Patrick O'Flynn – a catch that Ukip can boast about
The decision by Patrick O’Flynn, chief political commentator at the Daily Express, to put himself forward as a Ukip candidate is very significant.
Till now Ukip’s outside recruits have tended to be chancy buffoons – think of the chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk or the boxing promoter Frank Maloney.
Patrick O’Flynn, whom I have known since he came to work as a colleague on the political desk on the Sunday Express in 1996, is far more serious than either.
He has an exceptionally acute mind and excellent judgement. Unusually for a journalist, he is not merely tactically smart, but also possesses an acute strategic vision.
He played a major role in turning the Daily Express into the only British national newspaper whose editorial policy is to quit the European Union.
He has, therefore, returned the paper to its roots under Lord Beaverbrook when it consistently argued against British Continental involvement point part. He made the argument well before Ukip was fashionable.
But there is more to Patrick than anti-European agitation. He was also quick to evolve a distinctive political and social analysis.
He was the first to identify the “squeezed middle” as the core constituency in British politics who had become impoverished under New Labour.
This theme, originally adumbrated by Patrick in his Daily Express columns, has since been snaffled by the three established parties. But for many years he was almost alone in banging this drum.
I have to admit that I am biased. Simon Walters (now political editor of the Mail on Sunday) was political editor of the Sunday Express when we all worked together. We had tremendous fun, and I know Simon would agree with me that Patrick is a man of total decency and loyalty, one of those rare people you’d be happy to go tiger shooting with.
The last two political columnists to have moved across into politics have been Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, and they haven’t done badly.
It is very telling that the latest political columnist to make the transition has chosen Ukip, and not the Tories. I think Paddy O’Flynn has the capacity to do as well as Gove or Johnson, and become a massive asset to his party.
His decision is a loss to journalism – but also an enormous gain for politics and British public life.
Let's wish him well
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