The Second Time Around...

I can't help but feel that we've been here before.  Whilst enduring all the political pundits and alleged experts on TV and in the papers pontificating about the significance of UKIP's relatively good showing in the local council elections, I was inevitably reminded of the furore and hype that surrounded the sudden and spectacular rise of the SDP in the eighties.  Like UKIP, the Social Democrats made headlines with their by-election results, pushing the votes of the established parties down.  Like UKIP today, the experts were busy speculating that the SDP had 'broken the mould' of British politics, that they had tapped into a deep dissatisfaction with conventional politics on the part of the electorate.  Also, just like UKIP now, they were all telling us how the SDP had brought into politics people who had never previously been involved or interested in politics.  But, of course, the SDP never managed to make that crucial breakthrough at a general election.  Their radicalism blunted by an ill-advised alliance with the Liberal Party, they lost their by-election gains and, weakened, were eventually forced to amalgamate with the Liberals to form today's Liberal Democrats.  Mind you, as the Lib Dems are currently in 'power', propping up our current extreme right-wing Tory government, I suppose you could say that, in the long term, the SDP were a success.

But maybe history won't repeat itself.  After all, there can be little comparison between UKIP and the SDP: one is effectively one-issue reactionary Little Englander bastion, a sort on BNP for the middle classes, whilst the other was a serious political party with a wide range of fully formed and thought out policies.  Moreover, whilst the SDP could boast of having some of the UK's leading left of centre politicians in its ranks, UKIP's ranks seem to be made up of the detritus of various other dubious right-wing pressure groups like the aforementioned BNP and the EDL.  Indeed, UKIP's council candidates here in Crapchester were a typically rum bunch of highly dubious local 'characters', many well known for running dodgy businesses.  Just the sort of people you'd want representing you at any level of government, eh?  In fact, I was just watching my local BBC news update and there was a story about a UKIP candidate who had been elected as a County Councillor, despite not having bothered to campaign or attend the count.  I don't know who is more despicable in this case - the candidate who has such contempt for the democratic process and electorate that he can't be bothered either to participate or speak to voters, or the idiots who are prepared to vote for someone who clearly despises them so much.  It's things like that which really depress me.