That UKIP Calypso

Let's face it, that UKIP Calypso was pretty abysmal. But coming from a second rate has been like Mike Read it's hardly surprising. The only surprise for me is that Mike Read seems to have some kind of a deal with a record company. Then I wondered what kind of a record company actually takes on a singer like that with a song like that.

Racist it isn't. Second rate, corny, simplistic yes. But  how many pop stars over the years have sung with fake American accents? No criticism there. The song was a calypso, which orginates in the Caribbean so I don't understand the fuss about somebody singing in an albeit very bad West Indian accent. I remember going to see UB40 in the '80s and don't remember anybody attacking Ali Campbell for singing like a rasta man, or for the band, predominantly white, for playing reggae music like they do in the West Indies.  We have white kids walking the streets of our cities talking like kids from a Kingston ghetto. Are they racist?

Then you have the British Red Cross refusing to accept the proceeds from the song when Mike Read was scared off by the politically correct hysteria and withdrew it from sale. The Red Cross came over all self-righteous and indignantly told UKIP to stick it. Well it's good to see that the Red Cross have so much cash swilling around that they can turn down substantial donations. Remember that next time you are tempted to donate to them and maybe give to a charity that actually needs your money instead.

The big issue for me with the UKIP Calypso is yet again the total lack of awareness of UKIP and the constant change of direction as they react to publicity. Only the other day Farage was urging his Twitter followers to buy it and get the song to number one. They even trundled out ex-boxer Winston McKenzie to defend it and declare it not to be racist. McKenzie is a black UKIP supporter if you didn't know. The next day Mike Read apologised for causing offence and withdrew it from sale.

Do UKIP still not realise that the media are desperate to brand them 'racist' at every opportunity? You don't have to be a media genius to think that a UKIP supporter, singing in a fake West Indian accent was going to draw heavy artillery fire from the politically correct UK media. That gave UKIP two options, dig in and defend their position or do a runner. UKIP pulled out the white flag and ran for cover.

A serious political party does not land itself in positions like this. It comes after they announced at their conference that they would hike up VAT on luxury goods, the infamous 'WAG tax', only to withdraw the idea when it was widely ridiculed. It comes after the party's vice-chairman declared that they supported attacking ISIS, only for the interviewer to inform her that Nigel Farage had only that morning stated that they opposed it.

No, the UKIP Calypso was naïve, stupid and showed a complete lack of judgement. Imagine how much more dangerous UKIP could be if, God forbid, they find themselves in coalition after next year's election and those qualities, or lack of, are brought to bear on dealings with Russia, the Middle East and dealing with the European Union.

That prospect is every bit as terrifying as the thought of Miliband in No 10.

Contrasting Deaths

The death of Lynda Bellingham was a real shock even though, through her dignified publicising of her cancer, we all knew that she was terminally ill. I am just so sad that she didn't get what she so desperately wanted, a last Christmas with her family. We can only pray that she is now at peace.

Like millions I grew up with Lynda Bellingham making the world's best gravy. I love my mum and wouldn't swap her for the world, but when I was a kid if I had to choose another mum it would have been Lynda Bellingham. Even away from the Oxo adverts she came over as a thoroughly good, decent human being. The world needs more of them, not less.

In 1970 I lost my grandad. He took his own life within weeks of my gran dying. For a long time I had extremely negative feelings for what he had put us all through so soon after overcoming the grief of my gran dying. A pain felt even more by my mum and her sister and brother.

After time I came to love and respect my granddad even more than I had when he was alive. As I matured I understood that pain and loss had driven him to do what he had done. He had the guts to do it and not expect anybody else to help him or to give their permission. He took the ultimate responsibility, that of choosing when to die.

By contrast I read today of 86 year old Jean Davies who took four weeks to starve herself to death. Even after giving up water as well as food it took her two weeks to die. It sounded slightly odd to me.

Lo and behold for many years Jean Davies had been a campaigner for 'assisted suicide'. So what terrible illness led to Jean Davies's suicide? She had a lot of ailments, was on a lot of tablets and had started to faint sometimes. In other words she was 'knocking on a bit'.

It seems that she was terrified of fainting in her garden, dying and putting her family through the trauma of finding her dead. So instead she chose to have her family witness her lingering, one month indignity of starving to death.

Well she certainly made me even more convinced that euthanasia is wrong and if legalised, would be every bit as abused as the abortion laws are. We now have abortion on demand. Legalise euthanasia and oldies will soon be put down to free up the spare room or the granny flat. Well I want neither abortion nor euthanasia in my name and will continue to campaign against both. It seems the liberal left only oppose the death of the guilty by campaigning constantly against capital punishment. But they are happy to slaughter the innocent be they young or old.

I think the world became slightly the poorer for losing Lynda Bellingham and Johnny Hardy. I hope I don't sound uncharitable, but I can't say the same about the death of Jean Davies.

The World's Gone Mad

It seems we are undergoing biblical scale epidemics of pestilence, famine, disease and sheer fuckwittery. I don't think it's me getting old and coming over all apocalyptic, as older people are wont to do, but things are looking decidedly iffy.

Ebola. Now then, my reaction would be to ban people from west Africa travelling to the UK, including recent visitors to west Africa from elsewhere. Don't tell me with all the Orwellian state surveillance we have in 2014 this is not feasible. We can surely check on UK databases, Europol and Interpol databases and any other number of national and international databases. But I suspect politicians are scared of being accused of racism or of threatening a multi-million pound trade deal with some African despot. Meanwhile the ever suffering populace are warned to brace ourselves, ebola is coming to a town near you!

Meanwhile in Iraq and Syria, maybe Turkey too soon, we have barbarians from IS/ISIS/ISIL (their name changes more often than UKIP's policies) rampaging around slaughtering innocents and beheading taxi drivers from Salford. Quite why any sane human would leave the UK to go and help in Syria, Iraq or anywhere else in that part of the world, unless armed to the teeth and backed by the SAS, is beyond me, but the poor deluded westerners who have been hacked to death over there certainly did not deserve it, nor do the Kurds and others being slaughtered in much bigger numbers.

On the other hand we have Islamic nutjobs who were born and raised in the UK, I refuse to call them 'British', popping over to Syria to behead infidels. The latest estimate is that over 2000 of these young people have left to slaughter innocents. Again we must know who these people are as we must know who their sympathisers and helpers in the UK are. We should gather those in the UK together with any returning jihadist nutjobs, give them a quick training course then send them out to west Africa to work as closely as possible with ebola victims. They could regard it as martyrdom and look forward to their 72 virgins when their work was done.

What current events really highlight is the total contempt in which we, the populace are held by the political class. The first duty of the state is to protect its citizens. Our government, and previous governments, have clearly not given a damn about the British people.

While all this is going on there is a pathetic debate which started in Scotland, about increasing the grip of politicos and bureaucrats on our lives by devolution. In my part of the world we already have town councillors, city councillors, county councillors, MPs and MEPs. How many more of these parasites would be inflicted on us with devolution? Maybe MNWPs (Member of the North West Parliament)? Either way you can bet it will involve more elected politicians and layers of civil servants.

Increasingly it seems clear that the end of the UK is nigh. We should just bite the bullet and campaign for English independence. To be perfectly honest too much time, effort, money and in many instances lives have been wasted trying to please the Welsh, Scots and Irish. Set them free, which would be a great relief for vast numbers of patriotic English people. But free them on our terms, no generous financial settlements that aren't deserved and strict border and immigration controls. We can't do that while members of the European Union? Well they can expel us, numerous birds with one stone and no need for a costly referendum.