I did two things of note today. And that's only if your definition of 'note' is quite relaxed. I went for lunch with various family members, courtesy of my mother-in-law's generosity. Then I went to the dentist.
I very much fail to be enthusiastic about dental care - a failure which I maintain is caused by an aversion to cost rather than pain - so I'm ashamed to say that I haven't been to a dentist for a couple of years. If proverbial ostriches had teeth, and I'm not ruling out the possibility that they do, then this is the approach they would take to dentistry.
The dentist I visited today was, to be fair, less smug and condescending than many I have encountered. She was just like a real person. But this didn't stop her scratching around in my gums, quizzing me about the outrageous acid erosion evident on my teeth (caused not by a diet of pure sugar or even bulimia, as has previously been suggested on such occasions, but by a misguided fondness for three litres a day of cola when I was a naive, carefree student. Don't do it, kids), firing a radiation gun* at my face, or diagnosing £50 worth of trouble to fix.
Yet she did, to some extent, restore my faith in the necessity of her profession. And that is high praise indeed, coming from a proverbial ostrich like me. In any case, as weary as it left me, my orthodontic ordeal was the less troubling of my two endeavours today. Don't misunderstand me; lunch was lovely. I can offer nothing but praise for the service, the company and the food.
But the restaurant was opposite UKIP's Rochester and Strood by-election headquarters.
Now, I'm no political journalist. The internet is full of well-considered political commentary. Occasionally you'll find some in the media, too. I urge you to seek it out and enrich the formulation of your opinions, particularly if you're planning to vote in an election (which I hope you are). I recommend this excellent blog as a good place to start. Owen Jones' recent book, The Establishment and How They Get Away With It is also well worth a read.
As someone who is not a journalist, but is rational and does make some effort to read and think about things, I believe I'm entitled to state my opinion that UKIP are a dangerous force in the development of UK politics. This is a party which celebrates itself as a radical solution, but which stood 572 candidates at the last general election on a manifesto which their leader subsequently described as 'drivel'. Polls tell us that anything up to 20% of people plan to overlook this and put their trust in the new manifesto. This is a party which bills itself as anti-establishment, but whose leader is a public school educated former banker. But people will vote for them because he drinks pints! They drink pints, too! He's just like them! This is a party which has adorned the area I live in with posters promoting their by-election candidate, Mark Reckless, as the figurehead of a 'campaign for real change'. But, less than 50 days ago, Mark Reckless was a member of the Conservative party which has done so much to foster the disillusionment that drives voters into the arms of wolves (Nigel Farage) in sheep's clothing (a pub). Mark Reckless has been poached directly from the establishment to which UKIP (falsely) claim to be an alternative. He is the exact opposite of 'real change'!
But a poll today, conducted while I attempted to enjoy my pizza - literally against the backdrop of all this nauseating misdirection and hypocrisy, says that 44% of voters in Rochester and Strood are going to fall for it.
UKIP stand for only one thing: a resistance to immigration. My theory is that some people are so credulous; so willing to embrace this transparent nonsense about a 'people's army', because Nigel Farage and his band of single-issue crusaders legitimise the kind of casual racism which arises from a need to find scapegoats for the hardship of the less well-off during periods of economic hardship - a period created by bankers like Nigel Farage and significantly exacerbated by an ideologically-driven programme of austerity imposed upon us by the party Mark Reckless recently belonged to.
Mercifully, I don't think Nigel Farage will be the next Prime Minister. But the real danger UKIP pose is that they shift political discourse to the right. Again, I urge you to read what Owen Jones has to say on the subject of the Overton window. So when Godfrey Bloom talks about 'Bongo-Bongo Land' we all gasp and tut, but he has made it a little less shocking in comparison for Nigel Farage to demand that foreign aid money is spent instead on British projects. Or when Labour win a by-election, they are nevertheless urged to act a bit more xenophobic because they didn't beat UKIP by a wide enough margin.
I realise that most people reading this are friends and acquaintances of mine, who will largely share my views in this respect, and that I'm really preaching to the converted. And I am very well aware that views similar to mine are frequently expressed far better by many others (including those mentioned above), so I'm basically just ranting.
Those others can explain to you, should you care to discover their better-expressed views, how immigration has been proven to be of net economic (and not to mention cultural) benefit to the country, or why the very notion of determining someone's prospects and entitlements on the basis of their birthplace in relation to an arbitrary and/or ancient line in the sand is inherently ridiculous. I'll content myself with describing how grateful I am to immigration for the dentist who restored my faith in looking after my teeth, and for the restaurant manager who entertained and charmed my daughter while I was too busy frowning at the objectionable by-election headquarters over the road.
*She took an x-ray.
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