Memo to the Tories: Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgement
Since the defection of Mark Reckless to UKIP, I’ve not been surprised at the opprobrium heaped at Mark Reckless from the Tories, mostly because of his timing and his assurances that he wouldn’t defect.
Tory MP to BuzzFeed on Mark Reckless defecting: “I can’t say the word c**t but he’s a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse.”
— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) September 28, 2014
The above tweet, shows the depth of the anger, the thing that should concern the Tories, is the anger and hate is flowing from the very top of the party.
The Prime Minister toured the regional receptions getting steadily more pumped up in his anger about Reckless’ duplicity. Rumour is rife the words ‘effing Reckless’, ‘fat arse’ and ‘dick head’ were blurted out in various versions of a tub-thumping turn by Cameron. The Tories are going to fight Rochester hard’ that was very clear by the time the PM arrived at Conservative Home’s late night reception for the 1922 Committee. By then Dave was in full blown Mr Angry mode, telling activists and media types that Reckless would be punished.
Boris Johnson, last night chipped in with a speech, that was largely reported as him saying ‘Tories who defect to Ukip are kind of people who have sex with vacuum cleaners’
There’s a danger these could be seen as attacks on UKIP voters, the voters the Tories need to win to ensure they win the Rochester & Strood by election and the 2015 General Election.
Ken Clarke’s comments yesterday will not have helped either, he said Farage had “absorbed the BNP vote” and “taken on board BNP followers. He said there was “a nasty undertone” in Farage’s movement. “He does attract elderly male people who have had disappointing lives,”
That said, were another Tory MP defect either today or tomorrow, thus overshadowing David Cameron’s speech, then I expect the opprobrium heaped upon them, will be on another scale than that which has been aimed at Mark Reckless so far.
So my advice, Keep Calm Dave, and focus on winning.