MADAM – Interesting letter from Stuart Love, the losing Ukip candidate in the Slad by-election (SNJ dated Aug 27).

He joins a long list of whinging Ukip candidates that blame everything and everybody for their loss.

Ukip are a fringe party and, as the recent Euro and local elections clearly showed, they have little support in Stroud.

Mr Love appears to be a thin-skinned candidate, in that he complains about the robust opinions of the electorate.

Okay, they made obscene gestures against him. But that happens to all candidates.

What does he mean by bullying?

Is it that voters with strong opinions are asking him difficult questions?

Every political candidate is advised by a handful of householders to clear off from their estate.

Mr Love claims it is intimidation to his democratic right to canvas.

Others would say it is part and parcel of canvassing.

And to qualify his horror of having all his posters removed: in 1997, all the Conservatives posters were removed throughout the district and, not surprisingly, Labour won that year’s General Election. It has always happened.

Mr Love should be careful putting Ukip on a pedestal, claiming other parties are falling short of their standards.

It was local Ukip canvassers who walked into various schools in the town and plastered the noticeboards with their posters without asking permission.

And despite Mr Love saying it is not a case of sour grapes, it certainly sounds it when he complains about the blind and wilful, ignorant electorate who failed to vote for him.

His letter ends with the bravado statement that Ukip are here to stay.

To the public, they are a one-issue party that, once this country has an European Union referendum, will almost certainly fold or be absorbed by a larger party as happened to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

There will be no reason for their existence.

Tom Newman

Stroud