Wandering in the wilderness - how Tories stole Ukip's political clothes

[muriel_volestrangler]

Just in case you were wondering if UKIP were still a factor anywhere - apparently they're not. Though we might wish they did take a few more far right votes away from the Tories, of course.

The extremists are always elsewhere. "If this was the sort of extreme rightwing party you've seen caricatured in the press, I wouldn't be here," said Simon Heffer, the Daily Mail columnist, addressing 70 supporters of the UK Independence party in a hotel on Ramsgate seafront this week.

The very first audience member approached by the Guardian seemed to undermine his thesis - "Tell you the truth, I used to be National Front," said Kevin Munson, a 58-year-old former printworker. And yet even he, apparently, was just another moderate. "The National Front wasn't as the press depicted it," Mr Munson insisted. "I was never a rightwing extremist."
...
Ukip officials and supporters alike murmur about "a plot to change the face of Britain" through multiculturalism, of Maltese people "flooding the country", of a friend of a friend who lived in a town where they couldn't put up signs saying Happy Christmas, because of political correctness. ("Scrap political correctness" is one of Mr Farage's several ambitious election pledges.)

Mr Kilroy-Silk, too, is struggling to define himself against the Tory focus on immigration. Sometimes he tries to outdo the Conservatives in hyperbole - Polish workers undercut their British rivals, he told a reporter recently, because Poles live "10 to a room" - and sometimes, for variety, he accuses the Tories of racism. This week, he was promoting his other main policy: a 22% flat tax, but not particularly energetically. Whether through arrogance, defeatism, or just an aversion to wet weather, he failed to show up for a scheduled walkabout at the London Stock Exchange this week, leaving half a dozen of his candidates to get drenched by a thunderstorm.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1473048,00.html

[T_i_B]

1. Sounds about right for Simon Heffer

I really do find the man's Daily Mail columms to be utter tripe.

It does worry me that we have the Tories, the UKIP, Veritas, the BNP and the English Democrats all camapigning on immigrant bashing and very little else. You do wonder if we are just turning into a nation of Alf Garnett's by the appalling standards of this election.