Desperate Tories?

Reading the media it seems that, whilst Cameron and his Etonian friends are oblivious of the progress being made by UKIP over recent months, the rest of the party and Conservative Central HQ are becoming increasingly worried.
Yesterday, cabinet minister Ken Clarke pronounced that UKIP was a bunch of ‘clowns’ and he had met supporters who ‘satisfy’ David Cameron’s 2006 assessment that UKIP is packed with ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’. Of course, Ken's remarks are somewhat akin the the "pot calling the kettle black", as one of the biggest clowns is, of course,  Boris Johnson. And it shouldn't have escaped his notice that being a clown doesn't make one ineligible to be a politician, as a party led by a stand-up comedian has recently won about 20% of the votes in the Italian general election!

But more importantly, according to a number of media sources (The Daily Telegraph, The Mail and the Commentator) Conservative Central HQ now has a team of about 20 people at work trying to “dig the dirt” on UKIP candidates for the local elections and trying to show that some are, or were, members of the BNP or have made “racist” remarks. They are apparently scouring Twitter, Facebook, etc for such evidence and I have no doubt that they will claim some success as I am quite sure that there will be a few members who are trying to use UKIP as a platform to promote their own personal interests or extremist views. This I believe is inevitable with any party.

Equally, I am sure that there are both Tory and Labour candidates and sitting members who have previously belonged to other parties or have made racist comments, but UKIP doesn’t seem to be wasting time seeking them out. Certainly UKIP has made it clear that  they will not tolerate racist, homophobic or other ‘unpalatable' views, and whilst they do not have the finance or facilities to vet all their candidates, they have said that they will take immediate action if any candidates with such views are drawn to their attention. As a result of this policy, they have just suspended two UKIP candidates amid claims of alleged racism. UKIP also point out that they are the only party in British politics who does not allow former members of the BNP to join, even as ordinary members, let alone stand as candidates. Labour, apparently, has sitting councillors who are former BNP members, which supports the view that the BNP is an extreme left wing party as was Germany's National Socialists.

To me, the CCHQ actions suggest extreme despair, the Tories have no arguments against the UKIP policies, so they attack the candidate. Personally, I don’t believe this will do the Tories any good, particularly when it comes to accusations of “racism”, as the public becoming inured to such accusations and now seem to regard them as a standard method of attack by politicians who are unable to counter their opponents' arguments.

With every day that passes, most of us take reports of racism less seriously in view of some of the ludicrous decisions that have been made on the subject. Seemingly, if one says something like "I am proud to be English", this is a racist remark as it denigrates those who are not English, although it is apparently not racist to be proud of one's Scots or Welsh ancestry!  Opposition to unrestricted immigration was considered to be racist for quite a while, but the Tories and Labour are busy back-peddling here as they realise that many of their members support the idea. And, of course, if one is opposed to same-sex marriage, one is automatically "homophobic", so again the two main parties must have many homophobic members.

It is time that, instead of mud-slinging, the Tories tried to come up with some real policies to counteract the UKIP threat, as by all considerations, I should be a natural Tory supporter. Regretfully, however, the only place that I now feel that I am likely to find true Conservative policies is within UKIP.