What Boris said about Ukip, just before his former deputy defected

Richard Barnes, the former Conservative deputy mayor of London, has defected to Ukip.

The Evening Standard reports that Barnes said the Conservative party no longer spoke "the language of normal people". His defection came shortly after two Conservative MPs, Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell, also joined Ukip. Last September Mr Barnes hit the headlines after hackers posted his naked selfie on his Facebook page.

Last night, Mr Barnes' former boss Boris Johnson joked Ukip supporters were the type of people who had sex with vacuum cleaners.

It was widely publicised that the EU Commission wants to ban some British vacuum cleaners on the grounds that they are too powerful. I am perfectly prepared to concede that if you do not handle your vacuum cleaner correctly you may accidentally end up inhaling the hamster or sucking the budgerigar through the bars of the cage.

And I have read that there are some people – probably the type who are thinking of defecting to UKIP - who present themselves at A and E with barely credible injuries sustained in the course of what I can only call vacuum cleaner abuse.

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