The Talking Clock: UKIP Leadership: DCB own-goal as Question Time withdraw invite to Nigel Farage

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Thursday, 14 October 2010

UKIP Leadership: DCB own-goal as Question Time withdraw invite to Nigel Farage

The UKIP leadership election has taken a new twist tonight - with a strong backlash being evident against one of the four candidates.

The story appears to be this.

Nigel Farage had been invited onto tomorrow's BBC Question Time. We know that is a fact - UKIP had news of the appearance on their website but the page has now been removed. Independence Home were also carrying the detail.

We refer you to the excellent Bloggers4UKIP for details of what happened next.

In a nutshell, they claim that: "Nigel got a phone call from the [UKIP] press office following the [UKIP] hustings [in Birmingham] telling him that the BBC had removed him from the panel on tomorrow's Question Time programme because David Campbell Bannerman had complained that they were giving him airtime during the leadership election."

They continue: "While the other candidates were chatting to members, listening to their views and giving them more detail on their campaigns, DCB was in the car park complaining to the BBC."

It is not the only own goal for DCB.

As a result of this development, the blog carrying the highest readership of any UK politics blog - Iain Dale's Diary - has also picked up on the story.

Iain Dale recounts the events and adds: "So in the week in which next year's EU budget was approved, UKIP now won't have any representation on Question Time tonight. Rats in a sack. If they don't elect Farage we'll know they've lost what remaining marbles they have."

However, the more important blow to DCB from Iain Dale's comment is the revelation that: "Nigel Farage was invited to go on Question Time tonight and cancelled an important fund raising dinner to do so, figuring that an appearance on a programme with an audience of several million would do more for UKIP than a fundraising dinner."

Ouch.

On Sunday, we urged all UKIP members to consider all the sources of information available to them before deciding who to vote for. At the same time, in what we hope was a very balanced and fair article, we disclosed who it is that we'll be voting for and why. We will be voting for Nigel Farage.

Now, in fairness to DCB tonight, we can see his point. He wanted a level playing field in the middle of a leadership election and felt that the coverage of Nigel on such a flagship programme would be unfair. From that point of view, the events of tonight are personally defensible.

However, quite what UKIP party members will make of it as a whole remains to be seen.

The bit that we do not understand is this - surely DCB would have known that this would get out and generate negative headlines?

To have had a big negative story on Bloggers4UKIP really won't help DCB's campaign, though.

Oh dear...

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[Article corrected as per comment at 13.30, 14th October]

3 comments:

Tcheuchter14 October 2010 06:58
We should thank DCB. We now only have to choose between three candidates - much easier.
ReplyDelete
wonkotsane14 October 2010 07:33
It was the UKIP press office that phoned, not the BBC. I was standing next to him when he took the call.
ReplyDelete
The Talking Clock14 October 2010 13:32
@ wonkotsane - oh, thanks for clearing that one!

And well done for having the story of the campaign!
ReplyDelete

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