It's UKIP time

FEELING DIRTY - FOLLOWING THE SMELL OF KIPPERS

Anyone who's read some of my earlier posts will be aware that my political views would be described as left of centre. Certainly well to the left of New Labour. So it's no surprise that many of the people I follow on Twitter have similar opinions. We all want to hear things which reinforce our world view. But sometimes it's good to get to see the opposite side too, if only just to try and understand what motivates the people you often find yourself disagreeing with.

A few months ago, not long after the Sandy Hook murders, I spent several weeks following supporters of the NRA, who also tended to people on the side of the Tea Party Republican movement. And, so they seemed to think, on the side of their god. It was certainly an interesting experience, but there was never likely to be any meeting of minds. Their view of humanity was so disparate from mine as to be irreconcilable. And now I've spent some time 'with' their equivalents on this side of the pond. For the past three weeks I've been following about a dozen UKIP supporters, beginning the experiment just a few days before the recent local government elections. And now I'm here to report on what I found.

I have to give them credit for being very good at one thing. Very, very good. Hatred. They excel when it comes to hating things. And people. But mostly things, institutions, vague concepts. Being openly hateful towards actual people can look too much like actual bigotry. And UKIP doesn't do bigotry. Or racism. And all of us know this because they keep saying they don't. That's clear enough, isn't it?

We can start with the EU. Apparently it has never, never ever, done anything worthwhile and is to blame for, oh, about 90% of any set of problems you care to name. Day after day I've read tweets telling me that withdrawing from the EU is a cure for almost any ailment (albeit not the common cold, well not yet). Just one glance at my timeline as I type this shows me that Britain is either being destroyed by Europe (It does seem that most of us are mistaken and the British Isles are actually a separate continent. Well, apart from Paddyland of course.) Or we will come "to resemble an Eastern European Soviet Block". Did I hear you say you'd like some evidence to back up these assertions? You must be some kind of commie.

In less than three weeks one woman has thrice tweeted that there have already been two referendums on the EU - in 1914 and 1939. I sincerely hope she's a troll, or it's a sad indictment of our educational system. Maybe she could take night classes in history? The First World War was a conflict between the ruling imperial oligarchies of the major European powers, with little to choose between any of them for the way in which they chose to use their own peoples as cannon fodder. What happened in 1939 was a very different war, justifiably fought against an evil ideology which sought to wipe out, or subjugate, Jews, communists, homosexuals, gypsies, Slavs, and so on and on, indeed anyone not considered to be part of the 'Aryan' myth. Any self aware UKIP supporters reading this might find that list strikes a familiar chord.

Did you know that the EU is a Marxist conspiracy? And that it is "our hereditary foe"? (Honestly, I'm not making this up.) I've learned that too. Along with the fact that UKIP supporters don't have access to dictionaries and aren't aware that capitalism is enshrined into the EU constitution, even featuring in the list of basic human rights. These night classes could be kept busy.

What else comes into the UKIPers firing line? Immigration tends to be their second favourite topic, followed closely by Islam.  Not immigrants or Moslems of course, because that might not.... look good. Except there were plenty of tweets implying that paedophilia and other forms of sexual abuse was in some way linked to immigrants or Moslems, not as individuals but as groups. Not that UKIP supporters are in any way racist. Well maybe the odd one. Maybe some very odd ones. There couldn't be any truth to this article, could there?

Farage is constantly pointing out that his is the only party to explicitly ban previous members of the BNP and other extremist organisations.  Ah, the laddie doth protest too much, methinks. Maybe, just maybe, none of the UKIPers I've been following are racists themselves, but they do keep some interesting company. I have had several retweets into my timeline from people who are ardent EDL supporters including one suggesting that "Welfare is funding Islamic conquest of Europe".  Another was advocating all "white British males" to join the BNP, National Front, anything really because they had to "fight back". And then there was the charming young man who hankered for better days gone by and suggested that "benign imperialism" was best for the "backwards" countries. Oh, hang on, he actually is a UKIP supporter. They do get the loveliest people.

Then there's gay marriage. And the gay agenda (which sounds like a more fun meeting than most of the ones I used to have to go to). And gays. Homosexuals. And other terms. I saw one tweet describing somebody, possibly some Tory MPs, as "bending over backwards submissively like poofs". For the first time in decades I found the phrase 'shirt lifters' appearing before me, not just once, but three or four times. Reading this stuff I kept expecting a sniggering Reg Varney to stick his head round the door. (Younger readers might need to read this to understand that reference!) Of course UKIP isn't at all homophobic. No, of course not, it just happens to attract anti-gay bigots. Coincidence really.

The BBC. Full of lefties. Marxist agenda. Unpatriotic. Funny, feels to me like Farage and co have never been off our airwaves in the past few days, whilst that other smaller party in England never gets much of a mention, despite having almost as many councillors as UKIP and a Westminster MP. Plus two MSPs at Holyrood, something Farage can't even dream about. Yes the Greens don't seem to get much of a look in, do they? Leftie BBC? LOL.

Meanwhile Question Time seems to love it's frothing-at-the-mouth right wingers, inviting the likes of Starkey and Hitchins back again and again. Oh, and Farage. Even Griffin. Whilst I hardly ever see my views represented at all with only Owen Jones and Ken Loach making the odd appearance. Meanwhile the selling off of the most important institution in Britain, the NHS, has received scant coverage on the BBC who have pandered shamefully to this right wing government.

I get annoyed at the BBC for being so right wing, so 'establishment' at times. Meanwhile the extreme right regard it as a left wing hot bed. Which probably means that, on balance, they are doing a difficult job fairly well. I one would hate to lose them. Just try imagining a British version of Fox News (*shudder*).

One final special place is reserved on the hate list for a man I mentioned above, Owen Jones.  My UKIP 'friends' really do seem to want a place set aside in their vision of hell for him. So he must be doing something right. There's even a parody account in his name, which displays all the deft sense of humour and wit that Thatcher was so rightly famed for....

Oh, one more. The Scots. But only since last Thursday.  I felt so proud of my home city.

To be fair there are also things that they all seem to love. And that's where I really found myself entering into some kind of parallel existence. Let's call it Kipperland. It certainly smells fishy.

In Kipperland you can refer to Richard Littlejohn columns as 'evidence', presumably whilst managing to keep a straight face. 'Mad Mel' Phillips is taken seriously and an endorsement from that crumbling Neanderthal, Norman Tebbit, is not seen as embarrassing. Those well known symbols of liberalism and journalistic integrity, the Daily Fail and the Express, feature prominently as reliable sources for stories on their favourite topics. And there was some serious courting of well known 'celebrity' MP, Nadine Dorries, because she's such a heavyweight political figure. (Mind you, they already have the infamously corrupt liar Neil Hamilton on their list of parliamentary candidates, so they aren't too choosy.) Truly another world.

And yet. Once I look beyond the bigotry and rampant paranoia what I see is something very familiar. UKIP and their supporters make much of how different they are from the three main English parties that they disparagingly refer to as the LibLabCons. But what came through was that behind the extremist rhetoric, and some of the loonier policies they propose, they look depressingly similar.

But that's for my next post.

Italian Sparks

WHEN STEREOTYPES COME TO LIFE

A few years ago, in September 2008, we went to Florence. A beautiful city with plenty to do and see and the bonus of some excellent food. We were lucky with our hotel too, a centuries old palazzo on the banks of the Arno and the biggest hotel room I've ever occupied. There was a huge fresco on the ceiling and the four poster bed looked like it belonged in a doll's house such was the scale it had to contend with. There was much about our stay which could be described as memorable.

And yet, when I think back on that holiday, it isn't the stay that immediately comes to mind, but the journey to get there. Unusually, in these days of budget airlines and cheap flights, we went by train. A more expensive alternative, but it provided an experience we wouldn't have wanted to miss out on.

The plan for the trip was straightforward and relaxed. We would take a train down to London and stay in a hotel opposite Saint Pancras. A leisurely breakfast, cross the road and present ourselves for our mid morning Eurostar to Paris. There would be about four hours in the French capital, ample time to make our way from Gare du Nord to Gare de Bercy (which lies south east of the centre) and enjoy a relaxing dinner before boarding the sleeper to Florence just before eight in the evening. Getting to bed (bunk!) sharp would prepare us for our early morning arrival into Firenze. What could be more enjoyable?

One week before we were due to speed under the English Channel we awoke to the news that there had been a major fire in the tunnel. The good news was that nobody had been seriously injured, although it must have been a frightening experience for anyone caught down there. The bad news was that it had been closed to enable rescue and repair work to be undertaken and there was no clue as to when it would reopen. At this stage we could only follow the reports and hope that the damage things would soon get sorted.

Within two days one of the two tunnels had been reopened for business and a limited service began. As the days went by the operation got slicker and trains were bunched up to run in one direction, then the tunnel made available for the reverse journey. This system would be in place for several months. Passengers were being advised to turn up well in advance of their booking time, but to expect long delays.

We went to London, found an information person and explained the need to make the sleeper connection. Would that be OK? Yes it would, but we might not have as long in Paris as we'd planned. The system was still bedding in. In reality what was achieved was impressive and the organisation worked well. True, we had a couple of hours to wait in an overcrowded departure lounge. But it still beats going Ryanair. Given how major an incident had taken place just seven days previously there could be no quibble with the service provided and the information available.

Which didn't stop it from being a disappointment that we were into Paris well over two hours after we'd planned. Into the rush hour. That was fun, negotiating the Metro with a couple of large suitcases. It helped to look slightly mad and foreign. No time, of course, for the relaxed Parisian dinner we'd looked forward to. A pavement cafe, biere pour moi, vin rose pour madame, evening sunshine. No complaints. We'd get fed on the train.

I'd read about the on-train dining arrangements before we left and knew the score. Make your wishes known to the guard and he'd tell you which sitting you were going to. We'd hope to be in the one at eight, shortly after boarding, but the location of our cabin meant that option had been taken by the time we were asked and we would have to hold on until ten o'clock. So be it, but we'd be hungry.

Ten comes and we sway and shuffle along to the dining car, joining the queue waiting to seated. In the dining area the eight o'clock lot are still finishing off. We, the late eaters, are stood by the kitchen and serving section of the carriage, our only distraction the antics of the cooking and waiting staff. At this point you may want to check my title out again.

There was a lot of coming and going. It was hard to say what the purpose of these activities were, but they were plentiful. Then the lights went out. From what I could see it was only this carriage that was affected. Cue much shouting and (presumably) cursing in Italian, striking of matches and finally a torch appears. Someone can be seen attacking something on the wall beyond the head of our queue. Hey presto, the lights go back on, revealing the chef returning grumpily to his kitchen. He had fixed the problem with one of his chopping knives. Even if I could have spoken Italian I reckond it would still be best not to ask questions....

Eventually, well past ten, the satisfied customers emerge and we are able to take their places. Then, well, not much happens. One waiter can be seen lovingly transferring freshly grated parmesan into small dishes. Each table will get a dish. Drinks orders are taken, wine arrives. No food (unless you count the cheese), just wine. Food orders are taken. Oh good, the chef can have some idea of what he's up to now, other than his emergency electrician duties. It must have been well after ten thirty before large pots of risotto emerge and we are given two choices. I was starving and ended up having a bit of both. They were, at least, delicious.

A gap. A longish gap. Our mains arrive. The lights go out. I can see the chef doing his thing, but, frankly, I'd rather eat. His culinary efforts are superior to his handyman skills. I don't need light to enjoy what I'm eating, I just need to let my instincts rip. I'm still that hungry.

The train stops at the Swiss border control. The staff get off for a smoke. We await dessert. The lights go out. The chef is having a fag so we have to sit in darkness for a bit longer this time. Priorities, eh? Anyway, there's a bit of light this time from the platform of the Swiss station. So he probably knew we'd be fine.

Dessert comes, is eaten. Coffee is offered. No thanks, just the bill please. Are you sure sir? Oh yes, I am. Shrugs. I have to give it to him, it was one of the best and most expressive shrugs I've ever witnessed. He obviously practices. A lot. Finally we are able to pay and sway along the corridors to our cabin, now miraculously converted into a place for sleep. It is well after midnight, and I am full of a lovely Italian meal.

I don't sleep much.

But I still wouldn't have missed the experience.