MAKING PLANS FOR NIGEL

Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP enjoying his customary pint and cigarette. This clever marketing ploy as a 'man of the people' disguises the unpleasant truth about this far right party of racists, homophobes and sexists.

Public schooled, ex-banker has conned the public through the bottom of a pint glass.

ByHARRY BLACKWOOD

WINSTON CHURCHILL famously said: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Never a truer word and it seems that old Winston must have been talking to the same sort of people that I converse with on Facebook and Twitter as well as the real word.

Without wanting to sound superior (obviously I am) most people's knowledge of politics and the democratic process (which is a total sham) could be written on the back of an envelope with a six-inch emulsion brush. They'll be able to tell you every X Factor winner since 1936 but ask who is foreign secretary or leader of the opposition and they'd be knackered.

Is it any wonder then that a party of racists, homophobes, sexists and general oddballs have managed to convince a huge proportion of the electorate that they are the voice of reason?

No matter which way they try to spin it, UKIP is a party for people who aren't very bright. It has to be. Anybody with an IQ into double figures would quickly realise that UKIP is nothing more than BNP Lite; a party for people who are happy to trot out the line "I'm not racist, I've got a black doctor"

But it would be stupid to say that all UKIP voters are closet racists. Of course they're not. Just most of them. But I want to focus on the others. The ones whose only excuses are that they are stupid, suffering from cognitive dissonance or they're desperate for change. It's the last one that I think explains the UKIP phenomenon.

People are so pissed off with lying, cheating, thieving, disingenuous politicians that they'll vote for anyone rather than mainstream parties. It's that despair that Nigel Farage - the biggest con man that British politics has witnessed since Tony Blair - has latched onto to take UKIP into the big time.

Give Farage credit where it's due. He's an ace bullshitter who was probably selling used cars or Kirby vacuum cleaners in a previous life. He's even managed to con the BBC into giving him as much airtime as all of the mainstream parties put together. The gullibility of the BBC on that one is so painful it burns. This is a party without a single MP who are being feted as serious contenders on the sole basis that people don't want to vote for any of the other useless bastards.

The broadcasting media even fall for Farage's 'man of the people' character. Not just once or twice but every time. Here's Nigel having a pint leaning against the bar; now we have Nigel outside the boozer chatting to other drinkers; oh look, there's Nigel on his mobile phone having a crafty fag. If it wasn't so bloody serious it would be funny.

The very people that Churchill was describing are convinced that Nigel is just your normal, average bloke. He patently isn't.

Farage is a public school educated, ex-investment banker who was too right wing to be a Thatcherite. He's got as much in common with the average bloke in the street as Prince Charles has with Bob Dylan. But why should the public discriminate against Farage? Take any of them, Clegg, Cameron, Miliband, Osborne, Hague, they're all from the same mould;    posh blokes who shouldn't be within a mile of politics.

Despite his background and his racist tendencies from an early age, Farage is, in many ways, the voice of reason in UKIP. Yes, he's a rabid, right wing nutter but at least he hasn't called for all mosques to be bulldozed as one of his candidates did this week. Nor has he - at least to my knowledge - blamed the floods this year on gay marriage as a UKIP councillor did. No, it has to be said, that despite his inherent eccentricity and general unsavoury views, Farage is fairly moderate compared to most UKIP supporters.

In fact the bloke can truly be said to be a political magician. He's a tax avoider, a serial womaniser, and has claimed more in expenses than the average banker racks up in bonuses. Yet still huge numbers of the public intend to vote for him. But the big question is will they?

There's no doubt that in the European elections which will be ignored by the majority of the electorate, the little Englanders of UKIP will be out in force, hell bent on giving the mainstream parties a bloody nose. But come the general election next year, UKIP will have been well and truly found out and the fools who think that walking into a polling station is somehow taking part in democracy will have realised that UKIP are just the same as the rest . . . but a bit nuttier.

I'll stick my neck out. Come the aftermath of the 2015 general election, UKIP will be in the same position they are now. They won't have a single MP.

Churchill had it dead right. Most voters are stupid. Just not THAT stupid.

FEEL IT? LOVE IT? THEN SHARE IT!