Poll of GPs finds majority support for UKIP policy

A survey of 500 doctors has backed UKIP's policy of putting 1,000 GPs into A&E departments in hospitals to free up A&E staff to deal with real emergencies.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Press Association commissioned the poll which found that 61% of GPs nd secondary care doctors would like to see GPs in A&E departments.

UKIP's health spokesman, Suzanne Evans, said:

The government needs to put this idea in train now. At the very least it should be prioritised for as soon as we leave the EU, when vital funding for the NHS is released as we are freed from our membership fees.

Peter Whittle drops out of leadership race

Peter Whittle is the latest contender to drop out of the leadership race and is giving his support to Paul Nuttall.

Whittle is one of UKIP's two members on the London Assembly and one of the UK's most senior openly gay politicians. He is the the party's culture spokesman.

There are now just three contenders in the race: Suzanne Evans, Paul Nuttall MEP and John Rees-Evans.

Raheem Kassam's promise to change his ways isn't enough

Leadership candidate, Raheem Kassam, has apologised and promised to change his ways after being called out for verbally abusing leadership rival Suzanne Evans.

Kassam called Evans a "wrinkly old ginger bird" and has reportedly been "incredibly sexist" toward her. He says that he apologised to her at a patron's dinner this week but Evans says that he did no such thing.

Raheem Kassam fancies himself as the heir to Farage which is something of an insult to the man who turned UK politics upside down and secured our independence from the EU. Nigel Farage is straight talking and brutally honest, Kassam is just rude and offensive. When the Independent wants Kassam to win to destroy the party it's a pretty clear indication that there is something seriously wrong with him.

I normally try to avoid taking sides in internal elections but if this man somehow ends up winning the leadership election I will return my membership card and I know I'm not alone.

Paul Nuttall and Suzanne Evans join leadership contest

Paul Nuttall and Suzanne Evans have thrown their hats into the ring for the re-run of the leadership election following Diane Evans' resignation after just 18 days.

Evans was barred from the previous leadership election as she was serving a suspension following her conduct in the London Assembly election campaign. It is very much to her credit that she stuck with UKIP despite what she and others (rightly or wrongly) felt was unfair treatment.

Nuttall pulled out of the previous leadership election and the decision was in no small part because of threats and abuse from far left activists. As a working class, old Labour northerner Nutall is seen as a huge threat to Labour and the Corbynists in particular.

London Assembly member Peter Whittle was an unexpected addition to the leadership race when he announced his candidacy a little under a fortnight ago. Whittle is one of the most senior openly gay politicians in the country (UKIP MEP for Scotland, David Coburn, is another) and was the only gay candidate for London Mayor.

West Midlands MEP, Bill Etheridge, is the only candidate from the previous contest to put himself forward again. He came third behind Diane James and Lisa Duffy and ahead of Phillip Broughton and Liz Jones.

The final declared candidate so far is the London editor of the hard right American political website, Breitbart, Raheem Kassam. Kassam was ineligible under the rules of the previous contest as he hadn't been a member for long enough but qualifies now the criteria have been relaxed.

Suzanne Evans suspended for criticising fellow candidate

The National Executive Council of UKIP have suspended Suzanne Evans for publicly criticising a fellow election candidate.

Suzanne tried to block the disciplinary hearing with a High Court injunction but her application was refused.

The suspension will last for 6 months and means she will not make it onto the approved list of candidates for the London elections in May.

Young Independence West Midlands Conference

No, Suzanne Evans is not a "plotter", nor is she being "purged"

The media are trying to spin Suzanne Evans' departure as head of policy as being part of a "purge" of plotters against Nigel Farage but she's simply reached the end of her contract.

Evans was employed by the party as head of policy on a four month fixed term contract which comes to an end this month. She hasn't been sacked and she hasn't resigned, she's simply working to the end of her contract.

She has also strongly refuted suggestions that she was involved in a coup attempt against Farage and publicly backed him as leader along with Patrick O'Flynn and Douglas Carswell who the media also accused of plotting against him. The only place this coup existed was on the pages of the papers who quote unnamed "sources" as evidence of a mysterious plot that has defiantly failed to exist despite a week of media hype. Not only has the much talked about coup failed to materialise, there has in fact been almost unanimous support for Farage from the rank and file membership all the way through to the National Executive Council and our MP and MEPs.

Suzanne Evans is staying on as Deputy Chairman of the party, a position that she has held for almost a year. It's a funny purge that leaves the purgee in one of the most senior positions in the party. Speculation in the press that Mark Reckless is to replace Evans when her contract ends next week appears to be just speculation.

Farage, Carswell and Evans present fair votes petition to Downing Street

Nigel Farage, Douglas Carswell and Suzanne Evans joined other party leaders and campaigners to present a petition to Downing Street calling for electoral reform.

UKIP received just shy of 3.9m votes in the general election but got just one MP. The SDLP got three MPs elected with less than 100k votes between them. Millions of people have been disenfranchised by the antiquated First Past the Post system which suited Victorian politics but has no legitimacy in today's era of multi-party politics.

UKIP Manifesto 2015

Suzanne Evans launched UKIP's 2015 manifesto today with a surprise gift from the president of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose office confirmed that there will be no renegotiation of EU treaties until 2019 at the earliest, putting paid once and for all to David Cameron's promises of a renegotiation by 2017.

UKIP's manifesto has been incredibly received, not least because it is the first time a party has had their manifesto independently assessed for economic sense rather than marking their own homework. UKIP's manifesto has been inspected by the Centre for Economics & Business Research, an organisation that provides independent economic forecasts to business and government.

There were some unexpected policies in the manifesto such as an intermediate 30% tax rate for earnings between £45,300 to £55,000, stopping companies from offshoring their profits to avoid paying tax, no means testing of free TV licences or winter fuel payments for pensioners and abolishing the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.

I started to pull out the best bits (in my opinion) from the manifesto but Suzanne did such a great job, the best bits turned out to be most of it so rather than reinventing the wheel, you can either read the summary on the UKIP website or download the full manifesto.