Can you smell Kippers?
Who said this?: “Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.” In the light of the Rochester and Strood by-election success, in case any of our elected local politicians are thinking of defecting to UKIP, we should pause before putting our cross against a ‘Kipper’ candidate’s name without asking - who are UKIP, and what do they really stand for? Leaving the EEC is a tough decision which deserves informed, meticulous debate. What kind of Britain does UKIP want? Paul Nuttall MEP, the vice-chair of UKIP, posted on his website: 'I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition.' So that’s the NHS gone. Kippers love privatisation, don’t like the Public Sector, hate the Unions, want to cut benefits even further, and although their leader is a descendant of immigrants and is married to a German, they persist in their epic xenophobia.
UKIP’s pint and a fag poster boy, Nigel Farage, ticks all the boxes for those who seek a mythical Britain which never existed. His policies remain fuzzy, but he’s only UKIP’s leader. The man pulling the strings is a shadowy figure, ex-Liberal Democrat Steve Crowther, UKIP’s chairman. Controversial Kipper Godfrey Bloom, famous for referring to women as ‘sluts’ and his comments about ‘bong-bongo land’ recently resigned from the party, referring to Crowther as a “svengali-like” figure and a “man of mystery”, whilst warning recent Tory defectors to look out for a knife in their backs.
Much of the misery Britain has suffered in the past decade is down to rogue Bankers. Mr. Farage knows all about banking. After leaving Public School he went to work for investment banks and brokerages Credit Lyonnais Rouse, Natexis Metals and Refco Inc. Farage’s boss at Refco Inc. was Cambridge-educated Briton, Phillip Roger Bennett. In 2005, it was revealed that Bennett had hidden roughly $430 million of bad debt from the company's auditors and investors. In 2008, he was sentenced to 16 years in jail for financial fraud.
Addressing the European Parliament Farage declared that we have a “common enemy: rich people and successful companies avoiding tax.” But whilst campaigning against tax avoidance, Mr Farage set up an off-shore trust fund on the Isle of Man to avoid inheritance tax. When Channel 4 news challenged him, Nigel asked “Isle of Man, is that off-shore?” When told that it is, Farage’s geography seemed shaky, replying “Well, it’s difficult to define whether it’s off-shore or not.”
Then there’s that other prominent Kipper, ex-Tory Minister Neil ‘cash in brown envelopes’ Hamilton, once keen to invite Fascists Alessandra Mussolini, the dictator’s grand-daughter, and French National Front Leader, racist Holocaust denier Jean Marie le Pen to the 1992 Tory Conference. But if you’re ready to vote for a party which trades in the language of fear and division, place your cross. We still live in a democracy - for the time being. And whose words opened this column? Dr. Josef Goebbels, (1897-1945) Germany’s propaganda minister.