Rod Liddle has decided to vote Labour

[claig]

I like Rod. He is funny, not politically correct and brave enough to think outside the box. He has decided to vote Labour. He is a fan of 'blue Labour'.
I think 'blue Labour' is the best of Labour, but UKIP is close to blue Labour.

"I have a lot of sympathy for those who intend to vote Ukip – I’m not far from that position myself – and even for those who vote Tory in order to stop Miliband – who I believe is inept and in a sense the epitome of what I dislike about the modern Labour Party – getting in. But in its soul, I think the Labour Party is closer to what I want for my country than any of the other parties. I’m not sure I’m right about that. It’s just a hunch. For a more detailed run down of roughly where I stand, if you give a monkey’s, please check out this book on Blue Labour."

blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/04/my-decision-to-vote-labour-a-further-explanation/

Although, Spectator posters are not impressed.

Probable People's Army revolutionaries like WatTylersGhost (the Wat Tyler of the People's Revolt of 1381, not the People's Army People's Insurgency of 2015) are not impressed.

"WatTylersGhost • 4 days ago

Rod, for the past few months you have had me fooled. I thought that you wanted a new start for this country and rejected all the big government, PC, pro EU, multi-culti bilge that has led us to the precipice. But now you come out for Milliband - Lord help us!"

It just goes to show, you can't please all the people all of the time.

I'm with the People's Army, but I still like Rod and he can vote for whom he pleases.

Reading the comments of Spectator readers, it seems like nearly all of them are with the People's Army too. Where are the Tories, the modernisers, the progressives, the rooftop wind turbine brigade?

"WatTylersGhost > CharleyFarleyFive • 4 days ago

A bit like Starkey the historian, speaks good libertarian, then votes Tory. Snakes in the grass."

Bring on the election in 2020. There'll be some surprises then.

Yes, Rod is a controversial columnist. He is likely to do what he wants.

Well, Matthew Norman the Telegraph and Indie writer has said he's voting Labour having abandoned the party after 1997.

Why? Because he thinks (1) he's a principled decent man and (2) he's the only politician who has had the guts to stand up to Rupert Murdoch and the other media barons. And that's good for democracy.

Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron have all been craven. And (sorry Claig!), Farage has too, as well as the SNP.

BreakWindAndFire, you are right, Miliband is principled and he is courageous.

He went against Murdoch, he went against the tide on Syria and he had the decency, principle and courage to turn up for the debates and show the people what he stood for.

Even the legendary free-thinking, non politically correct Peter Htchens thinks Ed is a decnt man and is even considering voting Labour himself.

"The SNP is under no obligation to help the Tories into office, though you might get that impression from the toady Blairite media who have adopted David Cameron, the self-proclaimed heir to Blair, as their last best hope.
This, by the way, explains why Islington lefties and the BBC are so fervently backing David Cameron against Ed Miliband – and is one of the reasons why I am seriously thinking of registering to vote for the first time in 30 years, and casting my ballot for Labour.

The fashionable Left’s loathing of Mr Miliband, and the incessant spiteful bullying and belittling of this man by much of my trade, make me want to stand up for him against this nasty mob, even though I disagree with him about almost everything.

At least I actually know what the Labour leader’s true opinions are. This is more than can be said for Mr Cameron, whose real aims are harder to grasp than a lavishly greased piglet."

hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/page/2/

And Peter Oborne recognises Ed's courage and integrity too.

"During his four-year stint as Labour leader, Ed Miliband has shown courage and principle. His reward is to be trashed and ridiculed and he may yet be destroyed.

Opposition is an essential part of British public life. Oppositions have a duty to challenge government and to give the electorate a clear choice. Ed Miliband has done precisely this and yet he has been written off. Does this mean that no opposition dare offend the big vested interests that govern Britain? Is this really the politics we want?

But consider this: if Ed Miliband does become prime minister, he will have done so without owing anything to anybody."

www.spectator.co.uk/features/9438172/ed-milibands-biggest-critics-dont-hate-him-for-how-hes-failed-they-hate-him-for-how-hes-succeeded/

But I wouldn't call Farage craven. That is not his style. The Sun and the Times, Murdoch's press, are against Farage. Everybody is against Farage - the Establishment, their PPEs, the metropolitan elite, the Oxbridge set, the great and the good, the metropolitan meeja etc etc etc. And now Faragehas gone and said that he wants the BBC "stripped to the bone" and the licence fee to be less than £50. They're spitting feathers up there, the luvvies, they know it's all over, their game is up. There is only one constituency who is with Farage - the much mocked and insulted, and also disgracefully referred to as "fruitcakes" group of decent, hardworking people known as the People's Army.

The odds are against Farage, all the powerful elite forces are ranged against him, but he has the full backing of the People's Army which sustains him and keeps him going. He can't afford to make enemies - he has the entire Establishment against him already. He has to try and maintain good relations with moguls if he can. That's not craven, that's straight-talking common sense. It is what the People's Army expects!

The People's Army being the drunk, tatooed regulars down at the local pub?

Who are the People's Army claig? Is it a proper organisation or a shorthand for the section of the electorate who are supposedly not being listened to?

Drunk and tattoed is what the Establishment and and all their metropolitan minions call the people and the People's Army, but that just shows their desperation, it shows their game is up.

They called us "fruitcakes", but now they are begging us to "come home".

'Who are the People's Army claig? Is it a proper organisation or a shorthand for the section of the electorate who are supposedly not being listened to?'

It is not a proper organisation, it is just ordinary people. It is a joke term and a laugh because the odds are stacked against us - the ordinary people - against the entire Establishment and all their metropolitan minions. The more they insult us, the more we laugh. We're the People's Army, we're the people, it's us against the elite and they have no answer to our popularity, no answer to our humour, no answer to our eventual success. We're the millions they dislike, the millions they mock, the millions they know will eventually win. We're the ones who have said their game is up.

We're more popular than them, we're more humorous than them, we're more of a laugh than them. We're the People's Army and they are the Establishment's servants.

"How Ukip is winning the Google election

If internet searches were votes, Nigel Farage's party would be romping to a majority in the 2015 general election. Ukip is driving more searchers to websites than any other political party"

"More people are searching online for UKIP in the run-up to the election than any of the three main parties.

In the fight for search clicks, the party is dwarfing others online, driving more than four times the amount of traffic to websites than any of the other parties."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11558840/How-Ukip-is-winning-the-Google-election.html

They write articles about us in the leading financial newspapers, because even the world's top investors know the truth - that we are the People's Army, not the Establishment's servants.

"Ukip ‘People’s Army’ takes up arms to fight main parties’ big guns"

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c40b9216-bb32-11e3-948c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3YBQ4vBOS

"The people’s army

Can UKIP keep on coming? The answer could decide the next election"
...
"But in places like this—a slightly faded suburb of Southend, an Essex resort that has known better times—the populist, right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP) stormed to victory in the local and European elections held on May 22nd. Nigel Farage called his party’s success an “earthquake” and predicted that his “people’s army” would cause yet larger tremors in the general election next May."

www.economist.com/news/britain/21603050-can-ukip-keep-coming-answer-could-decide-next-election-peoples-army

"The sentiment was echoed by another Ukip supporter: “Ukip is the party of and for ordinary people.”

Many said they were attracted by the idea of empowering local democracy, and taking back power from Westminster and “the elites”.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/meet-ukip-peoples-army-who-4665996

The People's Army is a laugh, it is a joke. We know we have no power compared to the elites, but what we have is humour, what we have is spirit, what we have is fun and a laugh and that is why we will beat the metropolitan millionaires and their media chums.

They can't stop the People's Army because they can't stop laughter. We're the people who cried their Establishment emperor has no clothes. The more the smear us, the more we laugh and we'll keep right on laughing until we win.

This is the best article I have ever read on the UKIP phenomenon and in particular the People''s Army. It gets very close to understanding what the People's Army is and why it is so popular. It is such a good article that it even understands that Farage is only so popular because he stands up for and represents us. If he changes and sells out , then the People's Army will abandon him.

"People’s Army UKIP

Bedecked in camouflaged uniforms, the People’s Army, we are told, is on the march. It hates the “LibLabCon” and “the Establishment”, and it has a penchant for clambering on tanks.

This is perhaps Nigel Farage’s most potent line of attack: that the liberal, metropolitan elites who hate ordinary Brits and employ foreign nannies have stitched up the political system, rigged the economy in their favour, ripped off their parliamentary expenses and are laughing at us all behind our backs. The elite in Westminster are allied with the fat quangocrats, the multi-national corporations and the smug “comedians” on Radio 4 whose idea of a joke is to say “Daily Mail” a lot in relation to things of which they disapprove. If you don’t have time for that exposition, just look at a politician who drinks pints and smokes fags - what could be less Islington?

It is a powerful pitch both because it is, to some extent, true and because it speaks to the gut instincts of a lot of people – particularly the ‘left behind’, living outside the capital, lacking a university education and still suffering disproportionately from the financial crisis.

It has given UKIP their first nickname, their best headlines and – crucially – a vast surge in membership.

Proudly anti-intellectual, the People’s Army knows what it is against (banks, bankers, toffs, Brussels, immigration, human rights, political correctness, busybodies, jobsworths and Little Hitlers) but its weakness is that it is not necessarily for anything (except the abolition of the things it is against). Like Red UKIP, it began as an electoral and rhetorical tool – but now it makes up vast tracts of the party’s grassroots.

It’s worth remembering that the majority of the party’s footsoldiers have joined within the last 18 months, the People’s Army phase. They know little of the previous two decades of history, development and technical debate on the EU issue, and care rather less. Their experience and enthusiasm is for the party as it is presented now – red tints where once there was Thatcher and libertarianism; “Westminster” used as a dirty word rather than the home of democracy.

The trend is perhaps best embodied by Louise Bours MEP, the party’s health spokesman, whose approach to politics tends more towards shouting than contemplation. It is effective within its target market – though, as those at the top of the party know, that could prove to be a difficult tiger to ride over time. Even Farage, whom they hero-worship, could get himself into trouble if he put himself at odds with them."

www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2014/12/the-five-tribes-of-ukip.html

Ah - "The People's Army" = UKIP voters. Now I understand.

Yes, it's basically all UKIP voters who see themselevs as opposition to the Establishment clique. It's not party membrs, because most UKIP voters would never join a party, but we are all united - members and the millions more non-members - in our opposition to the metropolitan elites and their policies and their disdain for ordinary people's views.

That would be about 150 people in total then?

In fact some polls suggest that up to 20% of the People's Army may in fact be made up of people who have never voted before or who stopped voting decades ago. They are not party joiners, they are just ordinary people, but what unites them all is that they have all had enough of the condescending, arrogant metropolitan elites who have misruled the country and stitched things up in their favour.

'That would be about 150 people in total then?'

If that were the case, then Cameron wouldn't be begging them to "come home".

The polls are not reflecting the true position. The People's Army will one day topple the whole lot of them.

How do you know that the People's Army has "millions" of members? It sounds as though they're the kind of people who resist being categorised.

They haven't got millions of members, they have fewer members than the Greens. Because the People's Army are just ordinary people and most don't join parties. But what they do have is millions of voters, many more than the Greens.

'It sounds as though they're the kind of people who resist being categorised.'

Yes, they are mainly outsiders, outside the system, not listened to and even mocked by the elites. But they are by far the majority in the whole country and when they have had enough, then they will start to vote and it won't be for the Establishment.

30% of people don't vote at all. But one day, when they have really had enough of the elites, they will start to vote, just like the high turnouts we saw in the Scottish Referendum, and when they do start to vote, they will shake the entire system and topple the metropolitan millionaire elites from their precarious perches.

The metropolitan elite think that the public are stupid. But as always, out of touch elites always underestimate the people.

"Voters back up Nigel Farage and say media are most biased against Ukip"

www.cityam.com/214373/voters-back-nigel-farage-and-say-media-most-biased-against-ukip

The public know they are being played, they understand the elite's game. We don't know how they will vote though, we will have to wait and see.

The public think UKIP voters are stupid.

Claig, you do like to resurface every now and again. Just as rambling and confused as ever.

The people's army as led by an ex- banker ?!!!! You really are confused and muddled claig

'Just as rambling and confused as ever.'

No rambling, just reason.
No confusion, just clarity.

"The people's army as led by an ex- banker ?!!!!"

The key word there is ex.
He was a metals trader rather than a banker.
But let's put leadership and banking into perspective, at least the people's army is not led by a PPE.

The metropolitan elite have been busy telling us that Farage is in trouble in South Thanet, that their grey candidates may defeat him. Oh, how they have been laughing up their sleeves. But the truth, as ever, seems different. Farage's popularity increases and the People's Army is in good spirits (and ales and any other beverages containing alcohol).

"Cab driver Andrew Carter screeches to a halt and asks for a selfie. 'I'm on your side, mate.' Two children turn up and foist a lolly on Mr Farage because he's 'my dad's friend'. The lolly is starting to melt but Mr Farage obliges.

Ex-soldier Robert Philpott, 46, can't remember when he last voted but will be voting Ukip this time. And on it goes.

Mr Farage, who estimates he will have met more than half his electorate by polling day, seems a man revitalised. Among Westminster observers, the consensus was that both he and his party had a poor start to this campaign — confusing walkabouts, mixed messages, internal bickering. Above all, the main man seemed off-form."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3053169/Naked-woman-opened-door-Nigel-St-George-s-Day-ROBERT-HARDMAN-joins-frisky-Ukip-leader-battles-political-life.html

The metropolitan elite are in meltdown. They know if Farage makes it, then their whole game is up.

While they pretend that Farage is not popular and while they try to knock him at every turn, the reality is that more people tuned in for Farage's interview than for the other Establishment types spouting the same old Establishment lines that no one any longer believes.

"Nigel Farage wins BBC viewers' vote in leader interviews

Ukip leader pulls in 2.5 million viewers for grilling by Evan Davis, more than David Cameron, Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg"

www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/23/nigel-farage-bbc-leader-interviews-ukip-evan-davis

They said we were down, they said the People's Army was finished, and oh how hard they laughed, but we're not out yet, they may have won the first game, but we'll win the set.

"In an election campaign derided for its tedium, the top right corner of Kent is proving to be the most entertaining battleground outside Scotland. Except it is much more important than that.

If Mr Farage is returned as the MP here in a fortnight, he will be a substantial force in the next Parliament — whatever its complexion"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3053169/Naked-woman-opened-door-Nigel-St-George-s-Day-ROBERT-HARDMAN-joins-frisky-Ukip-leader-battles-political-life.html

That is how important it is. That is what is at stake. The Establishment, their millionaires, their think tanks, their spinners, their PPEs are throwing the kitchen sink at the people of South Thanet. They're desperate to stop Farage. No expense has been spared, every so-called "big gun" MP they have has been sent down to Thanet to try and fool the people and they have all been laughed out of town.

"Raising a pint to the patron saint of England, Nigel Farage is himself the toast of a considerable chunk of the electorate in Thanet South. His appearance on an impromptu walkabout down Ramsgate High Street causes even more head-turning, more selfies, more spilling out of pubs, more heckling and more chaos than the appearance of Tory ringmaster Boris Johnson when he walked the same route a few hours earlier."

They can't beat Farage and in the People's Army, they have finally met their match.

If he gets 12 per cent,across the board he will have done well. But he needs to win in Thanet to stay leader