Proportional representation.

The word  'potentially' is interesting. It's like saying that the Party is potentially xenophobic.

Char, old chap. This is a polite discussion on a benign subject, unlike the Eurovision Song Contest discussion which was always going to prove difficult..................

Dear Nigel,

Farage's party is only a risk if people are foolish enough to hand them a mandate to govern. Though some will vote UKIP, I am optimistic that the electorate of the UK, as a whole, has more sense than to give Farage the chance to be Prime Minister.

ATB from George

That's an odd question - not knowingly. I was simply answering your question.

Not so. As the Tories leap on the anti European xenophobe bandwagon, lest their grey vote deserts them for UKIP, we will probably end up with these obnoxious policies if the tories get in, which seems likely.

Dear Nigel,

If a main stream Party stands on restricting immigration and is elected, that would be a democratic choice. You may not like it, and I may not like it, but the thing about democracy is that it can throw up results that some people do not like. If we accept democracy as our chosen system, then we must accept the resulting government.

ATB from George

I think that's a little unfair on pond life.

The point I was making by way of agreeing with you, despite the appearance that you want an argument at all costs, is that the momentum which drives political trends tends to come from superficial, narrowly rationalised beliefs. The Italian example, in the context of the question you asked about the far Right, is a particularly embarrassing yet representative sample. Not that this principle applies just to the far Right.

The whole European result is desperately concerning, the rise of swivel eyed loons in the uk and fascists in France. We are off to Nice on the TGV in the summer, so at least it will be prompt.

Well that's something! TVG was pretty good to start with, mind you.

You could get depressed but it is likely that at the next General Election the majority of the population will do what they always do and default to one of the three, or possibly two horses. The FPTP system will ensure that even if UKIP polls 20% (unlikely) they will end up with nowt or close to. It's a wonderfully damped system - for better or worse. Yes, in the event of a hung parliament (likely) minorities who many of us regard as nutters may hold more sway. But getting a leg up onto the podium hasn't done the LDs much good. In fact it's probably going to burn them despite the fact that they have failed to stamp their identity on the coalition.  

Of course, that won't fix the EU distribution, but that's always been a bit odd, or at least appeared so from the FPTP UK bunker.

I wouldn't argue with that assessment for a second. We can each select something (or things) to bite our nails over. For me, far worse than a cyclical minority novelty (but not really) blip is the reach and influence of the media. Politicians and journalists seem to have melded into a kind of self serving pseudo intelligentsia and pulled up the trap door behind them. In reality it has always been thus but they seem to have become more brazen than ever about it.

The proletariat ? How old are you again?

Tog

I'm sure the good people of Germany once felt the same way about a certain Austrian ( just an ordinary bloke in the bierkeller ) corporal with artistic tendencies. The rest as they say is history ...

I don't think that there is even a remote comparison between Herr Hitler and Mr Farage.

I have not noticed Farage running a private militia, attempting a putsch, or being sent to prison for his activities.

If the Germans could not spot that Hitler was a bad egg, well the more fool them.

I suspect that Farage does represent in his views something very close to what many across all economic strata think in this country.

Hence that the UKIP have been taking votes from all the main parties at the local elections for example.

My fear with Farage is not his EU Policy [which incidentally would shut down almost all the immigration into this country as migration from the EU is unrestricted], which one must assume would be the electorate's wish if he is elected, but rather his complete lack of a track record in terms of running the economy.

ATB from George

Dennis: I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week...

King Arthur: Yes...

Dennis: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...

King Arthur: Yes I see...

Dennis: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...

King Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis: ...but by a two thirds majority in the case of...

King Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

Woman: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?

George - both were ridiculed before people realised it was too late. In any case Moseley is probably a better comparison -  if you can put up with their rather reprehensible views on foreigners and women by deferring to the will of the people then it has more than a wiff of Weimar about it.

I think you might want to reconsider blaming the Germans for Hitler . - bad form old chap.

I think our best hope is that  Farage and his minions are in fact just as stupid as they appear in which case we may be able to sleep peacefully in our beds.

Tog

Dear Tog,

I am half Norwegian, and I blame the Germans for Hitler. They slid him into power and did insufficient to get rid of him before the inevitable happened. He suspended democracy. As someone else has said already in these last few posts: The rest is history.

I don't blame the subsequent generations of Germans - who have shown that they do not have a blind eye to the evils done in that era -  for it, but I have no problem placing the blame squarely on the Germans who were adult when Hitler came to power. When you have known well people who lived and died as a consequences of Hitler's Nazi Regime and its actions, I think one is allowed to place the blame fairly and squarely where it belongs. You may call it bad form, but then that is merely an opinion, and a rather sentimental one. There is a very good reason why Norway is not in the EU, even today.

ATB from George

I wondered how long before someone would suggest that democracy is fine so long as the less fortunate in society are not given their due weight in electing a government.

Any democratically elected government that is not representative of all sections of society will naturally favour the sections that to does represent.

ATB from George

Far from being sentimental I fear that by seeing Hitler as the product of the folly of the German people we are simply defining his rise to power in terms as the fault of foreigners who should have known better.  Many good Germans died resisting the Nazis and I doubt very much whether in the same circumstances we would have fared any better. Indeed the history of this country in the thirties is littered with Hitler apologists and sympathisers to whom fascism was the solution to a lot of problems.

Defining fascism as a foreign disease is unhelpful at best, disingenuous at worst in that it distracts attention away from our own failings - until it's too late. 

The German nation does not have a monopoly on cretins, fraudsters and monsters any more than any other nation. The whole point of the EU is to help us work together to ensure not just our mutual prosperity but our future safety. The fact that it is also flawed and infuriating is just as much a product of it humanity as is its success in ensuring over half a century of European peace.

No George I can't place the blame for Hitler on the German people any more than I can blame the good people of Norway for the monster Brevik.

Tog

I think Char was joking 

Tog

Slightly off topic. The problem I have with UK politics today is not PR but the fact that the majority of MP's of the major parties are all the same, career politicians of no conviction. They all emanate from the same background, born with silver spoon in mouth, privately educated, Oxbridge political graduates going on to be political researcher, going on to be found a safe seat somewhere to become an MP whilst not having a clue about the people they are supposed to represent or their worries and concerns. This has gone on incessantly since Blair and New Labour took over and the others have just followed suite. These people haven't clue, and care even less, about about how the rest of us live our lives and what really concerns us. They do not listen to their constituents and assume that they know what is best for us and we should not have the audacity to challenge their view. Especially if it does not fit their political doctrine.  And you wonder why someone like UKIP is on the rise. We live in a democracy whereby the electorate no longer feels it has a voice. We are told what is best for us by a bunch of conceited, self centred, out of touch, egotists who really have no interest in what impact there policies, or lack off, have on our lives. Whatever the outcome, their own families are protected from any fallout by their own vast personal wealth. To them it really is just a game of politics.

Just my view,

Ken

Tog,

The comparison with Breivik and Hitler is completely silly. It is not so different from a comparison between Hitler and Shipman in reality.

You mentioned Moseley earlier. Now here at least is a comparison in political terms. But Moseley was laughed at, and eventually he was detained as a potential enemy of the state during the emergency of the Second World War.

I think you are trying to hype up things that are not even a molehill in terms of your average mountain.

ATB from George

We have twelve months till the General Election to examine what UKIP is saying, what it plans to do, and the reliability of those who would propose to do it if elected.

After a year long debate I would expect that the natural moderation of the UK electorate will see to it that UKIP is not more than a flash in the pan.

ATB from George 

No George - I wasn't the one who said they blamed the German's for Hitler - Char put it well when he said that it see s easier to blame the rest of Europe .To address your concerns Anders Behring Breivik was not your average nutter but a psychopathic right winger who courted Norwegian and Scandinavian extremists Whereas Harold Shipman was a serial killer. As far as I know Shipman doesn't have a fan base - although I could be wrong.

Tog

Dear Tog,

Sorry for the mis-posting blaming you for Char's nonsense.

In reality there are always some nutters in every country, and with the internet they have an online following as no doubt the terrible Breivik. I doubt Shipman has such a following, but I am no expert.

However, Breivik was not prepared to surface and appeal to an electorate. Hitler did appeal and gained enough votes to at least gain a foothold on power. I blame the senile Hindenburg myself among the elected German ruling elite in 1933. But the German electorate had a duty to remember the Munich Putsch, and Hitler's subsequent prison sentence for his treacherous behaviour. 

I suppose that the difference is that the National Front and the British National Party may be seen as the modern UK equivalent of the old NASDP in Germany in the '20s and early '30s. These have never gained a foothold in UK politics, because like Moseley they are laughably silly. The UKIP no doubt contains within its membership and certain candidates people that are are just as awful. That is what the next twelve months will be about. Unearthing what the UKIP is about.

I am optimistic that if the UKIP is shown as a group of genteel neo-Nazis, then they will be laid to rest quite comfortably, in electoral terms.

ATB from George

Agreed.

Incidentally there is a hilarious article in The Guardian where the founder of UKIP - the historian Alan Sked - disowns Farage et al as a bunch of grasping idiot racists.

Tog