Does anybody share my view this is possibly a bigger problem for the Conservatives BUT Labour should perhaps be a little more, how can I put it, less cocky as time might show they are finding UKIP are gaining ground in their heartlands too.?
It has to be said UKIP have a mixed bag of ideas but I don't think their focus appeals to just left/right voters and after all they are already taking votes from both parties aren't they.
As for Mark Reckless, or indeed any other politician of any colour, I understand they have a right to their decision but I feel that they have had so much backing and groundwork done by their constituents it is a form of betrayal and whether it was Reckless, Balls or Miliband I would still feel that way.
I think it's the timing which has shown more about the character of the man. To defect is the name of the game but to maximimise self advertisement and harm the people you have 'so called' respected at the very start of the conference tells me all I want to know.
He was being interviewed on Daily Politics and Andrew Neil played a phone message he had left 'the day before' he defected telling the party he was going to Birmingham to help the candidate with her canvassing, all sweetness and light confirming his attendence, cowardly I call it whether he was a Tory, Lib Dem or Labour.
I know the reply will be he had to do what he thought best, I agree. It was the way he did it and the timing that shows more about the man than the defection itself IMHO.
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