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Ukip has surged into the lead in the European election contest despite a bruising week of controversies, a poll revealed today. Nigel Farage's party recorded 31 per cent support in YouGov research for a Sunday newspaper, three points ahead of Labour, with the Tories languishing in third on 19 per cent. It is the first time the company has given Ukip an outright advantage in the race, with ballots due to be cast in less than a month.

Whenever Tony Benn was asked a question you knew he was going to answer it. The same goes for Boris or Nigel. You might not agree with what they say, but at least they speak in English and not in some awful double-speak where you cannot begin to fathom what point they are trying to get across. I know it should be the principles and not the personalities that stand out but it is a lot easier to understand and to evaluate policies if they are advocated by someone who genuinely believes what they are saying and is able to...

Hans-Olaf Henkel speaks about when, not if, he will take his place in the European Parliament this spring. […] The former head of IBM Europe and one-time president of the German Federation of Industries is now the number two candidate on the list for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. […] He pointed to the British Conservatives as the AfD’s “preferred partner” in the European Parliament following the elections and rejected any cooperation with Nigel Farage’s UKIP. […] While certainly skeptical of the euro, the party is not “Europe-skeptic.” “We are a party advocating a more democratic but leaner Brussels,”...

European lawmakers on Thursday eased the way for cartel victims to claim compensation from companies under new rules that also shield price-fixing whistleblowers from being the main target of million-euro lawsuits. The green light from the European Parliament came nine years after the European Commission broached the idea, seeing it as an additional tool, on top of fines, to deter companies from breaking antitrust laws. According to the Commission, only one in four cartels and antitrust infringements faced damages claims in the last seven years. Its 2010 estimate put the cost of unrecovered damages of infringements at over €20 billion...

LONDON – Setting up an intriguing election battle, Britain’s opposition Labor Party announced Friday that it had hired President Obama’s chief campaign advisor to help the party return to power next year over the ruling Conservatives. The decision to recruit David Axelrod means that the 2015 British election will pit two of Obama’s strategists against each other. Working for the Conservatives is Jim Messina, who, like Axelrod, toiled on both of Obama’s presidential campaigns and who served as his deputy White House chief of staff during his first term. “David is used to tough fights, and he is going to...

Americans have the Tea Party, which isn’t a party at all, but British establishmentarians are worried about a similar movement that is an actual party. The UK Independence Party or UKIP (pronounced “u-kip”) could have real impact on the European Union elections next month. UKIP is made up mostly, though not exclusively, of former Tory voters who regard Prime Minister David Cameron and his allies as weak-kneed leaders, who neither listen to their base nor fight for the conservative values they profess. UKIP began as a home for British voters skeptical of the value of membership in the European Union...

Britain's Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has conscripted the services of American campaigns professional David Axelrod, otherwise known as the architect behind President Barack Obama's U.S. election victory in 2008. The appointment of Axelrod to the Labour team is the latest in a long line of foreign consultants brought in to try and help Ed Miliband's team on the run up to the UK General Election in May 2015. Axelrod follows in the footsteps of 69-year-old U.S. community organiser Arnie Graf, who embarrassed Labour by claiming he was working for them, rather than consulting for them, without a UK work...

America and Great Britain share a special relationship. We speak the same language, have a similar system of laws, have similar (quasi-)capitalist economic system and even often share a system of weights and measurements. As America is a former colony of the United Kingdom, we owe much to Great Britain. Nevertheless, some things we don’t get about each other. Generally, Americans don’t understand Britons’ reverence for monarchy, and Britons don’t understand Americans’ fascination with guns. Politically, our countries do some things right, and some wrong. I follow both countries’ politics closely and I thought I would offer some constructive criticism...

The Conservatives could be pushed into third place at the European elections after the party’s poll ratings plunged in the wake of the Maria Miller expenses scandal. A poll has put the Tories on 23 percent, behind Labour (31 percent) and UKIP (28 percent) just days after the Culture Secretary was forced to resign in an expenses row. The Liberal Democrats were on a dismal 9 percent, according to analysis of recent polling by Professor Curtice of Strathclyde University. Levels of support for UKIP are now at a record high as they were the only party to gain popularity in...

PM facing embarrassment over links between adviser and Islamist group. Adviser Tariq Ramadan is grandson of Muslim Brotherhood's founder . ... Tariq Ramadan is one of 14 members of the Foreign Office’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, chaired by Tory peer Baroness Warsi. He is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, and was a member of a taskforce set up by Tony Blair after 7/7. But Prof Ramadan, 51, is grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder Hassan al-Banna and his father Said Ramadan was a leading light. ... He was kept out of France in...

(Reuters) - Britain's economy could grow by 1.3 billion pounds if it left the European Union due to less regulation and more trade with emerging economies, a British diplomat who dreamt up a prize-winning blueprint for the country's EU exit said on Tuesday. Britain's free market Institute of Economic Affairs on Tuesday awarded a 100,000-euro prize to Iain Mansfield, a British diplomat based in the Philippines, who it decided had come up with the best blueprint for a 'Brexit,' a British departure from the EU. Amid widespread public disenchantment in Britain about the EU's perceived over-bearing role in everyday life...

(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's handling of an expenses scandal engulfing one of his ministers has put him under pressure before European elections, threatening his Conservative party's already clouded electoral outlook. Cameron, whose party risks being beaten into third place in next month's European Parliament elections behind the anti-EU UK Independence party (UKIP), has stood by Maria Miller, Britain's minister for culture, since a parliamentary report ordered her to pay back wrongly claimed expenses last week. But the media and public backlash against Miller shows no sign of abating despite Cameron's efforts to end it. Many of his own...

The Tory revolt over Europe took a dramatic turn last night after senior Conservative David Davis called on the Government to open talks with Brussels on quitting the EU. Former Tory chairman Mr. Davis tore into David Cameron, accusing him of making a mess of his pledge to win back powers from the EU. “Scaremongers” who said Britain would collapse if it decided to go it alone were talking nonsense, said Mr Davis. Quitting the EU would be like a “revolution” and would boost UK jobs, wages, world power, arts and prestige, he added. Significantly, his intervention comes days after...

In British law, race and religion are increasingly becoming deliberately confused for the purpose of accusing critics of Islam of racism. A soccer fan was recently arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after allegedly ripping up pages of the Qur’an and throwing them at a match. While on bail, he was also banned from attending any football games, visiting St Andrew’s – the stadium of the incident -, and going to any city where his team Middlesbrough was playing.Insults against Islam are taken very seriously in Britain, and the world of soccer is particularly sensitive to them. After the...

The always humorous Nigel Farage blasted European council president Herman Van Rompuy along with José Barroso in European parliament today, mocking the alleged "breakthrough". Link if video does not play: Nigel Farage on Euro Breakdown Select Quotes: ESM is doomed before it starts Legal Challenges in Ireland and Germany Estonia Justice Says it will not fit their constitution Finns and Dutch have broken agreement made in the middle of the night Perhaps the little countries do not have a say at all anymore Crisis is insolvable Euro Crisis Breakthrough Breakdown - Nigel FarageFarage sarcastically commented to Herman Van Rompuy ......

Millions will remember Maureen Lipman’s TV character Beattie praising her grandson when he ‘got an ’ology’. But the TV advert from 1988 has been blamed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage for encouraging a generation to study for what he considers to be worthless degrees.

Video link - 4 minutes or so. This is how to handle an aggressive and biased interviewer. Politicians that are not fast on their feet don't last long in a parliamentary system. The reference to a "whopping 14%" in the last elections - that's up from 7% so, in fact, it's a dramatic increase, which could interpreted as 25% of Conservative supporters switching their allegiance to the UKIP.

A Tory Minister is involved in an extraordinary row over claims that taxpayers’ money was used to fund gay sex parties. The politician is said to have been in a feud with a senior party official accused of using dating app Grindr to invite gay MPs and activists to his suite at the Conservative Party conference. The £70,000-a-year official, who is not an MP, has also been accused of bullying staff and being drunk on duty. He was disciplined after a formal investigation. …

The fragile Tory truce over Europe disintegrated last night after it emerged that more than 100 Conservative MPs and candidates are set to defy David Cameron at the General Election next year by vowing to leave the EU. The Prime Minister has promised the Tory manifesto will spell out his pledge for a referendum by 2017 on Britain’s links with Europe after trying to win back key powers from Brussels. But Tory rebels will go further and make their own personal manifesto vows to campaign to withdraw from the EU—regardless of any concessions by Brussels. …

Britain took another step towards an in/out referendum on its membership of the EU on Friday (5 July) after MPs unanimously backed a bill guaranteeing a vote by the end of 2017. … In a boisterous debate dominated by Conservative euroskeptics, Foreign Secretary William Hague endorsed the bill which was, he said, “about giving people the power to decide one of the greatest questions facing Britain.” …