Douglas Carswell has this to say about Malala

Douglas Carswell has made history after becoming Ukip's first-ever elected MP.

Ukip's dramatic rise in support has not always coincided with the kindest headlines, but Carswell has largely been seen to have done the honourable thing by triggering a by-election instead of continuing in his seat until next May.

He has also been roundly praised by some Tory MPs, avoiding the kind of vitriol that accompanied Mark Reckless's defection.

But the new reality of his position in a party once dubbed by his former leader David Cameron as a "bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" might have become apparent while on walkabout in his constituency today.

In an interview with Newsweek on the day of the by-election Nigel Farage was asked about "health tourism", where he suggested that migrants with HIV should not be permitted into the country, sparking widespread anger.

While in Clacton today meeting his constituents for the first time as a Ukip MP, and followed by a media scrum, Carswell was asked by a Bloomberg journalist whether Ukip's apparent hardline on foreigners using the NHS meant he disagreed with the life-saving treatment afforded to Malala Yousafzai, who was transferred to a specialist hotel in Birmingham after being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan, in October 2012.

Malala was today awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming its youngest laureate ever.

But Carswell, whether out of respect for his party's hardline, general ignorance or simply being unable to hear the question, said he was "not familiar with that case".

Right...

i100.co.uk has contacted Ukip's central press office and Carswell's own representative to find out whether he knows who Malala is, and if not, to tell him all about her as she's quite a remarkable teenager who the NHS was happily able to help, even if the Pakistani government paid for her treatment.

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