Rupert Matthews: The East Midlands holds its breath

BBC News confirms that the Conservative Party has Doubts about Rupert Matthews and that those doubts are centred on the book that he published for the UKIP member Bill Etheridge - complete with golliwog on the cover.

Elsewhere, I rather like the way New Europe puts it:

Matthews was discovered to be a sceptic over the EU, but on precious little else.

That blog also quotes a source as saying that Helmer is threatening not to retire as planned and "foaming at the mouth" with anger.

How can they...? You can see where this is going.

Later. The Derby Telegraph says that Helmer will be delaying his resignation until around 15 January because of the uncertainty over his successor.