Neil Hamilton set for remarkable return by winning Welsh Assembly seat for Ukip

He can’t chat for long; he’s got a whole Mid and West Wales regional constituency stretching from the Menai Strait to the English border in which to hunt for last minute votes.

But Neil Hamilton, “popular” TV show panellist, ex-MP, ex-unsuccessful libel litigant, and by his own account – and the polls of others – soon to be elected member of the Welsh Assembly, is pretty chipper. Even when The Independent suggests that perhaps we ought to be mentioning the “cash for questions” affair, which many assumed had ended his political career after he lost his English parliamentary seat to white-suited “anti-sleaze” candidate Martin Bell in 1997.

“Nobody else is mentioning it,” says the man once routinely described as a “disgraced” ex-MP. “It’s not an issue at all. It was a big thing, but it happened to be a pack of lies.”

And so he says, with ebullient confidence, “It will require a bit of an earthquake for me not to win [a Welsh Assembly seat].”

Yes, he may have lost his libel action against Mohamed al-Fayed, who accused him of taking cash in brown envelopes, but “I was exonerated after a two-year investigation by the Inland Revenue. Sir Gordon Downey’s view that there was compelling evidence I took cash for [asking] questions [in Parliament] was rejected by the House of Commons Standards Committee…”

But more to the point, much more to the point, wherever they go in Wales, Mr Hamilton and his wife Christine, of TV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! “Get a brilliant reception. We have done all sorts of TV. People want to take selfies with us. They want autographs.”

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The Independent is in no position to confirm or deny the clamour for selfies, but the stuff about cash for questions not being an issue seems pretty spot on, at least judging by what we found in Mid and West Wales. On the main street of Llandeilo we popped into Heidi Schoner’s furniture and interiors shop Papillion and mentioned the name Neil Hamilton.

“To be honest,” she said, “I only know him as a celebrity. Isn’t his wife Christine? Wasn’t she on I’m A Celebrity? I liked her – straightforward, no bulls***.”

And cash for questions was so long ago.

“I remember something about it,” said Ms Schoner, 49. “But very little.”

And a little further down the street, at the Igam Ogam Gift Shop, memories had faded too for Sarah Williams, 44.

“I have heard of it,” she said of the cash for questions scandal, “But I couldn’t tell you anything about it.”

She paused: “He and his wife have been on something, on television, haven’t they?”

Being on the telly, of course, is no guarantee of popularity, as Ms Williams rather suggested: “Weren’t he and his wife seen as a bit of a joke? I know he’s got a background in politics, but I can’t imagine him as anything other than a TV celebrity – a slightly silly, blundering one.”

So, even though she wanted out of Europe, she was voting Conservative on Thursday. That, though, was nothing personal – at least not against Mr Hamilton.

“It’s because I can’t stand Nigel Farage,” said Mrs Williams.

And just listen to Ms Schoner: “I have always been Conservative, but I am not going to vote for them this time. They have been hiding all their money in tax havens – it’s put people off. And I do think Britain would be much better on its own, out of Europe, so it could well be a Ukip vote for me on Thursday.”

Or try steelworker turned nurse Thomas Davies, 52, of Penygroes.

“My wife likes Neil Hamilton. She will be voting Ukip, and personally, I feel we should pull out of Europe. I have seen what an open-door immigration policy does in the nursing profession: people not being able to speak English, even though it’s vital in the health industry; a mass influx of overseas nurses eight years ago, followed by a jobs freeze.”

His confidence, says Mr Hamilton smoothly, merely reflects what the polls say. He and the polls agree that he won’t win in the constituency Carmarthen East and Dinefwr – in which Llandeilo sits. Victory in that first-past-the-post contest will go to Adam Price of Plaid Cymru.

But in the additional member regional contests, decided by a form of proportional representation, Ukip is tipped by some polls to win between seven and ten of the 20 seats up for grabs, putting Mr Hamilton in the Welsh Assembly with fellow Tory defector Mark Reckless (in South Wales East), amongst others.

“Ukip will undoubtedly win at least one seat in every region in Wales,” said Mr Hamilton. “And I am top of Ukip’s Mid and West Wales regional list.”

As for Labour, one poll last month found the party’s Welsh support at its lowest ebb since the 2010 general election, when it polled its lowest share of the vote since the First World War. And Jeremy Corbyn probably isn’t helping.

“He’s stuck in the 1970s,” says Mr Davies. “When the unions ruined this country.”

He and his wife Natalie stopped voting Labour years ago.

And so, Mr Hamilton, 67, is predicting Labour will lose the dominance it has exerted over the Welsh Assembly since it was created 17 years ago.

Ukip will, he predicts, hold the balance of power – and he will enjoy providing “constructive opposition” – or, as he also puts it: “I am looking forward to introducing some well-merited acrimony into debates. We will be focusing relentlessly on the British and Welsh government’s impotence to do things like control immigration because of the EU.”

But please understand this is nothing to do with a political opportunist rediscovering his Welsh roots – and his first name Mostyn, which is now included in some campaign literature – after being parachuted into a cosy seat in a devolved parliament.

“The only reason that at my advanced age I am plunging back into the cesspit of politics is to try to realise the ambition I set myself nearly 50 years ago, when I joined the Anti-Common Market League in 1967: to protect, and now to restore, Britain’s independence,” said the ex-MP. “That has been the constant theme of my life in politics and outside.”

Adds the man who has always denied any wrong doing or taking of brown envelopes in the cash for questions affair: “We have no intention of being seduced by the fruits of office.”