Andrew, a few thoughts:

1) Was Reckless indulging in a permissible degree of subterfuge, or was he flat-out lying? It’s not nice to lie, even when the goal is to bring down the Conservative party.

2) I obviously did not say that it was dishonorable to prefer one party over another. I did say,

People have a right to run for office, and they have a right to form parties, and join parties. That’s the democratic way. I would have no other. Furthermore, people have a right to do “maximum damage” (in Hodges’s phrase) to parties they oppose.

What was dishonorable of Reckless was the charade of saying he supported the Conservatives while planning to jump to UKIP at the moment it would do the most possible harm to the Conservatives. That’s what happened, no?

Let me quote Reckless again, from late August, when Carswell switched to UKIP: “If people want a vote for an independent Britain they need a Conservative government.”

And note the difference between Carswell and Reckless, honor-wise.

3) Maybe there could be a debate, with just Reckless on the stage. His late-August self could debate his late-September self. Would be interesting.

4) For years, I heard from UKIP that grubby politics — subterfuge and all that — was what other parties did. The establishment parties. You know, “LibLabCon,” that tri-party monolith conspiring against the common man. UKIP, by contrast, was pure and principled.

And now a great UKIP defense is, “We’re no worse than the other guys”? “This is politics, bucko, get used to it”? Okay.

5) I don’t see what the point is of describing Dan Hodges as “left-of-center,” except to signal to a certain kind of reader that the person in question is not to be taken seriously. Either a thing is true or it isn’t, no matter where on the political spectrum the speaker is.

Do you disagree with Hodges about the timing of the Reckless announcement? Or the difference between Carswell’s behavior and Reckless’s?

I agree with you on the war thing.

6) As Daniel Hannan says, UKIP won’t take yes for an answer. Pearson and other Conservative defectors to UKIP said that they wanted to use this new party to pressure the Conservatives on Europe. It worked.

But does present-day UKIP want a referendum, if it requires a Conservative victory next May? Of course not. They don’t want to go out of business. They want a permanent presence on the scene, and they want power — or at least for the Conservatives not to have power.

That’s their perfect right. But why not be honest about it?

7) UKIP partisans may want to ask themselves this question: “Do I hate the Conservatives more than I love Britain? Is my passion mainly negative? Would I derive more satisfaction from a Labour government than I do from a Conservative government, or a Conservative-led coalition? If so, why? Have I fallen for ‘the worse the better’?”

(I realize those are several questions.)

8) Andrew, you suggest that UKIP is “imperfect.” Clearly, you are a squish — not true blue, or true purple — and you wish for Britons to be serfs of Brussels.

9) British conservative voters ought to be very clear: There is no more “freebie” vote, no more “pressure” vote. You vote for UKIP for one of two reasons: because you genuinely want UKIP to hold power, or because you want to bring down the Conservatives, giving Labour the keys. One or the other. But no more deception, self- or otherwise.

10) I think the biggest difference between purple and blue is this: Ukippers think that Britain is not better off since 2010 — that the country would be about the same with Brown and Labour. Conservatives beg to differ (to put it mildly).

The economy is up, crime is down, employment is up, welfare dependence is down, educational standards are up, educational excuses are down, etc. But these mundane facts are maybe not emotionally satisfying.

11) I should end with an even ten, but I want to say this: I fault the Conservatives for a lack of rapprochement with UKIP as much as I do the purple guys. More, actually: because the Conservatives are the bigger party, and have the bigger responsibility. They can afford a lot of graciousness and pride-swallowing.

I wish I could do a unity summit. But no one asks me to participate in the politics of my own country, much less the politics of other people’s . . .