Kippers flounder
A farcical leadership contest prompts questions about the party’s future
THE past couple of months have hardly been an advertisement for the competence of British politicians. Yet few blunders have been as avoidable as that made by Steven Woolfe, an MEP for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who on July 31st submitted his application for the party leadership 17 minutes late. He blamed a malfunctioning website for failing to accept his papers (others pointed out that he might have had more luck had he not waited until 25 minutes before the midday deadline to apply). Mr Woolfe had spoken of the need to “professionalise” the party.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Kippers flounder”
From the August 6th 2016 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party