No, I don't Kip.

Like many people, I’ve been looking on aghast at the rise of UKIP in Britain, well, England actually. UKIP? I don’t think I do, but I think I might once have trodden in some. 

'Yes, that’s all very well,’ I hear you say, ‘pot calling the kettle...... seeing that France has the Front National....' True, but after the events of 2002, when they got into the second round of the Presidential elections, it was quite clear that a vast majority of the population weren’t prepared to put up with such nonsense, the general sentiment being, ‘you’ve exercised your democratic perogative, to which you are entitled, but now, off you fuck.’ Many people voted with a peg on the nose, as a rainbow alliance of Trotskyists and various other flat-earthers, turned out in droves against their better judgement, to vote for the conservative incumbent.

The thing that helps UKIP is the British press, a filthy propaganda machine, which preys on an ever more dumbed-down and gullible public. For those of you unfamiliar with the British press, the headlines in the vast majority of newspapers normally take the form of either total hysteria or what some ‘celebrity’, (normally someone you’ve never heard of), has been up to, the most memorable being: ‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster.’ There is no attempt at rational argument or reporting the facts. Paedophiles are a particular target. The hysteria thus engendered is such that a paedriatrician was attacked at his practice a few years ago by a mob of outraged morons. They didn’t seem to realise that paedophiles don’t display brass plaques outside their doors. 

Its TV equivalent, Sky News does the same. I saw an interview with Professor David Nutt, the ex head of the government advisory committee on drugs. He was proposing the legalisation of all drugs using the sensible argument, backed by several years of research, that it would reduce muggings, burglary and violence whilst bringing in massive tax revenue, some of which could be used for rehabilitation. The interviewer didn’t even let him present his argument. ‘How can you possibly be advocating such irresponsible behaviour?’ or words to that effect. Excuse me, but this man is a leading expert in his field. Sky New’s interviewer seemed to be wholly ignorant of the basic tenets of her own profession.

The Conservative Party are making an ever more buffoonish effort at running the country, even to their supporters, who are defecting in droves to UKIP thus helping the rise of these small-minded bigots. Sorry, not bigots. I forgot. All you have to say is: I’m not a racist, homophobe, misogynist etc and that’s good enough for the most part. The French, in general, think that the Front National are pig-ignorant fascists. UKIP have more or less the same policies, but are not. Because they say so. They purportedly refuse membership to anyone who has previously had links with the extreme right. Why then do these people want to join?

I saw the UKIP leader on TV the other day, (yes, we do have English TV), he was making some idiotic point and comparing us to the German system: ‘Yes, I hate to say it, but for once, we can learn something from the Germans.’ 

I was in Germany in September, after an absence of about 30 years and was amazed at the place. The people were relaxed, smiling and welcoming; the atmosphere of lingering post-war guilt and embarrassment which I remembered when I briefly lived there, had gone. As to the place itself, there was solar power everywhere, the wealthier leafy suburbs were magnificent, with innovative architecture and the variety of both food and music, two of my big interests, was more than impressive. In short, they seem to be twenty years ahead of the rest of us.

I still maintain that we should let them run Europe; we know for a fact that the last thing they want to do is start a war and they have done a pretty good job of integrating the ex East Germany in twenty years. Can you seriously imagine Cameron doing the same? The Brits and the French could still contribute their strengths, although I’m not sure if mindless violence and non-stop moaning have a place in the EU.

What is most puzzling with this nationalistic surge is that in the main, supporters tend to be elderly people. They will will quite happily use racist expressions, but not ‘the F word’, and giggle nervously and interrupt any intelligent discussion like demented seven year olds whenever there is any mention of anything ‘risqué,’  especially of a sexual nature. For a generation which was decimated by the war, you’d think that they would know better. When I played in the Paris Metro, a man started shouting at me one day: ‘I fought in the war’ etc etc. I had the presence of mind to ask him whose side he had  been on? The same applies in the current climate of small mindedness. If these people are so proud of winning two World Wars and one World Cup, (which, incidentally, Germany has won four times), why do they embrace attitudes not dissimilar to those which they fought against?

If any UKIP fans are reading this, I would just like to point out that: 

a. Both myself, and just about everyone I know, don't want to live in the early part of the   

    twentieth century, with its attendant prudishness and hypocrisy.

b. I take great pleasure in the cultural diversity which immigrants bring to any country.

c. If you are a UKIP supporter, don't come here. You're the kind of foreigners we can all do

    without. You have nothing to contribute.