Mr UKIPling makes such exceedingly good fruitcakes

Well, that was incredibly boring. English local elections (and Anglesey) are just like the general election ones – just suck all the oxygen out from the process. The Americans do high drama, worth waiting through the night. Here you can go to bed knowing that the result still won’t be finalised by the time you get up (I know some US states go to recounts but that’s just a minor snagfu). It’s like BBC Parliament with added tranquilisers (Ed Miliband was off message when he said it was boring to watch him and David Cameron insult each other across the dispatch box, flatly contradicting the bombastic BBC bigging-up of their Parliament channel).


This is why the British Tea Party UKIP garner so much attention; sure, they’ve won around 150 seats (though the Tories still won more council seats than everyone else combined – little mentioned); in some counties a quarter of people voted for them (meaning three-quarters didn’t); and that they finished second again in a by-election (meaning no parliamentary representation – again). It’s because everything in British politics is made to seem so dry, a few lunatics jazzing it all up is box office.

In a way, the reprobate Nigel Farage is right – this is more than a protest vote, it is an anti-politics vote which is slightly different because a protest vote would in theory vote – why not the Greens, for example?  True, tabloid reporting and opinion-forming has often mimicked UKIP policies - anti-EU, anti-immigrant, anti-environmentalism - but this time economic conditions have brought out people's prejudices (though tabloid drip-drip over decades has poisoned the well).  As one focus group of Ukippers displayed, the only thing about Britain that they are proud of is the past. But like Beppe Grillo’s Five Star movement (and the Tea Party), UKIP are not interested in compromising and would stall political engagement if they reached any kind of parliamentary power.  Yet if the economy was motoring along, there would be few grumbles about David Cameron's 'metropolitan'agenda.

Farage reminds me of the flamboyant Pim Fortuyn and his List party in The Netherlands. Fortuyn was gay, but also ferociously anti-immigrant and he seemed to be at least a king-maker in the Dutch parliament with imminent elections before he was assassinated. Farage almost died in a plane crash while campaigning in the 2010 general election and if he had I can see UKIP withering on the vine as the List party did in the wake of their leader’s death. The SNP were dead in the water under the leadership of John Swinney, prompting the return of Alex Salmond, despite health problems. Elections are now more about personalities than policies, hence the (usually justified) abuse hurled at UKIP candidates, rather than their policies which could be torn to shreds by any veteran debater. Without Farage, UKIP would be like the burglar who got stuck in a chimney and perished there, only being discovered after several weeks (now that’s natural justice – well, he did decompose).