This is lovely:
He’d be one of the most colourful and eccentric British Parliamentarians of modern times. And one Tory MP once called him “as mad as a box of snakes.”
Rupert Matthews hopes soon to take over as Conservative MEP for the East Midlands, replacing the arch-Eurosceptic Roger Helmer, who last autumn announced his intention to step down shortly. But many in the party high command are worried, and not just because Matthews seems to be just as Eurosceptic as Helmer.
On the PR list system for the 2009 Euro elections, the top two candidates on the Tory list in the East Midlands were elected – Helmer and Emma McClarkin. Matthews, who was third on the list, was unsuccessful runner-up. By convention the next on the party list succeeds if any MEP dies or resigns. In this case that, of course, would be Matthews.
But it’s not automatic. Under the electoral rules the party hierarchy has to approve the succession, and in this instance they’ve made it clear they want to interview Matthews first – on the grounds that he’s no longer on the candidates’ list. That makes Roger Helmer suspect a Central Office plot to ditch his friend Matthews in favour of a woman.
Matthews is undoubtedly controversial. He caused some offence, for instance, by publishing a pamphlet on ‘Political Correctness’ with golliwogs on the cover.
And he appears to have some outlandish interests, to say the least. Visit the site of the International Metaphysical University and you’ll get an online course tutored by Matthews on the paranormal. For $425 he’ll teach you all about ghosts, UFOs, poltergeists and so on, all towards gaining an online masters degree.
When I went to see Rupert Matthews at his home in Surrey today he refused to speak on camera. He doesn’t want to upset his chances.
Off-camera, he denied several times to my face that he was a teacher for the IMU, and had merely designed the course. Yet in the IMU’s online video Matthews talks to camera of being “your tutor for the course”. Matthews denies being a professor for the university, though they were calling him such up to the end of last week.
And he denied that IMU gives out degrees, though their website quite clearly offers masters degrees. All very odd.
This is the sort of thing you normally associate with the Greens.
