30/09/2013
Political pundits, in the experience of
Douglas Carswell, are usually about six months behind the curve. And when they finally wake up to something, they often get it wrong.
He takes as his example the rise of UKIP, and the scoffing of the
commentariat, who all agreed that the party would never get anywhere. But, in terms of the "UKIP effect" about which they are currently so exercised, we coined this phrase in
May 2005, which actually puts the
commentariat about eight years behind the curve.
Bearing in mind that Carswell is also a denizen of the Westminster bubble, and rarely if ever ventures beyond its intellectual bounds, there is no reason why he should be any better equipped to discern what is going on than the rest of the
commentariat whom he so decries. But, if he was capable of taking a wider view, he might note that organisations usually appear to be at their most powerful long after their decline has become terminal.
Thus, anyone gazing at
The Times front page this morning â without needing to buy it â might gain the impression that here in UKIP is a party at the height of its powers, its leader looking down from the lofty heights ready to do a deal with the struggling Conservatives.
In fact, the appearance of this striking headline in
The Times, and only that newspaper, might have more to do with the known antipathy between Murdoch and Cameron, representing mischief-making on the part of the newspaper proprietor rather than any breakthrough by Nigel Farage's party.
One might surmise that the timing, on the first full day of the party conference, is not accidental. One might surmise that UKIP is being used as a stick with which to beat the Conservatives, Murdoch's intention being to create as much embarrassment as possible.
For long time now, though, it has been
an article of faith that a vote for UKIP is a vote for Labour and,
more recently, it has been evident that a U-Con pact would actually favour Labour, as a quarter of potential Conservative voters walk away in disgust.
Anyone wishing for the demise of the Conservatives, therefore â as, indeed we assume Murdoch is â will either be rooting for UKIP or pushing for a U-Con pact. Some wonder, therefore, that first
George Osborne and then
William Hague have been quick to rule out a deal.
But when the UKIP support is demonstrably soft, and no one yet is able to attest to how many people Mr Bloom has driven away, it would not be sensible for the Conservatives to accept a deal. This is especially so, as
the indications are that the majority of UKIP voters can be enticed into the fold, without concessions being made on "Europe".
Carswell, on the other hand, is "strongly in favour of UKIP and Conservatives working together where they share the same vision of an independent Britain". "If we want to beat the Left", he says, "there has to be a coming together of the centre-Right".
And there lies the ultimate irony. With left-right divisions having lost much of their relevance, with a progressive
reorientation of politics, where we look at groupings above and below the line rather than to the right or left of it, one can only observe that Carswell is not six months behind the curve, nor even eight years, but decades.
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