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Why Farage cannot be Vicky Pollard
Vicky (Vicki?) Pollard is a tremendous creation- a whinging no-hoper, so from that point of view, it might surprise people who have read my other posts that I think the link between Farage and Pollard is wrong. Particularly as Mr Farage has now resigned without winning South Thanet, a failure for which I hope I can take some personal credit.
“no but, yeh but, what happened was- shut up. I wasn’t even supposed to be here like this… blah blah blah” Brilliant!
She blisters forth with a barrage of contradictions and bluster, some of it quite unprintable and, in fact, all beautifully cadenced.
Farage, for all his faults, is one of the best political performers in the UK today. His speeches in the Chamber of the EU alone are always worth watching on Youtube and I am sure are thrilling in real life. I love the fact that he is so confident and speaks without notes. His delivery, the content, the Chutzpah and humour are always, therefore, remarkable and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that. His only rhetorical rival is Boris. Just to press the point, listen to, or watch Ed Miliband who has a stream of very specific rhetorical flourishes, most of them repetitive, and that is it. He has managed a slightly better screen image of late- with some coaching, but it is nothing as extreme as the transformation wrought on Thatcher by Gordon Reece, nor indeed as effective. (Reece was a schoolboy contemporary of Norman St John Stevas at my old School Ratcliffe College) Ed remains, therefore, “nice Ed” and today watching him resign, I felt that what he really needed was a good hug. (I am not volunteering: I am not really a hugger at all) But Ed Miliband does vulnerability and that is not the diet of choice for leading British politicians today.
I can go a little further and add that on many issues, I share Mr Farage’s views. I differ significantly about immigration but I certainly recognise that the EU project, as it stands, is seriously damaged. Simply looking across to Greece, which is a country I know well confirms that Europe is no longer working properly. No country in a cohesive federation of National states should be so bullied or so shamed and punished for faults that were made years ago and with the connivance of the very countries that now seem to press for austerity. The Greek demand for reparations, incidentally, from Germany seems to me reasonable, but more reasonable would be Germany’s unconditional offer of such reparations. That way, at least the money would flow, and we would no longer be talking about debt.
When Farage tries vulnerability, however- with pleas about back-pain or, today with a reference to his plane-crash (which caused the back pain in the first place), it all seems a bit disingenuous. He is better on attack, and that is why he is no Pollard. Pollard is all stammer and alot of unprintable invective scatter-gunned at whoever might be in the Farage’s attacks have bite and bile. I should know- his people tried some of that on me!
Vicky Pollard, however, is all about vulnerability. A different type of vulnerability to Ed Miliband’s, of course. She is aggressive because she is hurt. That is not Miliband, and certainly not Farage.
I have drawn a picture of Farage as Vicky, which is below, and that is why I have given this some thought. The idea came from a tossed-off comment made on the BBC so it is not my analogy at all.
Let’s face it, a politician cannot plead for sympathy when he has lost an election. Farage tried that and he was compared on the BBC to a character from Little Britain. Well done, BBC!
However, for UKIP resignation is not about honour. It is about punishment which is why Coburn will not resign and why Farage has converted his resignation into something else. Let me offer a visual hint with refence to Cliff Richard and Greece- “Who forgot to fill the tank?”
Farage’s resignation was odd. Within minutes of resigning, he was offering to stand again for office in September. So for Farage, resignation is just a cheap holiday away from responsibility. But he remains an MEP and I have already written to him as my MEP to ask him very specific questions.
Meanwhile, the fate of the UKIP project hangs in the balance because there is no-one quite able to take the place of Farage. Suzanne Evans, who Farage recommends as interim leader, exposed herself the other night on TV as morally hollow when she failed to recognise the wealth of difference between a labour man, Sumon Hoque, dismissed for not having a proper MOT- a driving offence- and a UKIP man, Robert Blay, who has threatened to shoot a rival Sri Lankan candidate between the eyes. She pleaded, rather stupidly, that the press were over-emphasising the case of Robert Blay simply because he was a UKIPPER. If anything, they underplayed the story because of a BBC fear about political bias in the days immediately before the election.
Because of the postal votes, the system in both cases went ahead. the labour guy insisted he was still standing; I am not sure Blay has said anything and I assume both that Blay did not attend the count and that the votes were wasted. The issue is largely academic but it would have been interesting if either had come first.
In the case of Jason Zadrozny, who was arrested I think just before the campaign began, he withdrew from the election process himself. As I understand it, unless the issue was bankruptcy, criminal proceedings would not automatically bar a candidate from standing in an election and indeed Bobby Sands was elected to Parliament in 1981, the then youngest MP but a prisoner who died a month after his election. Prisoners who are serving gaol sentences of more than a year’s length are now forbidden to stand under the Representation of the People Act 1981.
My red line, however, remains: Racism, in any form, cannot be condoned, and, so far, I understand neither Humza Yousaf nor Ranil Jayawardena has received a written apology from the leader of UKIP or from anyone claiming that authority. If Mr Farage has indeed resigned, and if Evans is appointed only as a caretaker, then maybe there is now no-one left to write these letters until a new leader is elected in Septamber. Should Mr Farage don the mantle again then, I suppose these questions will remain there to haunt him. And certainly whoever succeeds to authority in UKIP would take on the responsibility of writing at least the three letters I have myself demanded of the leader. This is quite apart from the demand that Mr Coburn MEP should resign, which I suppose is his own decision now as there will be no leader with the authority to command his suspension. I still hold out hope that Farage has a heart and will take proper responsibility during the next few weeks to sort out what he has so far not bothered to do. I would genuinely like to hear that he has bothered to respond. And anyway, Paul Oakden in his interview on Radio Northampton promised that “after the election, he will get round to” answering me. Who knows!
I remain an optimist.
Why we need to restore the Tier 1 visa
I have been an educational consultant for some years now, and before that was a tutor and teacher. I have spent a long time dealing with foreign children of all ages who have come to the UK for their education. Some have done so on a shoestring, and some have cash to burn, but all have been hit by the testy machinery of immigration visas, and often this has hindered their GCSE, A level and exam progress. In at least three cases known to me personally, a student has done extra years simply because of bureaucratic foul-ups by the system. Sometimes, agents in the host country are to blame because they do not understand the system. But whatever the excuse, we should be ashamed to make young people suffer in this way, particularly when we are also taking their money.
Humza Yousaf
I first noticed the Scottish MSP Humza Yousaf because he criticised the removal of Tier 1 in 2012 by the present Government. This is the visa that would allow a student, on completing a degree in the UK, to put his or her studies to use in a job. It generally allowed the student two years’ employment. It was a chance to test their skills in the market for which, quite frankly, they have been prepared. More than that, it was an opportunity for the Government to get some serious tax from people who no doubt will command high-salaried placements in the city. The alternative is to apply for a job and be sponsored under Tier 2. This is a complex and expensive procedure that few businesses are willing to undertake. What it means in practice, therefore, is that jobs are given to UK/EU citizens on graduation rather than to those from outside the EU. In other words, we have educated these people and get little benefit when that education is over. That makes no sense and it flies against the lessons of history. Education is a form of diplomacy and we should take it seriously.
Mr Yousaf said that the removal of the Tier 1 visa, along with many other aspects of aggressive immigration policy was damaging Scotland’s economy. But the reason behind the target was a commitment given by David Cameron to reduce UK immigration to below 100,000 by 2015, and certainly to bring down the annual net immigration figure of 260,000.
Now, Humza’s point was that immigrants had not settled across the UK evenly and far too few had made it up to Scotland. So, if public opinion in England was negative about immigration, in Scotland there was a different picture, and Humza in particular, himself the son of immigrants, with a mother from Kenya and a father from Pakistan, has mounted a campaign to welcome immigrants there. Scotland needs an immigration policy tailored to its own needs, but while we remain a UNITED KINGDOM, surely we should be working together with Edinburgh to tackle immigration and channel more people north!
The problem is not about net immigration. It is about the overall spread of immigration. And playing a numbers’ game is not the solution as indeed the present Government has discovered. The numbers are down, but in the South, people still complain- and that fuels the rise of racism and of UKIP. Ironic, then that Scotland is asking for immigrants. Isn’t the solution staring at us in the face?
Reform immigration control
A tight regulation for immigration which is conservative/coalition policy is fairly straightforward in principle. But it is a mess in practice because the Government inherited an unfit system from Labour. It is about proper control of our borders, which, of course, I welcome. What I do not welcome is the pressure on the two well-documented groups who actually should receive our support – these are students and refugees. We cannot tackle the problem of illegal immigration by appeal to bureaucracy because illegal migrants rarely have proper paperwork. That is why we need less bureaucrats and more people working on the street to catch gangs of dodgy undocumented migrants, or people catching a lift across the channel under lorries and slipping away at the first stop on the M1.
Just a few weeks’ ago, there was a report of two Albanian men arrested because they had been sitting on the rear axle waving at passing motorists from a Polish lorry. They were detained at junction 16 near Watford Gap services. A spokesman for Northamptonshire Police said: “We received a call at around 8.50am from a motorist who spotted a man waving at traffic while hanging on to the underside of a lorry”. The lorry driver was not aware of the stowaways. This may be a National issue, but when it happens near Northampton, it also becomes a local issue. I have no idea whether the two men were refugees or illegal migrants. I have suspicions, of course, but the fact remains they were also endangering other motorists and the police interception saved lives.
This is a dramatic story, but many local taxi-drivers will say they regularly pick up undocumented foreigners from Junction 16. It is the first stop on the M1. If the taxi-drivers know this, why does the immigration authority not? I suspect it is understaffed. Too much attention is paid to bureaucracy and not enough to front-line staff. This means that it is those with paper-work who receive the most scrutiny. Regrettably, that means students and refugees.
Why students and refugees are important
The reason we need to reign back our attacks on students and refugees is very simple. Refugees command our support because the way we deal with the most needy in society is the way we should be judged. As for Foreign students, they not only bring in extra money, but they are often the very people who, in years to come, will be running their own governments and businesses. These are the people with whom we hope to do business in the future and I hardly think they will welcome our attention if their principle memories of their time here as students are of being fleeced by scurrilous colleges and thrown out of the country willy-nilly because their paperwork needs renewing half-way through their course. (I do not understand the need, for example, to set up a new visa for children committed to a British education when they pass from GCSE to A levels and remain in the same school. This means delays and anxiety on top of the need to wait for GCSE results. Often, it means starting the 6th form late.) We need to support these students, not savage them.
Both students and refugees have a history of investing in and enriching our society. This cannot happen if we treat them like dirt. It harms us in the long run and it shames us. These two groups are becoming a scapegoat because we cannot be bothered to track down illegal migrants and we cannot prevent or indeed monitor gangs coming here from across mainland Europe.
We should not be demonizing groups of people- East Europeans and those outside Europe for instance; we need now to pool resources and work together to target those people in our society who are doing us damage. We cannot tackle the Eastern European gangs who target, for example, Pakistani houses in Banbury, unless we work together with the Rumanian and Bulgarian communities who know so much more about this than we do. And, of course, as I have repeatedly stressed, we cannot deal with Islamic terrorism without the help of Orthodox Islam.
Rather than alienating swathes of our population with continued talk of “widespread abuse”, we need urgently to make friends and reach out to our neighbours.
The Post Study working group
In March, a number of Scottish businesses and educational professionals called for change. A Post study work group was set up in August 2014 and made recommendations in March about how best to reinstate the Tier 1 visa, urging London and Edinburgh to work together. The following findings were published:
- 90 per cent of all respondents are in favour of bringing back the post study work visa for international students (100 per cent of education providers and 85 per cent of businesses).
- Business support for the reintroduction of the post study work visa rose to 94 per cent among those who had hired an international graduate under previous post study work schemes.
- The majority of respondents across business and education providers, believe international students should be free to remain and work in Scotland for at least two years after graduation.
- 70 per cent of respondents said that when a post study work visa comes to an end, individuals should have the ability to move onto a longer term visa.
Scotland also proposes that any time spent in a post study Tier 1 type visa should also count towards a residence visa – of indefinite leave to remain- should a former student wish to apply. The smith commission suggested the Westminster and Scottish Governments should “…work together to explore the possibility of introducing formal schemes to allow international higher education students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland and contribute to economic activity for a defined period of time.”
It is not just Scotland but the whole of the UK that needs to “attract and retain” world-class talent. We need the Tier 1 visa too.
Why Sticks and stones matter
This evening I am blogging about a National story. But it has relevance to Daventry and, indeed, to any political campaign.
Let me put this in context: A few weeks’ ago, I felt a red line had been crossed when an elected MEP, David Coburn, compared a Scottish Parliamentary Minister to a convicted terrorist. I had written to the leader of the relevant party (my own) asking for a clear letter of apology to be sent to Humza Yousaf and when no such letter was forthcoming, and equally when the said MEP failed to resign, I did what I thought was the honourable thing and resigned myself both as a Parliamentary candidate and as a member of the said party. In this way, I found myself as an independent candidate standing for the District Council in Drayton.
I am proud that I stood up for what is right. We need to respect one another and we need to stand up to bullies, whoever and wherever they are. Sometimes falling on your sword is the only way to make a point, pun intended. And the point MUST be made that Racism and homophobia are simply unacceptable in today’s society.
I was verbally savaged after I resigned, and then my family was attacked. The savaging I accept- the attack on my family I denounce. It is plucked from the same cupboard as the racism and the homophobia, a cupboard full of the “dark arts” of Politics. It has no place in our world and those who use, or even dip into these dark arts do not deserve public office.
I believe passionately that bullies should be ridiculed. I was a teacher and remain an educational consultant: I know the harm that bullies can do, but I also know how readily they collapse when we laugh at them. I think of the “Ridikulous spell” against the Boggarts in Harry Potter- I think it is not surprising that it features in the best Harry Potter book, “the Prisoner of Azkaban”. That’s how to deal with bullies!
Both racism and homophobia are mostly about bullying, calling people by foul names, of demeaning a person by reference to race, creed, gender. Of course, in extreme cases this can also lead to actual violence. But name-calling is quite bad enough, and it is worth reflecting on the old adage about “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.” They may not, but the person who uses racist or homophobic “names” is exposed there and then as a pathetic individual, quite unworthy of election. Anyone who defends that person is smeared by association. Names may not hurt me, but they should certainly hurt the name-caller!
Of course, when you stand up to a bully, as one brave boy I know did a few weeks’ ago in one of our major Public Schools, there is every chance the bully himself will start crying and claim he has been the victim. Though soon after that, he was into blackmail: “By their fruits shall ye know them”!
Today, there is a news story about a Labour man called Ian Smart who referred to the SNP as “fascist scum” and Neil Hay who is himself an SNP candidate has called UK supporters “quislings” or traitors. He has done this rather more shamefully under a pseudonym, and he has rightly been exposed and asked to account for what he has written. It seems he was also fairly outspoken about elderly people, questioning their ability to vote. We can’t have that!
His blog has now been deleted but that is never enough. Nicola Sturgeon said this, “I do condemn the language used and I condemn the comments made – as I always do when anybody steps out of line on Twitter, on Facebook or any medium.”
There is the famous story of S. Jean Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, canonized in 1925, who was faced by a penitent, a lady who claimed to have been gossiping. He asked her to bring him a chicken and, because lunch was calling, to pluck it as she walked from her home to church. When she arrived with the freshly plucked bird, he told her to go back and collect all the feathers. “But that’s impossible,” she said, “Many of them will have blown away”. And so it is, said the priest, with gossip and name-calling. It spreads. The damage that is done when we write a stupid blog cannot be undone simply by taking down the blog. And an apology needs to be made good by a proper demonstration of repentance. (I knew a wonderful man in Greece called Roger de Ponton d’Amecourt who was writing a comprehensive biography of the Priest. I do not know whether he has finished it and we have sadly fallen out of contact.)
I resigned from UKIP because I felt the need to sever the link from a party that condoned racism and homophobia. My penance is not finished. I must now try to repair some of the damage done by my association with that party. The least I can do is to continue writing to Mr Farage and demanding Mr Coburn’s resignation as well as a letter of apology to Mr Yousaf. So far, Mr Farage has failed to respond directly, though I gather he has made national funds available to target my campaign in Drayton.
But it is surely time that politics in the UK changed, and politicians of all parties grew up. Three things need to be said. First of all, some of the greatest politicians have changed party allegiance. That is nothing shameful or new. Churchill, for example, did so. Secondly, there used to be a code of honour because we are all, after all, in the same business: we want to change the way that things are done, and we feel propelled to do this in the public eye. We do not set out to be savaged personally, or to be lynched, and nor should we expect our families to be attacked. Instead, we stand up, we speak out and we, alone, should be held to account. And thirdly and finally, regarding the name calling that has taken place today- there was a referendum only a few months’ ago and Scotland voted very clearly to remain in the Union. That may not be the result the SNP wanted to hear, but it is a democratic decision and until there is a further vote, it should be accepted. The people who voted for the Union are not “quislings”- they were exercising a democratic right. And the SNP is one of the most socially aware parties in our United Kingdom – to call the SNP “fascist scum” is to belittle the people who died fighting genuine fascism in the Second world war; Fascist scum would not welcome immigrants. Fascist scum would not put out one of the most generous education packages for University students in the country.
We need to be less tribal in our politics and there is no need at all for British Politics to be so grubby.
Civic pride and what we can learn from Istanbul!
In 2006, the Turkish government, run by the AK PARTİ (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) under the leadership of Erdogan began a process to import tulips back into Istanbul.
Today, there is such an abundance of tulips, that splashes of colour scythe through the city like a parade of multicoloured dervishes, spreading the scent of Spring. I have been to Istanbul most years since 2004 and I have seen for myself how this transformation has taken place.
The tulip is just one example of a horticultural revolution that says Istanbul is proud of herself. That pride is evident of course in the colours of the flowers but it is also evident on the faces of the people in the street, the ordinary people who go about their lives feeling better because they can see- and smell- that the Council really cares!
It is actually a fairly simple plan, but I will come to that shortly.
The tulip was introduced to Turkey from Iran where it grew wild. It is a traditional image on the tiles that decorate some of the greatest mosques around the city and today it has been adopted as a symbol on the Istanbul logo.
The cultivation of the Tulip became a mania in the Ottoman period, so much so that one particular epoch is called “the Tulip period” and at that time, rare bulbs sold for remarkable sums of money. Trade was international and soon, that mania had passed to Holland, the setting, for example, of “the black tulip” , a novel by Alexandre Dumas. My mother always said she had a black tulip bulb in the safe: I have no idea but it sounded very exotic.
I grew up in a small Market town in Lincolnshire where my mother was involved in the local tulip bulb industry. Spalding was so industrious and the ground so similar to that of Holland that, when I was a small child, the town held its own Tulip Parade to rival that of the Dutch mega-parades in Zundert and Keukenhof. Sadly, the flower parade in Spalding ground to a halt last year. But I loved the imagination that went into making these amazing floats; I loved the fact that they were decorated overnight, and, really, only lasted a couple of days (it’s actually very Buddhist!); and I also loved the complete sensory effect of the flower parade- the noise, the colour, the smell, the excitement, the overpowering beauty and the pride it gave to our small town.
The mother of all tigers from the Keudert Flower parade!
Check out this archive flim:
I well-remember this parade!
THE DAVENTRY PARK PROJECT:
Here in Daventry, I have been campaigning for a restored Professional Park scheme. I am, of course, inspired by the wonderful images from my childhood in Spalding. But I am also inspired, perhaps more so by the practical approach taken in Istanbul by the city Council. I have been talking to members of the Council over the last year with a view to designing some children’s books to celebrate particularly the history of the Fatih district, but I have also been impressed by the overall scheme the council has followed to refresh the city. I intend to talk to Councillors about their scheme and also about how they sourced materials, especially the outside gym equipment which is so striking a part of the overall vision, and I think it would work here in Daventry too!
I think there are three specific things that the AK party have done:
- the training and courses set up in horticulture by the City in association with local universities and colleges, providing garden design and employees for the future.
- the celebration of festivals and history that also involves research into plants of the past. It is because of this that the tulip has been so revived, but there are also “Monument trees”, that are replanted and tended, restoring the vistas of the past and improving the way the city looks today. It is partly this vision which ironically both inspired the protests in Gazi square to “save the trees” and also inspired the developments that threatened to redevelop the area. The compromise seems to involve some transplanting/replanting and rethinking. For all the negative image this protest created, it shows very clearly that our environment is something people care deeply about.
- The city has established open-field gyms, taking exercise out into the parks and democratising sport in a very real way, giving access to children, the disabled and the elderly. I will be going to Istanbul soon to try to find out how the technology was developed for outdoor sports equipment taht would withstand a climate that is no less changeable and erratic than our own.
If my vision of what we could do in DAVENTRY is shaped by my childhood in Spalding, my practical proposals follow what has already happened in Istanbul. What we can see there is that this sort of revitalisation works. It is a positive force in society and we can do something similar here in Daventry.
Why the Parks are the life-blood of the town
I was appalled to walk around Daventry a few weeks ago with Councillor Sean Connors who, like me has a keen belief that we can do better, work harder, enjoy life, when we live in a beautiful place. He is a man who really does have “green fingers” and is trained as a horticulturalist. I think we need to recognise that the contracted park service we currently use is not fit for purpose and we need to set up something we can be proud of. I don’t doubt that this will take a bit of time to arrange, but I am sure the goodwill is there to support such a scheme. We need a trained team of responsible people, properly equipped and motivated to give dignity to Daventry. 
Since I resigned last Tuesday, I have been approached by many people asking me to stand as an Independent candidate. I worry that time is short and also I cannot begin to describe the exhaustion of facing up to all the savagery from UKIP that followed by resignation.
Here, anyway is a video I made with Sean a few weeks’ ago. The contents remain relevant today.
And here is a link to an earlier film I made walking down Sheaf street in Daventry. Daventry has tremendous history and it is something to celebrate publicly. I think within 3 years, we should be winning a Britain in Bloom award!
Kipper MEP Racially Insults Muslim SNP Politico as ‘Abu Hamza’
This is a thoughtful and insightful blog.I could not say anything in any clearer way frankly. TIM WILSON
though-
The story did not seem to me to be “a non-story” and Coburn and Farage compound the original insult by referring to it as a joke however crass or tasteless they may describe it. these people deserve to be thoroughly and mercilessly ridiculed until they sit up and pay attention. It is time they understood and appreciated what a joke can be!
James Gillray is one of my heroes
this is what the UKIP spokesman said at the time:
Glenn Campbell, BBC Scotland political correspondent
UKIP said David Coburn had apologised to Humza Yousaf.
They said he would be making no further comment on what a spokesman described as a “non-story”.
But that’s unlikely to be the last word on the matter.
Mr Yousaf said he was taking “legal advice” to see if he could pursue a complaint under legislation against race or religious hatred.
It has also emerged that the Scottish government is inviting MSPs to vote to express their disapproval.
Cabinet minister Alex Neil has tabled an amendment to a motion celebrating Scotland’s diverse communities.
It says parliament “unites in condemning the recent comments by David Coburn MEP”.
MSPs will decide on Wednesday whether or not to endorse that rebuke to Scotland’s most outspoken Euro MP.
David Coburn, the openly gay Kipper MEP for Scotland, is in the Groanoiad and Scottish Daily Mail for allegedly referring to Humza Yousaf as Abu Hamza in an interview with the latter paper. Yousaf is the MSP for Glasgow, and the Minister for Europe and International Development in the Scottish parliament. Yousaf and Coburn were due to take part in the BBC’s Big Immigration Debate, but Yousaf did not arrive. Coburn said of Yousaf’s failure to appear, “Humza Yousaf, or as I call him, Abu Hamza, didn’t seem to turn up.”
His remarks have been condemned by Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the Conservative’s leader in Scotland, Ruth Davidson, and Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s deputy leader north of the border. Coburn, however, has said that the remark was supposed to be private, while the Kipper’s Scottish chairman, Arthur Misty Thackeray, said he had simply got the name wrong through a…
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The Observer piece on Farage
Rachel Cooke can barely restrain her contempt for Mr Farage as she pens this rather fascinating article in the magazine section of the Observer today. I am sure it was set up by the media boffins in the Dorset HQ of UKIP with the thought that Nigel is the party’s greatest asset, but he is a bit like Marmite. I have never really liked Marmite. And I get the impression from this article that he is actually a bit out of his depth. He is running a National election with a sticking plaster and a rubber-band. Whatever your views about his policies, hats off to him for his spunk.
Given my own recent brush with the powers of UKIP, I thought it would be interesting to analyse the main points in the piece.
Firstly there is a photo which is captioned, “Whatever my faults, I have some principles.” Certainly not any ones I would admire, Mr F! Not anymore. My eyes have been thoroughly opened (and incidentally, I am still waiting for a response to my letter!)
But what is interesting about the article is that, given Rachel’s evident dislike of the man’s policies, he comes across as someone we would all enjoy meeting, actually someone we might actually like. He describes himself as a “sentimentalist” and as a man who wants to watch lots of theatre when he retires – I certainly hope he has booked himself into plenty of shows after May 7th, then- She does her level best to do him down “looking at his weary face, clammy and puce”, but for all her efforts, what I felt by the time I finished was a wave of sympathy for a man against the odds. And I liked his observation that politics is full of “corruption and laziness.” Having had a brush with it, I concur.
I remembered the awful pictures taken of him getting out of the plane wreck, as I was reading Rachel’s article and urge you to check above his brilliant summary of what happened and the way it has affected him. Then, of course, there was the terrible melee last week when his family was attacked by the “hope not hate” people. Also, I realise I must know some of his contemporaries at Dulwich. There are moments, certainly for me, when the Farage image moves from marmite to something rather more all-embracing, and there is undoubted warmth. He has the theatricality and actually the charisma and “common touch” to appeal to a much wider audience, but something stops him doing that.
There was a bit where Rachel pressed him about his family, and I felt his discomfort. (“his absolute refusal to wheel out his family. .. I won’t even let you through the front gate.”) But then, he tells us that his wife would pass the Australian migrant points scheme, and that made me cringe.
Some of the points he makes are blatantly wrong of course – he claims that Blair is responsible for the influx of “hard-working Polish builders”. It was not Blair, but John Major who signed the Maastricht treaty and Blair was simply following the inevitable progress of the Brussels juggernaut. The treaty guaranteed European Citizenship over and above National citizenship. This allowed for freedom of movement within the community, the right to vote and stand for elections in the country of residence and the right of petition to the EU parliament and of complaint to an ombudsman. It also provided for monetary union. A number of subsequent treaties (including Nice, Lisbon and Amsterdam) may have had some Blair input but they were essentially tinkering with what was set up in 1992.
Mrs Thatcher rejected Maastricht saying that she “could never have signed that bill”. And the rebellion against Maastricht formed the centrepiece in the Government of Mr Major, with famously the approval of the Maastricht agreement inching through the Commons with a majority of only 18 votes.
But despite the title on the front page, Rachel does not really draw any conclusion about “what drives Farage”, though I certainly have my suspicions.
Apologies Chuka! there really is racism
A few months ago, I wrote a blog-piece here in response to claims by Chuka Umunna who said there was racism at the heart of UKIP. This is a party I know well and I was, until two days’ ago the Parliamentary Candidate for South Northants.
Review of recent events
About 10 days ago I learnt of a comment tossed off by David Corburn, UKIP’s only MEP in Scotland, who compared the Scottish Minister for Europe, Humza Yousaf to convicted criminal Abu Hamza, a man who is serving a life sentence in New York for terrorism. I immediately requested a meeting with Mr Farage which was denied- I am too much of a small-fry! I was told to go through the hierarchy and approach my “Regional Organiser” whose name is Paul Oakden. Oakden had already revealed himself to be a thug who threw his weight around, and never returned telephone calls. Time dragged on and I spoke to Humza early the following week to ask what I could do to help, talked to the Daily Mail and found myself resigning. For the next few days, I was at the centre of a media circus that was actually located somewhere in Edinburgh.
Bits of the furore tricked down to Northampton, and Oakden went in for the kill, accusing me on live radio of behaving like a brat, throwing his toys out of the pram. He questioned my competence as a candidate and so on, which meant I was obliged to answer back and the thing duly had a more local manifestation. But I was at pains to stress I had no evidence nor suspicions about any member of the local party being racist, homophobic or prejudiced.
And then came Adam Collyer’s blog which was a nasty attack on my partner- suggesting that he was not the victim of a torture event in Greece but probably the aggressor. It undermined my integrity, of course, and seriously upset my partner who had suffered 11 years’ of a legal battle for proper redress through the ECHR.
Adam Collyer, like David Coburn is an elected UKIP politician, one of the current high ranking and experienced leaders of the party. As a UKIP ranker, I think he must be held to higher standards than ordinary members who might aspire to but have not attained elected office. In other words, he is on the same rank as David Coburn and I hold him to the same standards. If he wants to lambast me, well I am fair game of course, but if he wants to attack my family, he should check his facts first and also make sure that what he writes is unambiguously clear.
One significant fact was wrong: Necati did not enter the UK as an asylum seeker. Another fact was presented in such a way as to be misleading: here is the offensive phrase: “… Necati Zontul, a Turkish asylum-seeker who has been involved in allegations of torture against the Greek police.” I was first alerted to this by a Greek friend who sent me a message : Κάποιος κύριος γράφει άρθρα σε “blog” για εσάς και τον Necati. Αυτός ο άνθρωπος δηλώνει πως Ο Necati δεν είταν’ το θύμα αλλά ο κατηγορούμενος της υπόθεσης. Αυτή την εντύπωση μου δίνει.
This person tried to leave comments on the blog, but was unable to do so. Adam does not like feedback.
Two points: firstly I am proud of what we did to bring Necati’s case to a successful conclusion – against the odds and under serious pressure to keep silent, and secondly, I do not doubt that Adam might have intended to write something else, and I agree what he writes is also open to a number of interpretations, but one of them is utterly wrong. We are in the business of using words to change people’s lives: that is what we do in politics. It’s also what we do when we make films and work in the media. That gives us a responsibility to do the job properly. We cannot make stupid jokes and get away with it. We cannot write things and say we did not mean it. People have lost their jobs for less- and today a bad tweet can cost us everything. Adam and Coburn just were not careful enough…And moreover, there was no reason at all to bring the story of Necati’s torture back into the public arena.
Anyway, where does this lead us?
The bottom line is very simple- the ordinary activist in UKIP may not be racist or homophobic, but it is quite clear that senior UKIP rankers will do anything they can to seize or hold on to power, often with personal abuse or inuendo. They are also equipped with the sort of thuggish views that should never be expressed or even considered – and Farrage will endorse the lot! Roger Helmer was excused for making a series of homophobic comments, Coburn was excused for making his racist attack on Humza, Collyer remains undisciplined for attacking a torture victim and on it goes.
Westminster
These people are ready to pontificate about our lives, and look set to be thoroughly electable, many of them have already been elected to represent us in Brussels. UKIP will achieve a powerbase in Westminster in May. I wanted to ensure that among those elected were some reasonable individuals and they certainly exist too- I have met many of them. Douglas Carswell is a fine example, Tom Rubython, Rose Gibbins, Michael Gerard – all people who I am sure are as appalled at the racist stuff emerging from the ill-toothed mouth of Coburn, and yet I was the only one to resign.
This is it: the thugs have bullied their way to the top and they are the ones who, regrettably, control the destiny of the party. And racists attract racists – we should not be surprised by some of the astonishing things written on pro-UKIP websites and facebook pages. Bile against Islam features prominently.
The Black hole and personal Regret
My great regret about resigning the other day is this- that the media storm focused a little too much on the resignation rather than the reason. I thought I might stimulate debate on racism, but what happened was alot of questions about why I took this so seriously when Farage did not. I take it seriously because it is almost the most important thing in life- to have respect for the person sitting next to you. Humza and Coburn may be in different parties, and be political opponents but Coburn does not have the sense or the prudence to realise he is in the same business – and that fact alone should command proper respect. Coburn used his mass and stupidity in an attempt to belittle a good, no a great man. If we take an astronomical image, Humza is the rising star and Coburn is a black hole and the sooner he implodes completely, the safer we will all be.
Apologies
So, apologies Chuka – you are not entirely wrong. But racism is not found at the heart of UKIP, it is found at the head (the Greeks say the fish smells from the head). The heart of UKIP, I think, beats with a passion that questions the wisdom of Brussels and the efficacity of the Brussels bureaucracy, something any Greek would be eager to applaud. But the UKIP rankers look down from their turreted fortifications – oddly for the most part in Brussels not the UK- and wince when they hear people on the train who do not speak english, whose skin is a different colour, whose religion is not anglican. There really is a danger that these people will have power.
And across the way will be the Scottish nationalists – I cannot say I favour a fractured Kingdom at all, but I have never met an SNP politician I do not like. It’s odd- it’s obviously nothing to do with being Scottish- because I detested Gordon Brown in a way I can barely describe in words. (I will add a picture of him in a few minutes to entertain). I think it is something about being fresh and having a very specific message. It does not matter whether we like that message- we have to admire the way it is presented. Now, UKIP also is relatively fresh and focuses on a single message. In so many ways, there are parallels, except that UKIP is top-heavy with racist, homophobic “has-beens” and the SNP is quite free of these. Even Alex Salmond is endearing. And just think back to the speed of his resignation: that is a picture-book demonstration of honour and integrity.
We hear all this nonsense these days about the importance of policies, but UKIP has yet to publish a manifesto and the election inches forward. I rather fancy making my mind up on the basis of who is the most polite, the most honourable, who has the most integrity and is the most personable. I think I would fill the whole of Westminster with the SNP!
Coda:
Despite claims by Adam Collyer to have resigned and to have left UKIP, after a short illness during which he said he felt his family was under attack, he has returned to work as usual. He was assisted in this process by none other than Paul Oakden.
a better bertie
here is the same scene with the correct background- in need of shadows but otherwise finished!
animate-tim.com 