pests

do you remember a time, not so long ago, when the media was whipping up a storm that the british national party were about to make huge electoral gains and that meant the end of westminster democracy as we knew it?

do you remember that pretty much nothing happened?

funny enough you can see the media doing it all again only this time it is the united kingdom independence party. commentators seem to flip from ukip as saviours to ukip as fruit loops. in the end ukip’s appeal can be summed up as being the outsider led by a cheeky chappie.

now this all works when there is nothing real at stake, come the general election that changes as people realise that there is something serious at stake. but they have done well in the european elections you tell me. not really a surprise i reply firstly their success is based on giving the government of the day a bit of a kicking and really does anyone care who wins the european elections?

in a perfect world ukip would get the same sort of coverage that the green party gets (who strangely have an elected member of parliament), but promoting the greens has no traction. pushing ukip allows commentators to voice their agendas against europe and the two main parties. so the continual vacillation between immigrants bad and we need more immigrants can be used either way in order to punish the main parties. meanwhile ukip and nigel farage keep getting plenty of coverage. any attacks on them become a rallying call for those who may have be disaffected with westminster politics.

all ukip are pests, they are not contenders for power and they shouldn’t be allowed to get into a position where they are allowed to set the political agenda.