So UKIP has an MP.
What next?
Will Admiral Farage order his sailors to weigh anchor?
Order the engine room full steam ahead?
Prepare to sail the SS Ukip away from the contaminated shores of Europe?
Taking the British Isles, re-imagined as a Terry Gilliam like, great ship of State, out into the Atlantic?
Heading where?
With its little flotilla of islands, buzzing around like tugs and dinghies, it could eventually move South, where the weather is better, or further West towards the Americas or simply drop anchor half way and set up shop (ship) as a new independent Kingdom.
Of course once re-located, taxes would be reduced.
Prices would fall.
Grammar Schools would be re-commissioned.
The standard of living of all those aboard this great ship of state would rise as anyone without a British Passport will be invited to swim for it (or sink!).
Does this sound any more far fetched than UKIP's actual policies?
How anyone can vote for a party whose sums don't add up and whose policies are impracticable I can only ascribe to the fact that nostalgia is simply not what it used to be.
Offered a romanticised vision of what life used to be in a mythical England where beer was cheap and you could smoke in the public bar and everyone spoke the same language many of those who have voted for UKIP have presumably done so because they hope that by doing so they can bring the past back into the present, from olden age to golden age.
But memory plays tricks.
Re-imagining the past as a Golden Age through rose tinted glasses is dangerous.
I remember the past. It wasn't that great.
An era of low wages, poor health, early deaths.
With the single exception of my father who moved to Australia after my mother died, I am now older than any of my parents and grandparents generation were at their death, and in better health.
My grandfather died at 63 as did my Mother.
And they died from industrial diseases, my uncle died of Asbestosis, or from diseases such as cancer linked to lifestyles. They were all smokers.
The problem here is that nostalgia is not what it used to be.
We are actually better off, richer, both economically and culturally, now than we have ever been.
So voting UKIP is not the answer. Nor, heaven forbid, is the Tory Party turning even further right into the cul de sac of small state, privatised health and reduced welfare.
If in 2015 UKIP increase the number of MP's which they may well do and displace the Liberals in a future coalition we may well move from Con-Dem to UKON.
A scarier thought I can't imagine.
What next?
Will Admiral Farage order his sailors to weigh anchor?
Order the engine room full steam ahead?
Prepare to sail the SS Ukip away from the contaminated shores of Europe?
Taking the British Isles, re-imagined as a Terry Gilliam like, great ship of State, out into the Atlantic?
Heading where?
With its little flotilla of islands, buzzing around like tugs and dinghies, it could eventually move South, where the weather is better, or further West towards the Americas or simply drop anchor half way and set up shop (ship) as a new independent Kingdom.
Of course once re-located, taxes would be reduced.
Prices would fall.
Grammar Schools would be re-commissioned.
The standard of living of all those aboard this great ship of state would rise as anyone without a British Passport will be invited to swim for it (or sink!).
Does this sound any more far fetched than UKIP's actual policies?
How anyone can vote for a party whose sums don't add up and whose policies are impracticable I can only ascribe to the fact that nostalgia is simply not what it used to be.
Offered a romanticised vision of what life used to be in a mythical England where beer was cheap and you could smoke in the public bar and everyone spoke the same language many of those who have voted for UKIP have presumably done so because they hope that by doing so they can bring the past back into the present, from olden age to golden age.
But memory plays tricks.
Re-imagining the past as a Golden Age through rose tinted glasses is dangerous.
I remember the past. It wasn't that great.
An era of low wages, poor health, early deaths.
With the single exception of my father who moved to Australia after my mother died, I am now older than any of my parents and grandparents generation were at their death, and in better health.
My grandfather died at 63 as did my Mother.
And they died from industrial diseases, my uncle died of Asbestosis, or from diseases such as cancer linked to lifestyles. They were all smokers.
The problem here is that nostalgia is not what it used to be.
We are actually better off, richer, both economically and culturally, now than we have ever been.
So voting UKIP is not the answer. Nor, heaven forbid, is the Tory Party turning even further right into the cul de sac of small state, privatised health and reduced welfare.
If in 2015 UKIP increase the number of MP's which they may well do and displace the Liberals in a future coalition we may well move from Con-Dem to UKON.
A scarier thought I can't imagine.
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