Monday 1st September
Tucked away in City A.M. today was the suggestion that in the coming bi-election in Clacton might not field a candidate at all.
The story so far……………Douglas Carswell, elected Tory M.P. in 2005 and a known Eurosceptic has defected to UKIP. Not only that he has triggered a bi-election too and will stand as the UKIP candidate against his old party. There were suggestions at the weekend that the Tories might put up Boris as the Tory saviour – he is after all the most (only) popular Tory around these days. But he appears to have seen sense, or chickened out, according to your point of view. In the wake of the publicity an opinion poll in Clacton has put Carswell, now flying under UKIP’s purple on 64%, the Tories on 20%, Labour on 13% and the LibDems on a miserable 2%. Now Nigel Evans, former Tory deputy speaker and recently accused of raping a young man (and acquitted) has suggested that the wisest course for the Tories would be to sit out the bi-election and not contest it at all. His logic is that this would take the wind out of Carswell’s sails and avoid a punishing defeat.
Well, that is one way of looking at it, another, which UKIP will certainly seize upon, is that they are running scared. Sitting out an election is certainly a radical step to take. Even the LibDems looking down the barrel of a gun in some bi-elections have still stood their ground, even losing their deposits in the process. And then what happens if another Tory defects to UKIP? The Tories really have no choice but to put up the best candidate they can find, lose gracefully and try to rebuild for the general election. You can hardly present yourself as a national party if there are no-go areas where you will not offer the electorate a chance to vote for you.