Initially Lord Pearson gave a boost to UKIP. Its not every party that has a Lord at the helm and initially the responses were good. For example...If you take a look at the following photograph you can see Vic and Lord Pearson being met on the steps of the town hall by a 'trade delegation' from the Chamber of Commerce. Yes indeed none other than Cameron Macsween and Alan Shirley turned out to show him around our one illustrious building.
Would they have turned out to greet an untitled leader... if he had been say an Arthur Rowbotham from Barnsley or similar. Well no - probably not. So initially the Lord gave UKIP a fillip.
On the other hand it would have been interesting to see how UKIP would have fared in the election under Farage's leadership but their most famous name bizarely quit the post before the election got going. Not a good tactical move on reflection. But then hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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The Labour leadership is still up in the air as we know. The only opposition coming from Labour these days seems to be in the shape of either Alastair Darling or Jack Frost. And in political terms they belong to an ageing ancient dynasty of long long ago, the Blair era dynasty. People are tired of these old overly familiar faces even though in various capacities they have served the country well.
Once the new more youthful Labour wave hits the political beach, we will see a pick up in fortunes and maybe even a revival to former glories.