The UKIP leadership results are as follows:

Nigel Farage – 6085
Tim Congdon – 2037
David Campbell Bannerman – 1404
Winston McKenzie – 530

We’ve 530 members who voted for Winston?

Nice bloke n’all, but Eeeek!

The basis of the Supreme Court’s judegment (on a 4-3 basis) is that Parliament intended to stop foreign donations. However, what they actually did was enact that donations from those not on the elctoral roll were verboeten and subject to forfeiture.

The Supreme Court divined a difference between what Parliament meant to do and what they did do. If there’s an impermissible donation then we assume it’s foreign and it’s to be forfeit. However, if it is then shown that the donation is not foreign, it’s somebody who could be on the electoral roll but isn’t, then full forfeiture isn’t necessary.

The other bit that’s interesting is that they direct that the original judgement, from Westminster Magistrate’s Court, stands. I think I’ve got this right that it was the Electoral Commission who appealed that and then UKIP which appealed the decision of that appeal.

I could do with some guidance from any legal eagles here, but doesn’t the fact that we go back to the original judgement now mean that all legal costs since then have to be picked up by the Electoral Commission? As they’re the peeps that first appealed?

From you know who. The truth about Cameron and Brown.

Brown.

Cameron.

Yes, Timmy likes this.

I never really did think they would go with “hang them all”.

The editors and presenters on Radio 4′s Today programme have been told they must interview representatives of the BNP, Ukip, the Green party, SNP and Plaid Cymru on the same show, the morning after the debates.

Sources said this will leave almost no room for serious discussion of how the mainstream leaders performed.

One source said: “We’re all spitting feathers here. This is further proof that the BBC’s obsession with ‘compliance’ is destroying its news coverage and journalism.

“The only result of this directive from Mark Byford and the rest of the overpaid detached senior management is that listeners will simply switch off in droves.

“The idea of having to interview the Ukip leader Nigel Farage – let alone Nick Griffin – is turning people’s stomachs.”

The Leader of UKIP is of course Lord Pearson. You’d expect someone defending the standards of the BBC’s political journalism to know that.

Let’s be serious about this, sensible: what is so awful about asking the people of a country how they wish to be ruled and by whom?

Nigel Farage in The Telegraph.

José Barroso, president of the European Commission, has told us that the reason for the European Union is to stop Germany invading France. Again. Now Berlin has realised that Paris is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier, that’s dealt with, so what reason for the EU’s continuation can there be?

Quite, there isn’t one, but as ever with bureaucracies and political structures, the expiry of their reason for existence never means the expiry of their existence.

Nigel Farage will step down as leader of the UK Independence Party today to concentrate on the European Parliament and his general election battle against the Commons Speaker John Bercow.

Probably a good idea too.

We’d like to get an ISDN line set up so that we don’t have to keep going to radio studios to do five minute spots.

As I understand it, there’s more to it than just getting an ISDN line. We also need some piece of gadgetry to be compatible with BBC systems.

Anyone know about this?

In Berlin recently, David Cameron promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty were he to become prime minister and the Treaty were not to be ratified. That would mean that the first period of any Tory government unleashing, as its main contribution to international politics, a festival of xenophobic hate against Europe. The Tories, BNP, UKIP and the Daily Mail would win the vote – but at the cost of reducing Britain’s influence across the Channel and Atlantic to zero.

You’ve still not got it, have you?

It’s nothing to do with xenophobia, nothing to do with Europe.

It’s about the specific political structure that is the European Union.

Excellent, very good indeed. Of course, he’s in the wrong political party to bring all this about…..much of this is already in the policies of one that he doesn’t, but perhaps ought to, belong to.

Officials said the image of a bull represented the Greek myth in which Zeus turns himself into a bull and abducts Europa, a beautiful princess.

Campaigners said it was bizarre that there not more outward symbols of Britishness on the card, given that it will be used as a proof of residence.

Lorraine Mulally, spokesman for campaigners Open Europe, said: "The use of EU symbols, instead of national ones, is part of a wider attempt to promote the idea of a common European citizenship, which EU federalists have been pushing for some time. The Government seems happy to buy into this."

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, added: "A British ID card without a British flag on it? Instead we have the symbol of Europa, and we know what Zeus did to her.

"We don’t need or want ID cards in the first place, free people in a free country don’t require them. But to have the European Union thrust down our throats at the same time is simply a load of old bull."

A clear and obvious suggestion is here.

OK, OK, so the European Communities Act 1972 isn’t an EU regulation but it’s still the one we want to dump.

Spread the word! Get people writing in!

It’s possible that you might recognise the writing style…..

There are various ways to help ordinary people through targeted tax cuts. The key way would be to cut income tax by reducing rates at the bottom or by raising allowances so that the low paid and middle earners receive a greater part of their pay tax free.

Quite, just as with UKIP’s income tax policy. Raise the personal allowance to £10,000 so that the working poor aren’t in the tax system at all.

It started out with the ASI and UKIP crying in the wilderness…now even Polly and the TUC get the point.

So how long before we can get them to see sense on the EU then?

The more exposure to sensible political ideas that Polly and her ilk get the better, surely?

As in:

We will take 4.5 million people out of tax with a simple Flat Tax (with National Insurance) starting at £10,000.

And:

…taking the lowest-paid out of tax altogether. That is the right move,…

See, it’s working already!

But first of course I need to find that nifty piece of software.

I used to use Telemagic two decades ago (yes, really!) and that would certainly do what I want to do. However, it’s really rather too complex (and expensive perhaps). It’s also no longer sold nor supported by Sage.

But here’s what I need to be able to do.

Create a database of a few hundred customers (ie, recipients of press releases). Name, phone, fax, email etc.

I also need to be able to sort them by region etc.

OK, I know that this is pretty simple stuff so far. You could knock it up in Excel if you tried for example.

However, I want to be able to go one stage further. Say I’ve got information that I want to send to all fax machines in the NW region, or London, or national papers, or regionals, perhaps (or perhaps not also) to all emails in the NW etc. I want to be able to point to the document that’s to go, sort the databse so that I’ve got all of those numbers and addys, hit the tit.

The program then accesses a broadcast fax application plus an email one so that they all get sent off.

Now it seem to me that this is pretty much a staple of all CRM systems. I might also want a notes area so that I can take down the results of any interactions with a particular entry on the database.

But that’s really ascomplicated as I want to get. Nothing more. And it’s a damn small database too, a few hundred entries at most.

So, is there a robust and cheap (even freeware) thing based upon mySQL or something that does this?

If so, where?

Your genial host came in sixth out of 11.  Depending upon whether Marta Andreasen stands in London or the SE, whether Ralph Atkinson does better in E Midlands than London, your self same genial host will therefore be anything from sixth to fourth on the ticket.

Which means campaigning, but no chance of being elected! Ain’t small party politics wonderful?

However, there is another side to this. For those who don’t as yet know I start as the UKIP press officer next week. First month will be spent mostly here, at home, fiddling around, doing research, getting some internet things sorted out (the UKIP blog, a blog aggregator perhaps, talking to lots of editors on the phone and introducing myself etc).

Then from October full time in London up to the election. So I’d be campaigning whether I was on the ticket or not really….

Thanks Mark for pointing out in the comments to my last but one post the similarity between Nigel Farage and Dmitry Medvedev.

Right, right, so how do we take advantage of this fact?

We send Nigel over to the Kremlin, Nigel drugs, binds and gags Dmitry and hides him in a cupboard. Nigel then sends in a peace keeping force to the UK, deposes New Labour and appoints UKIP as a puppet government.

You know, it might just work!