US Edition Ukip's Rochester win shows voters no longer trust the main parties
The main Westminster parties treat modernity as virtue, and its critics as moral inferiors, as with gay marriage. This attitude is behind the rise of Ukip, says Charles Moore.
The headline on this column last week was “
It is taking the main political parties and most of the mainstream media a very long time to adjust to how things are changing.
On the BBC news yesterday morning, I heard its political correspondent telling us that “the [Rochester] result was never in doubt”, and implying that it had not been all that good for Ukip. Never in doubt! Who would have predicted, even six months ago, that two Tory MPs with safe seats would resign them and re-present themselves to their voters, standing for a party which had never before won a seat? Who would have predicted, if they were mad enough to do this, that they would win? Certainly not the BBC. Yet they did all these things...
