Farage could become MP within weeks after Mercer quits

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10796941/Nigel-Farage-could-become-MP-within-weeks-after-Mercer-quits.html

Apparently Farage is taking a big gamble if he opts to throw his hat in the ring for this Election , Mercer has a 21,000 majority !!!

Farage has declined to run for election in Newark on the grounds that he does not know Newark very well and the 26,000 majority is a big majority to overcome.

He is being interviewed as I speak and UKIP are fielding a local Candidate . Cameron will be rubbing his hands in glee seems to be the opinion because if Farage had contested he may well have won.....the feeling is he has bottled it.

FRIT FARAGE

UKIP'S NEW DISCIPLINE
Nigel Farage decided not to stand in the Newark by-election. His announcement came barely 12 hours after he had raised expectations that he would do so.

The decision drew attacks from Tories and others that the Ukip leader is frit, scared of putting himself and his carefully cultivated image to the electoral test. That may be, and Mr Farage is certainly developing something of a habit here, avoiding elections that could undo him. That may not be brave, but it is probably astute; Mr Farage clearly realises that he is best served by staying out of the main political arena and just over the horizon - a promise that is never quite realised.

The other striking thing about the Newark two-step is how well Ukip has managed the aftermath. For a party that is somewhat ramshackle and disorganised, its disparate members have offered a remarkably uniform line today: Nigel has made the right decision to reject the distraction of a by-election and focus on the main prize of the European elections.

Of course, it’s possible that all those Ukippers independently reached precisely the same conclusion about Mr Farage’s decision, and chose to express it in rather similar language.

But the uniformity of the Ukip response does rather call to mind the sort of line-to-take message discipline that is frequently practised by bigger political parties – and frequently denounced by Mr Farage and his followers.

In summary, we have a party leader who has considered the electoral mathematics and decided on an action that best serves his own political career and his party’s agenda. And we have a party that marches in lock-step behind him, offering the same message about his actions. In other words, Ukip is showing signs of becoming a disciplined and professional political operation – rather like the parties it so deplores.

OSBORNE, FOREIGN SECRETARY

George Osborne wants to be Foreign Secretary. That’s the word in the Spectator, meaning the report will be taken seriously at Westminster. It’s not the first time such an ambition has been attributed to the Chancellor; his unofficially authorised biographer Janan Ganesh said something similar last year. “Friends of” Mr Osborne are politely dismissing this: just getting on with the job, etc etc etc.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about this report is that someone, somewhere in the Conservative Party is willing to start speculating about who’s going to have which job in a post-2015 Tory Cabinet, something that presupposes a Tory win next year. OK, the economy’s picking up and the polls are improving, but that will strike some as heroically and even dangerously optimistic.

It also brings to mind the old adage that the Conservative Party has only two moods: complacency and panic. How long before the pendulum swings back to the other extreme?

SPEAKER'S QUIPS, THE NEW PMQS

Cameron-Bercow relations reached a new low today at PMQs. When the Prime Minister was cut off by an offhand Mr Bercow, he responded testily with: "“But I haven’t finished!” This prompted the equally testy: "The Prime Minister can take it from me that he’s finished!"

It's all part of Speaker’s Quips, "the entertaining 37-minute session that some time ago replaced Prime Minister’s Questions", says our sketchwriter Michael Deacon:

The rules of Speaker’s Quips are simple. MPs and the Prime Minister score points each time they successfully provoke John Bercow, the Speaker, into issuing a putdown of headmasterly grandness. They can do this by using unparliamentary language, shouting, heckling, giving an irrelevant answer, speaking or breathing.