Farage….on the outside looking in – for now.

Like The New Statesman, Quentin Letts is a few facts short of a full story on the Buckingham bunfight.

Focusing like the rest of the media on the Wheeler Wonga for Nigel Farage, Mail gossip Quentin Letts writes today ‘It sounds as though Mr Bercow’s UKIP opponent in Buckingham, Nigel Farage, may not be short of funds before the election.’

He’s also not going to be short of votes. So alarmed are the Cameroons about what the New Statesman calls ‘no chance of Bercow being defeated’, the Tory hierarchy have been personally jackbooting into constituency affairs. One thing they’ve tried to do is freeze out popular local Eurosceptic and former High Sheriff Patrick Phillips.

“The Tories have threatened any Councillors caught supporting Patrick with deselection” says Chris Adams, a UKIP organiser and Nigel Farage’s agent in the contest, “but Tory workers are moonlighting for him anyway”. Phillips himself confirms this.

“Conservative activists ring me to say ‘don’t worry, your leaflets are in with Bercow’s’” he told me, “and why shouldn’t they work for me? Bercow is The Speaker, not a Tory MP”.

Bercow opponents would of course get nowhere if there was total loyalty to the Speaker-candidate. (See earlier post here) In parts of the constituency (particularly the north) he is seen as a good MP who has been helpful to his constituents. But his personal demeanour and media image for arrogance have put many off. Aylesbury itself is (according to Tory county councillor John Cartwright) ‘not for Bercow’. And Princes Risborough very clearly isn’t.

“UKIP is getting seven votes for every two for Bercow in Princes Risborough” said one moonlighter for Patrick Phillips, “there’s no question that Farage is gaining ground”. Angry at boundary changes that removed popular MP David Lidington, they also aren’t keen on Bercow himself.

“The chap’s just a bloody carpet-bagger” said one, “Nobody here would swap David for that man”.

The Bercow camp doesn’t underestimate the seriousness of the situation for their man. A group calling itself The Friends of John Bercow has been active on the Speaker’s behalf….but not always in ways that some would think proper.

Stay tuned for the next episode

Forget the Mail and The New Stateman: The Slogger is on the ground, not up his own bottom.