As UKIP founding member Godfrey Bloom MEP resigns in tandem with the BBC’s ‘The Farage Factor’ Panorama expose, we ask: “Has Brutus met his match?”
‘Caravan man’ Nigel Farage might have had a flush of successes last week but – just as we predicted might happen – it’s all going south again now. On Monday night, the UKIP leader was slated in a BBC Panorama documentary titled The Farage Factor and accompanying it came news that one of the most senior founding members of the party had sensationally quit.
Former MEP Godfrey Bloom – an eccentric favourite of The Steeple Times and one of our “What’s on your mantelpiece?” subjects – was once such a close friend of Nigel Farage that he shared a flat with him in Brussels. Yesterday, however, in declaring “it’s a very sad day for me” and that he had “lost contact completely” with the UKIP leader, Bloom summed up the views of many about what UKIP has become. He told the LBC radio station:
“I joined in the mid-1990s; I’m a very significant donor – hundreds of thousands of pounds I’ve donated over the years to UKIP – and then I find that instead of being the libertarian party or the party of common sense, I’ve been banned from speaking”.
Asked about the election of UKIP’s first MP, Bloom warned Douglas Carswell:
“Watch your back… there are dead bodies of UKIP all over the place with a knife quivering in their back. Douglas, make sure it’s not yours”.
Bloom’s views were echoed by a number of participants in Panorama’s documentary including Dr Richard North. The party’s former director of research stated “Brutus has got nothing on Farage” whilst it was also revealed that many others question where funds raised by UKIP actually end up.
Whilst Farage – a politician with one of the worst voting records in the European Parliament – casually dismissed The Farage Factor as a “tedious BBC hatchet job”, he will hardly be able to say the same of Godfrey Bloom’s comments. Brutus may just have met his match.
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Oh come on….
It was the silliest re-hash of old jibes. Dennis Healey famously likenend being attacked by Geoffrey Howe as like being savaged by a dead sheep: Mackintyre was like a dead sheep. Farage made him look silly.
This idea that having a caravan is something to be sneered is very aspiring middle class. They like to think they are far too sophisticated to do something so ordinary. It is Farage’s lack of pretension that gives him such appeal.
Bloom is a man who can’t control himself. He was hopelessly out of depth and couldn’t control his drink.
As UKIP matures it has to part company with a host of hangers on….Bloom was one and the pathetic, whining ‘Dr’ North another. You are just as likely, if not more so, to be stabbed in the back in any of the other three parties: it’s called politics. Bloom was a horrendous embarrassment Farage, out of loyalty, took to long dumping the idiot.
UKIP is here to stay and people need to get used to the idea.
too long….
I find myself agreeing with Peter Wayde. How very dare you attack UKIP in this manner. You seem to have a problem with all the good people Steeples. Why?
Godfrey Bloom has an alcohol problem and Nigel has sensibly distanced himself from this lunatic. He had a loudmouth and now with more sensible people on side such as the great man William Cash, Neil and Christine Hamilton and Arron Banks he is attracting serious folk to the UKIP team.
Get over your pathetic self. UKIP will wipe the floor with you and your likes. Bring on the People’s Army.
“sensible people” and Neil Hamilton in the same sentence. What tosh! Next you’ll be saying Ian Greer was another innocent. And Ian’s a friend of mine!
I had no idea Ian was involved with UKIP.
To be fair to Hamilton he prove to be extraordinarily useful and effective in organising the EU campaign for UKIP.
Loonies to the left you, loonies to the right of you …now loonies coming at you from behind armed with shives…
A political life; but a dangerous one…
When I was a young man I had to take Margaret Thatcher around the West Midlands in my little beat up car.
She was then shadow this or that….can’t remember what.
Anyway, we got into this council estate in Coventry and were met by a barrage of ‘fuck off, milk snatcher’ etc from the Socialist Worker mob waiting to greet her.
As we got back into the car I apologised saying how awful it was. She replied, “My Dear, I love it. When they shout and scream at me I know they are frightened of me”.
Nigel Farage has exactly the same spirit of indifference to this slinging of silly insults at him. It comes with the territory.
I suggest readers look at my website and make their own assessment. Sadly one of the reasons that has made me uneasy with new UKIP is the significant decline in the standard of membership since we restricted ourselves to immigration. This sort of gratuitous villification is typical of the ex BNP voter now sheltering under UKIP colours. They are the despair of we longer serving members.
And what will your website tell us about you we don’t already know of you? You are petulant and angry because you were canned. Stop bleating and retire gracefully.
Immigration is a core concern for voters across the political spectrum. If UKIP doesn’t focus on it they will, like all the other parties, be ostrich like. But, in any case, it’s not my perception or that of others I know.
We all see UKIP very much broader in policy generation under the guidance of talented Tim Aker.
Farage has his faults but without him UKIP would be nowhere.
Well said Peter Wayde.
I totally agree. UKIP is the new BNP. Loads of them have flocked there.
And what evidence do you have for that puerile and nonsensical remark? It’s a rhetorical question because you have none. Stick to cleaning behind the fridge, as your friend Mr Bloom would counsel!
Shame on your Godfrey Bloom. You were once an esteemed man and I respected you. Your comments are appalling and I put a curse on your house.
Godfrey Bloom has so many Facebook profiles. Which is the real one? We need to be told.
Godfrey Bloom is my hero, he is a very funny man, if he wants to get pissed and clean behind the fridge, it is his own business. Nigel Farage policy regarding smoking in the pub while getting pissed grabs me, I totally embrace the values associated with such a noble cause. Women such as as Harriet Harman should be restricted to the kitchen only. Gillian Trott already lives the dream, drunk as a skunk, based on the the bizarre and distorted thoughts reflected in her/his comments. Stay in the kitchen. Lobby for smokers rights……..
Peter, I’m sorry if I implied IG was involved in UKIP. I have no idea if he supports or not. As far as I know he is happily ensconsed in South Africa these days. I have to say that Hamilton strikes me as a weak, corrupt disgraceful fellow. Rotten to his feckless core. His involvement with UKIP does not add to its appeal one iota.
If there is one extremely good reason for voting UKIP it’s this.
Government inspectors have threatened to close down Christian and Orthodox Jewish schools, currently graded as excellent, because they have not done enough to promote religious tolerance. In the case of the Christian school it was because it refused to invite an iman(you know, those guys from the religion of peace except when they are hacking off the head of non Muslims) and in the case of the Orthodox Jewish school because they had not taught the girls enough about sex and lesbianism. And people wonder why UKIP is roaring ahead…..
This country is at war with itself.