he's got some stuff to blow up in Iraq.

Now he's going into conference with the news not just of Mark Reckless MP's defection to UKIP but the resignation of the Conservative Minister for Civil Society, Brooks Newmark MP, who has been caught sending explicit photos of himself to women on the internet.

Let's spare a thought for poor Dave having to tell the party faithful tomorrow that they've lost another MP to UKIP and a Minister has had to resign because of a sex scandal. It's not easy being the most unpopular Conservative Party leader since Margaret Thatcher.

The moment Mark Reckless MP defected to UKIP

I'm guessing that this isn't what Dave wanted to see on Sky News the day before the Conservative Party conference ...

Douglas Carswell: It's great to be part of UKIP

Conference policy announcements

A raft of new and revised policies have been announced at the UKIP party conference in Doncaster.

You'll find a flag next to each policy to help understand which policies apply to the UK and which apply only to England (something that is always missing from UKIP manifestos) and just for fun a left/right scale below each section - red for left, blue for right. There's no real science to the left/right scale but it indicates that the policies announced this weekend are roughly 60% right wing, 40% left wing. It's no wonder Labour are running scared!

Employment

• People working on zero hour contracts must be offered a fixed hour contract after 12 months. It will be their choice whether to take up the offer.
• Employers will be allowed to discriminate in favour of unemployed British under-25s during the recruitment process. 
• Personal tax allowances will be increased so that nobody on minimum wage will pay income tax. This will take a million people out of the tax system. 
• A points-based immigration system will be introduced that ensures we get more highly skilled immigrant workers doing the jobs we need them to do rather than unskilled economic migrants who add little to no value to the economy. 

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Defence

• Create a Veterans Department in the Ministry of Defence to provide a one stop shop for former armed forces personnel to access services. 
• Guarantee of a job in the police, prison service or border force for former armed forces personnel who have served for 12 years or more. 
• Priority health care for former armed forces personnel, including mental health services. 
• Priority access to social housing for armed forces personnel returning to civilian life. 
• Introduction of a National Defence Medal for all armed forces personnel to acknowledge their contribution. 
• Guaranteed housing for former armed forces personnel. 

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Communities

• Stricter punishments for anti-social and criminal behaviour. 
• Community service for people who cause criminal damage. 
• Criminals jailed for crimes that affect their community will be banned from returning to live in the same area when released. 
• More local public services run by community groups. 
• Unemployed people on training courses should do work that benefits their local community. 
• Help community groups and charities set up credit unions to tackle loan sharks and dependency on pay day lenders.  
• Allow community groups to purchase services and supplies through the local authority to benefit from their buying power.  
• More control of council budgets by the community.  
• End the postcode lottery within local authorities for training and grants. 
• Criminalise noise nuisance so the police can deal with it when it's happening. 
• Make it easier to evict problem families. 
• Protect guerilla gardeners from punishment for improving their local green spaces. 
• Change planning laws so that decisions can be based on the community's access to a range of services and impact on local independent traders.
• Right of appeal on planning decisions for local communities and important planning decisions to go to a referendum. 
• Local people should have a say on highways improvements rather than decisions being based on statistics. 
• Publicly funded services won't be allowed to use premium rate phone numbers. 
• School governing boards must have at least 30% parents of children at the school and councillors appointed to the board must demonstrate a link to the school to prevent political appointments. 
• Councillors must be appointed to outside bodies based on merit rather than their politics and appointments must include residents. 
• No parallel legal systems will be allowed. 
• If you go abroad to join extremists you won't be allowed to come back. 

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Immigration

• Priority entry points at ports for UK passport holders. 
• Increase front line border staff by 2,500. 
• Abolish the provisions of the Dublin Treaty that prevent us from identifying the country of origin of illegal immigrants who come here with no identification. 
• All immigrants should be treated the same regardless of where they come from without discrimination based on religion, origin or ethnicity. 
• A points-based immigration system will be introduced that ensures we get more highly skilled immigrant workers doing the jobs we need them to do rather than unskilled economic migrants who add little or no value to the economy. 
• Reduce net immigration to 50,000 people per year. 

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Health

• Commitment to the NHS remaining free at the point of need. 
• Licensing of NHS managers. 
• Exempt the NHS from the trade and investment agreement about to be signed with the US. 
• Exempt the NHS from investor protection laws so private companies can't sue the government over NHS contracts. 
• Mandatory health insurance for immigrant workers and visitors. 
• County health boards will replace Monitor and the Care Quality Commission and will be run by clinicians. 

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40

Economy

• Personal tax allowances will be increased so that nobody on minimum wage will pay income tax. This will take a million people out of the tax system. 
• Reducing the tax rate from 40% to 35% on earnings between £42k and £55k a year. 
• Eventual implementation of a simple 20% basic rate, 30% intermediate rate and 40% top rate of tax. 
• Abolish inheritance tax - everything you buy is taxed when you're alive, why should your family pay tax on it again when you die? 
• Introduction of a 25% luxury goods tax to combat "tax free shopping" where the super rich fly in to buy expensive luxury items and claim the VAT back at the airport. 
• Establish a Treasury Commission to design a turnover tax for large companies to ensure a minimum rate of corporation tax is paid. 

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50

Justice

• Repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a UK Bill of Rights. 
• No votes for prisoners. 
• Non-compliance with the EU Arrest Warrant and the EU Investigation Order. 
• Routine personal sound and video recording by police officers. 
• Motivational and learning focus on the rehabilitation of prisoners. 

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80

Welfare

• Crack down on benefit fraud. 
• Immigrants will have to work for 5 years before being entitled to benefits. 
• Child benefit will only be paid for children living in the country. 
• Limit child benefit to two children for new claimants. 
• Reinstate the spare room subsidy (abolishing the inaccurately-named "Bedroom tax"). 
• End unfair disability benefit assessments. 
• Higher unemployment benefits for people who have paid into the system for 5 years or more. 

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Education

• Return to traditional teaching in primary schools. 
• End sex education for primary school children. 
• Bring back the limit of 30 children per class. 
• A grammar school in every town. 
• Establish a single exam board to prevent schools cherry picking the easiest syllabus to inflate pass rates. 
• Introduce a vocational Apprenticeship Qualification Option worth 4 GCSEs that can be continued to A-Level. 
• Reverse the trend of closing special schools. 
• Require an OFSTED investigation of schools if 25% of parents and governors sign a petition expressing concerns about the school. 
• Abolish the target of 50% of school leavers going to university. 
• Abolish tuition fees for students studying medicine, science, maths and technology. 
• Charge EU students at universities the same as other foreign nationals. 

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Environment

• Incentivise the return of 700,000 empty houses into the housing stock. 
• Relax planning regulations in strategic planning zones to convert disused commercial buildings into housing. 
• Concentrate house building on brownfield sites. 
• Establish a UK Brownfield Agency to maintain a register of brownfield sites and administer grants and loans for decontamination. 
• Issue Brownfield Bonds to raise £5bn for redevelopment of brownfield sites. 
• Abolish VAT and Stamp Duty for brownfield developments. 

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55

Business

• Conduct a skills review to ensure the education system teaches the skills that businesses need. 
• More flexible labour market with less regulation. 
• Work with local councils to encourage free parking in town centres. 
• Simplify the planning system to help SMEs secure change of use and make it easier to bring vacant commercial properties back into use. 

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Transport

• Scrap HS2. 
• Ban new toll roads. 
• Work to abolish existing toll roads. 
• No road pricing. 
• Abolish the EU Certificate of Professional Competence. 
• Introduce a road tax payable on entry to the UK so that foreign haulage companies contribute to the upkeep of our roads. 
• Abolish electric car subsidies. 
• Free bus passes for pensioners and disabled people. 

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60

Fisheries

• Establish a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone around the UK and all dependencies. 
• License sustainable fishing, mining and drilling. 

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