Talking of the longevity of UKIP....Who now remembers a certain Robert Kilroy-Silk
I knew there was someone else besides David Dickinson who favoured the use of rather strangely bizarre shades of fake tan, as I am sure that David Dickinson was the nearest human missing-link to the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory....
Such cynicism from one so young! Of course the "general public" are not complete idiots (except, interestingly, in a linguistic sense - the word "idiot" derives from an Ancient Greek word meaning "someone who is not holding public office"), and they are protesting here. They realise that a) the system of local elections being split over several years means that radical change is almost impossible so b) they can vote for oddballs without it having the slightest real effect.
I think that most of the truly dangerous election successes have come about when "extremist" parties put on a "sensible" patina. The Nazis (for instance) were far from being perceived as oddballs when they took power. However, whatever the press may have us think, most people realise that UKIP are oddballs, and are using them to express disquiet rather than downright rejection of the status quo. This is where your puzzlement about backing "right wingers" is, IMHO, using the wrong template. The "status quo" involves three centrist parties who agree broadly on most things, swamped by the effects of a failure of regulatory administration over the last twenty years; in global terms, all three parties are left of centre, but differ on details of approach. I believe that voters see and understand this, but are voting outside the box as a means of saying something must be done. [The effects that such close alignment can have can be seen in some large councils such as Bradford, where the business tends to be not running the city, which all parties seem to think is impossible, but in petty bickering, which is why goons like Galloway can get elected. This stagnation has not yet been reached nationally]
Let us all be thankful that the "dregs of television" programmes such as Big Brother and others of its ilk are not seen to be a "new way forward" in determining who will be the "front bench" of any ruling British government ?
Can you imagine Katy Price as Chancellor of the Exchequer standing up and giving her personal views on "inflation"...
Let us all be thankful that the "dregs of television" programmes such as Big Brother and others of its ilk are not seen to be a "new way forward" in determining who will be the "front bench" of any ruling British government ?
Can you imagine Katy Price as Chancellor of the Exchequer standing up and giving her personal views on "inflation"...
Most of the press is anti-coalition. It does not like the idea of co-operation, as that tends to dilute its default mindset of "rubbish the opposition". So you get the Grauniad agreeing with the Torygraph, as unnatural alliance as ever Frankenstein spawned. Offering support to UKIP is all part of this game - they are not part of the coalition (and are not BNP - quite) so they get the support. But, when it comes to proper politics in an election, there will not be a coalition to hate, so I suspect the press will revert to type, and UKIP will be left wondering why it doesn't have the column inches it used to.
