Our Lovable Loonies.

It’s the party political conference season in Britain (we don’t call them ‘conventions’ over here) and the political party currently spewing out dogma, rhetoric and hyperbole is the United Kingdom Independence Party. UKIP is a sort of British version of the American Tea Party, although I’m not at all sure it takes itself quite so seriously. Fortunately, most other people don’t either.

UKIP supporters seem to be drawn mostly from the ranks of those disgruntled Tories who have an even lower IQ than the non-disgruntled ones. They’re the sort who live either in denial or a state of apoplexy over things like the loss of empire and the existence of the Channel Tunnel.

‘Somebody’s only gone and built a big tube between here and France,’ they are wont to cry. ‘Never again will we sleep soundly in our beds on the hallowed turf of this Sceptred Isle, for Johnny Foreigner will creep in under the cover of darkness to steal our women, our livestock and our family silver, leaving us with nothing but our memories, empty coal bunkers and a surfeit of rabies.’

UKIP is also an unwitting bedfellow of the British National Party, only for people who know how to knot neck ties and therefore think themselves posher and of greater cultural significance. They are, however, more eccentric than the BNP people, and less given to overt demonstrations of violent behaviour.

Having said which, one of their delegates got into a spot of bother yesterday for calling a group of female party activists ‘sluts,’ and also for hitting a reporter on the head with a conference brochure. He passed it off as an ‘innocent joke,’ which it probably was, but it looks like he’s going to be expelled anyway for giving the party a bad name. What didn’t help his cause was an earlier remark that Britain shouldn’t be giving away taxpayer’s money in aid to people living in ‘bong bongo land.’ I suppose that’s a little more difficult to pass off as an innocent joke.

But, that’s UKIP for you. I’m glad we have them, actually. It says much for our greatness as a nation that we confer tolerant smiles on the likes of Mr Farage (which sounds suspiciously like a Johnny Foreigner sort of name to me) and his party. And stories that their private functions are characterised by people wearing over-sized top hats and standing on tables are surely apocryphal, although I hope not.