Yes, indeed, and not just the next European election but also the one after that, the general election. It's all much more interesting than today's Grand National in which several tons of horsemeat will thunder round a race track falling over at regular intervals - and people actually pay to watch it! The attraction of elections is that they are free, er, well, of course, you spend (nudge-nudge!) the next few years paying for it and it is true that on most occasions it is a two-horse race with a foregone conclusion.
But not, I think - I hope! - on these next two occasions because there are not one but two 'niggers in the woodpile'. The first is in the ever-so-slightly rakish figure of Mr. Nigel Farage and his band of UKIP-ers. The second comes from - dread thought! - the 'Great Unwashed'! Well, that's not quite the way Vernon Bogdanor puts it in his review in The Spectator of a book by Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin called Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain, but still, he does write that the book supports the notion that UKIP support comes mainly, not from 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells':
... but from the disadvantaged and insecure - the victims of social and economic change, alienated from a meritocratic political establishment - the elderly white semiskilled o runskilled working class. The typical Ukip supporter has a white skin, a blue collar and gray hair; indeed Ukip's social base is more working class than that of any of the major parties.
I rather flinched at his use of the phrase 'meritocratic political establishment'; not much merit in that lot, especially today when we read about Mrs. Miller's cheating and swindling of her expense claims and the stupidity of 'Dim Dave' in failing to sack her on the spot. However, what Mr. Bogdanor means is that today's political establishmnt is filled with members of "the exam-passing class" which is, perhaps, all you need to know about the standards of our academic exams these days! It is precisely the 'exam-failing class', or, the 'never-sat-an-exam class' who detest all those so-called 'clever-Cleggs' who lord it over them demonstrating constantly that they are as thick as planks. For example, never let it be forgot (and you can rely on Mr. Farage to keep reminding us) that just a few years ago Mr. Clegg was urging us to join the euro currency and to date I have not heard him rescind that proposition!
Today, British electoral prospects are like one of those chaotic mathematical equations which multiply outwards to areas where no rational mind can forecast the answers. Just how big really is UKIP's attraction and is it strong enough to last into the ballot box? If it is, then who exactly will suffer most? On top of that, of course, the Jocks will be holding their referendum which, if it goes the wrong way, will toss an enormous caber into the Westminster machinery.
Yes, so I have actually managed to pull myself out of my usual slumped posture and I am positively on the edge of my seat with excitement. And yes, as I have said before, it's true, I don't have that much of a social life!
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