At least the clowns are happy...

So UKIP have taken 139 seats in the county council elections and have a decent claim to be the new third party in British (certainly English anyway) politics. Considering the sclerotic and managerial state of mainstream politics currently, riddled with out of touch career politicians and clueless wonks, this can only be a Good Thing, particularly since it is likely that the screams for an in/out referendum on continuing to be in the EU may become loud enough to be answered sooner rather than later. Whether the rest of UKIP's programme gets a proper tidy up or not as befits a political party which may soon have a real voice is still an unknown quantity, but I'll take them over the LiarDems any day (who I hope will soon be holding their party conferences in a phone box), and seeing the Tories running around like headless chickens today has made me very cheerful.

I suspect Nigel Farage will be enjoying his pint today.

Oh dear, I don't think I qualify as a leftie any more

...since I appear to agree almost word for word with the current council manifesto for UKIP. This has come as something of a shock to me; I always regarded myself as a natural left-winger, not withstanding my  disillusionment with the Labour Party in recent years; I assumed that fairness must reside with the left. But since Labour appear to have abandoned the disadvantaged to chase the Southern floating voter (most disgustingly with the failure to oppose the workfare clawback bill of IDS) I have been looking at alternative expressions of my views. I have long been sceptical of the EU, due to the fact that immigration has both depressed wages at the bottom of the labour market and displaced English workers from much casual work. I believe Tony Benn was correct and that it has done the man in the street no favours being part of the (expensive) club. We *should* leave.

So I guess I have no current affiliation, other than, tentatively, UKIP, along with many other disenfranchised former lefties. the future will be interesting. They aren't just little Englanders and Daily Mail readers any more.