An agent on the horizon

This is a post from my "Only Writing" blog - but it's part of my current story, so it belongs here too!

In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions, that a minute will reverse     TS Eliot

For the last few weeks I have been wrestling with GATD and not finding the experience consoling.  I am so desperate to meet my self-imposed deadline of the end of June that I have not thought about much else.  As a results of my very slow progress (lots of editing, not much forward movement) I have only got to 25,000 words.

Temptation!

In this period, the resurgence of right-wing, racist/xenophobic politics has made me feel more politically engaged, additionally the resignation of a number of Labour councillors, creating vacancies and seats to be fought next year, has made me think "Surely I could do better than that!".   A lack of progress, feedback, response and a general sense that my books are still "not good enough" had been lapping around me, making me decidedly despondent.  However, I seemed to be absolutely excelling myself in political arguments.  Clearly there was an alternative career to be considered.

It would be quite immoral to go into local politics for the money - on the other hand, the attendance allowance would be a lot better than nothing - which was what I was earning recently.  And they would certainly get their pound of flesh out of me.  So, I have joined the Labour Party - with the intention of turning up at the next open meeting - to see what I can see.

The Isle of Fannet: my manor and the glans of Kent!

I also know that my fantasy careers are often grim and unpleasant - after all, I might not get elected/selected, and the horror of having to argue with stupid people, and getting to grips with all aspects of local authority business would be at best slightly dull and probably mind-freezingly tedious.  Nevertheless, in something of despair about the writing, I decided that if I didn't "get an agent" or better, the prospect of publication by the end of December I would definitely put myself forward as a local councillor.

Query agents

Last night, as it was the New Moon and according to my Steiner practice of sowing at New Moon, I sent off 2 submissions to US agents.  I wondered about the second one, I found a rather ugly woman who looked likeable - but she was very insistent she didn't want any "Christian" content - now The Ash Grove is not a religious novel - but it definitely does have "Christian content" in the broadest sense of the word - since the hero is a clergyman.  And he does pray occasionally.  And take services.  So, although I liked the cut of her jib I thought I was wasting my time, so I moved on to the next one on the list (these are Tweets from Literary Rejections with details of agents who are looking for writers).   I found a woman at a large NY agency I'd looked at before, although I hadn't looked at her before, but I noticed she was keen on historical novels.  So I sent it to her too.  Last night I received an automatic reply from the first agent, and this morning I saw an email from Foreword, so I assumed that it was their automatic reply - I opened it, to check, and saw a two line email which was conversational and intelligent commenting on something I'd said in my letter and saying "I like your writing so send me the whole thing as a word document."

GOBSMACKED

Actually, it was more like this

Now, my inner critic tells me that The Ash Grove's  pace and quiet unfolding will make her lose interest by chapter 3 - but...what this has done is restored my faith in myself - briefly.  It also means that I don't have to become a Labour Councillor - and that I can carry on writing for a bit longer.  When I last had an agent interested it kept me going for ages, and certainly gave me the essential dose of self-belief that kept me buoyant.  I am really interested to hear what she will say - because no one has read TAG apart from me and Mark - despite a number of kind friends taking it away with them.

GATD
Due to this delicious event I have freed myself from GATD angst, and given myself a day off, in the course of which I have done one good, useful thing, and then devoted myself to pleasure.   M and I went out to lunch at Peens, and I had 2 large glasses of wine, did some shopping, went to the Albion had a cool drink on the terrace, left my shopping there, then had an ice cream at Morellis (chocolate cookies and raspberries) - and couldn't finish it - it was too much!   Then I did some shopping and came home, and I am ludicrously happy still, even though I am convinced Jen K will turn me down.  But a US agent - if she took me on and found a publisher...the sales potential is much bigger in the US... just hope they wouldn't want the sequels too soon.  Anyway, I will try and do some GATD work - it might be months before she gets back to me!

Manston Airport - what next?

Despite the protests of the not enormously economically savvy local afficionados, Manston is likely to remain closed.  It is selling its equipment to Lydd apparently (Lydd is another whole can of worms - owned by the Sheik Fakeh al Athel - perhaps for another blog).

Local fury has turned on Mrs Anne Gloag.  Famously not a very nice woman, with large Bette Davis eyes and a withered visage which sits oddly with her youthful blonde bob.  She is 70-something, and like other determined business people (Rupert Murdoch springs to mind) shows no sign of letting up.  Strange that they are both apparently Christians yet both so nasty - would they be Christians in the Mrs Thatcher (The Good Samaritan was only a good thing because he had MONEY) mould?   So, I am not a fan of Mrs Gloag.  Unfortunately, public opinion in this tiny province of the Empire, is now so polarised that anyone who is happy the airport is closed, is immediately assumed to be an adherent of hers.   The idea of a nuanced position is not well-understood here.

Mrs G bought the airport for £1 last year and, as I suspected, bought it for its land bank.   It is effectively the biggest brownfield site in Thanet.  Unfortunately, many local people didn't understand this - they thought the Bus millionairess had bought it for some other reason - perhaps to invest even more money in it and turn it into Kent's answer to Gatwick.   Oh, you think I'm being cruel to the simplicity of local people?  I assure you that is fair comment - bear in mind that we have some of the lowest levels of educational qualification and skills in the county.

Mrs G has now closed the airport.  She is going to put housing on it.  I think that is pretty much inevitable.  It would take about 20 years to return the land to agriculture, it could be used as a solar field perhaps in the mean time - but honestly, realistically, in this climate, turning it into housing is the answer.    So my argument is, if there is to be housing there, let's make damn sure that it is decent, high quality housing, with a good portion of social housing, high ecological standards, plenty of trees to offset the carbon used in the construction, open spaces, facilities, planning gain!   Of course, knowing TDC this is a bit of a pipe dream.  This is a local council which doesn't seem to understand about planning gain.

There was considerable opposition to the housing idea from the Manstonistas - many of whom, to judge by their comments, must be UKIP supporters - comments on the lines of "we don't want sink estates" (as if - this will be expensive stuff - that's where the money is), "we don't want everyone being emptied out of London coming down here"  "25 families from Brixton have already moved here " (Brixton is code for "black").  The little Englander is alive and well.  I don't totally love the idea, I like the open spaces, the flat windswept ridge, I don't want to see it covered with houses - hence my longing for trees!  But I recognise that there are economic realities.  TDC could deny her planning permission, but she will take it higher and eventually be granted it by the Minister - so why bother? Get control of the situation now, impose conditions - make sure it will be an absolutely fabulous place to live.

Unfortunately, there is now a massive hare running that Mrs G is going to apply for "Garden city" status for her proposed development.  Cue mass hysteria.  And I would object to that, because (a) it will be harder to impose planning conditions (b) it won't be a garden city that Ebenezer Howard would recognise (c) there is talk of it extending to embrace the "Science Park" on the Pfizer site - in other words it would take in Cliffsend and swallow hectares of agricultural land along the A256 to Sandwich.   For heaven's sake!  Unfortunately, to support any housing is seen as support for the Garden City scheme - so I am anticipating some weeks of vituperation and irrationality.  Deep sigh.

I am hoping the Garden City hare is just a strategy to make us all relieved an grateful when it just turns out to be 1200 houses on the airport site.

Manston Airport - a short history of the struggle.

For the benefit of the far-flung audience I should explain - this is my local airport - originally a military site, it finally became a civilian airport 15 years ago.  Although it has been a commercial airport during the years of low-cost air travel and a vast increase in popular casual tourism, such as European city breaks, it has never made money, or attracted any of the major low-cost airlines to use the airport.

A brave, but very badly planned, effort to start a low-cost airline that would fly out of Manston was abandoned within a year I think.  The flights were only cheap on weekdays during term time - and flew to a decreasing number of destinations.   Since then we have had flybe flights to Manchester, Belfast (rapidly cancelled) and Edinburgh.  These ceased last year I think.  Apart from a few charter flights, the majority of the business was freight - carried in dreadful, aging 747s which travelled above our house, so low that you could count the rivets.  In the past there were Antonovs that made the plates rattle - but that was pre 2003 when I moved here. Apart from being a Mecca for dodgy carriers with poor safety records, Manston didn't really seem to be much of a business and was known to be losing about £3-4m p.a. The owner's solution to this state of affairs was to say that if they could have night flights the airport would be viable.

Charles Buchanan - an a rare visit from a BA plane to Manston - this was to suggest success.

Another factor to be considered is that it is sited on a peninsula - with a very limited footfall.  When I moved here I was surprised that the estate agents were promoting it as an attraction - I couldn't see how it would work financially.  The final project was 3 daily KLM flights to Schipol - from where Thanetians could fan out into the rest of the world.   These soon reduced to 2 daily flights, and might have dwindled further if events hadn't overtaken them.

HOWEVER

it appears that the majority of local people - especially those who didn't live under the flight path (and some who did) loved the airport.  For one local councillor it was apparently a badge of pride "Other councillors say "Oh - you've got an airport".  Personally I wish they were saying "Oh - you've got a university."  Many people feel emotional about it because of the WW2 connections - I can understand that.

For some years there has been a division between people who were fighting against night flights, and those who believed the Airport Manager, Charles Buchanan's assertions that allowing night flights would create "thousands" of extra jobs.   At its peak the airport employed 150 people - how 3-4 night flights a day were going to multiply jobs was a question for the wise.  However, the Chair of the local Chamber of Commerce, David Foley, who is an intelligent man with considerable knowledge of the local economy, back up this ludicrous claim and many local people believed that it was true and that all that was standing in the way of massive progress and full employment, was a handful of posh blow-ins (DFLs - Down from London) like me, with our ludicrous demands for sleep.

In addition to a profound local belief that the airport is viable, there are gangs of people from Folkestone, Whitstable and Rochester who are devotees of having a local airport - so that they don't have to use Gatwick  (only not so local that they actually have to hear the planes, or breathe the polluted air).  Even in their wildest dreams, Manston was never going to provide the range of flights and destinations of Gatwick - so unless these supporters dedicated themselves only to going to the destinations Manston could offer, going to Gatwick or Heathrow was still going to be a reality for most of them.  Of course they could have flown to Schipol and then waited 7 hours for a transfer to Athens or whereever... is that really preferable to a couple of hours on the M25?

This was the state of play until May 14th (or was it 15th?) when the airport closed.  I will write a further post to bring this issue up to date.    Is it significant that the airport closed on a Full Moon? No, but quite symbolic.

June

Here are the stars for June - presumably any June? - from the Guardian

June is usually a rather stressful month - too many family birthdays, friends' birthdays to forget and festivities. At the end of the month the students start arriving.  We are still not rich enough to drop that task, so I should really be spending June creating vast tons of chili and shepherds' pie base and cakes and so on for the freezer.  First difficulty this year, we have an Arab student for 3 weeks - but no real worries - just 3 pork-free weeks.  Hope he'll stay and be nice, and not be one of the rather superior ones who despises us kaffirs!

But before all that, there are 3 pieces of work for Mark - could the business finally be coming back - or is it the marketing burst he's done?  Firstly a few days in Cambridge, then (probably) a job in Ramsgate - then finally a few days in Bedford.  We won't be paid until late July -  but then I think things will be looking up quite a bit.

Before all that excitement, Mark has an interview with the company who make Coast for the BBC to talk about the WW2 defences at Pegwell Bay - it isn't guaranteed that he will be on the programme - but it's a good prospect and there will be a small fee - equivalent to about a day's work I guess. It would be a useful contact for him if he wants to pitch a documentary idea to them about elephants.

The UKIP manifesto

I must confess I haven't read the UKIP manifesto - but there was a rather good brief version of it - focussing obviously on the less caring aspects - in a local website - I reproduce it here as an aide memoire for future use in the General Election perhaps.  I haven't heard yet whether Farage will stand here.  Do hope not, but we'll see.

Well done UKIP voters - did you actually know what you were voting for? 
He's a wee list for starters:-
- scrap paid maternity leave
- scrap paid holiday entitlement
- cut education spending 
- increase military spending 
- decriminalise marital rape
- withdraw from the Human Rights Act
- cancel all current house building projects
- abandon baking regulations - risking another banking 
crisis
- stop all renewable energy projects
- halt climate change action
- promote fracking
- privatise the NHS 
- abolish the Scottish Parliament 
and that's just some of their intentions!

YOU DID CHECK THAT OUT BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR CROSS IN THE BOX, DIDN'T YOU?? 

Those are clearly the worst bits... 

UKIP

I don't really want to write about UKIP - I've been writing and arguing about them intermittently today on Facebook.

Anyone who thinks Facebook is all kittens and video clips doesn't see my pages.  There are very tough political slogging matches going on.  It's been lucky that I've had a good friend who shares my views doing a lot of the heavy lifting - and in some cases it was her statuses that provoked these fights.   Part of me just wishes that UKIP supporters would just shut up about it - but they've won the majority of the seats - they feel entitled to gloat - those of them who were more discreet before the results are now strutting about and going for fitting for their new uniforms (I jest!).

Although UKIP strenuously tries to distance itself from neo-fascist groups such as NF and BNP the more it protests, the more we are counting the spoons.... the fact is that it has attracted their supporters (as well as many disaffected Tories and Labour voters) is a small thing, the worse thing, I think, is that it has enabled people who are pretty racist to find an outlet and to express their opinions.

The people who say "I'm not a racist but...." mean that they probably wouldn't use the N- word - but that's now the only definition of a racist - feeling alienated from foreigners, unable to make them welcome - yes, it's xenophobia - but it often covers a racist set of beliefs.   These xenophobes are Ukippers - they aren't educated, cosmopolitan or sophisticated.  Are they nice, kind, decent people?  Perhaps - to their own kind - they would probably help out if they saw a foreigner in trouble - wouldn't they?   They aren't monsters surely.

Nevertheless, I am feeling as alienated from them as Nigel Farage would from a household of Romanian men - Ukipophobia... Sadly, I have rather exhausted my energies on them on Facebook - but my overall view is that this victory is voters who perhaps don't really understand how Euro elections work voting for people who aren't going to work in the European Parliament - so rather a waste of time.  Probably some voters think if they can get enough UKIP MEPs elected they will be able to change European legislation - well yes, but...

Apparently UKIP are going to overhaul their policies - at present they are trying to present themselves as a party of the politically marginalised working classes - who are ignored by the media and Westminster.  If the working class took a close look at their agenda and manifesto they might wonder how getting rid of sick pay and the minimum wage was going to help the working classes exactly? This is because UKIP are not of course a working class party - they are a Poujardiste petit-bourgeois small business persons' party.... their interests are limited to making themselves richer and letting the weakest go to the wall.  Again not something most ordinary British people are totally enamoured of - we are famous for liking under dogs - I don't think we've lost that yet.   Perhaps we are safe.

I certainly don't believe they will make significant gains in a General Election in 2015 - barring some unforeseen horror... However, Nigel F is making the most of his victory - crowing that it is the first time a third party has won a "national election" for a 100 years.  Pas grand chose really - EU elections are not exactly national elections - correctly it should be "won a majority in the national section of a Europe-wide election".  But the truth isn't always a good sound-bite is it?

Claims Direct scam

Claims Direct scam

This afternoon I was called by the usual sub-continental, saying he was calling from Claims Direct.  He was not brushed off easily and started telling me that there was money owing to us from our bank, which had overcharged us for services.   I began to believe him, since I think half our debt to them is a result of charges and the interest charged on their charges and so on - even without the PPI - which we never had because it's futile for the self-employed.

I told him I was uneasy, he was very persuasive - and said they were being supplied with information by local law firms.  Because they used the name Claims Direct I began to think that this was a reputable company which had outsourced its call centre to Bangalore... he began to ask me for details (M's first name) and asked me to confirm our address.  Then I realised he was working towards the "give us your bank details so we can send you the money" question.  He said "Wait, you can speak to my supervisor."
His supervisor "Kevin" had even worse English and an even thicker accent... I told him I would call Claims Direct in the UK and rang off.

While I was looking for the number "Kevin" rang back - "Why you put phone down Madam? We not finished..."  I said "I just want to verify what you are telling me."

When I googled Claims Direct I didn't see anything about a scam there - which is why I am posting this.   I called Claims Direct - they have a "no cold calls" policy - so it wasn't them, and this is a new scam.  I couldn't get their number by dialling 1471.

Sad, I could have done with a couple of thousand.

The NHS Conspiracy...

You know me, never happier than when pooh-poohing somebody's conspiracy theory, cutting their nuttiness off at the source, chucking factual criticism at them.  Of course I have the odd cranky view of my own, but nothing that is anything like a fully-fledged theory. However for the last few days, I've been beginning to wonder whether there are some sinister forces at work in the Department of Health and the NHS.

During the first decade of this century the NHS became visibly better, waiting times were cut, one heard relatively few stories about hospital horror (well, there was the iatrogenic infection story - but they dealt with that by sticking antiseptic dispensers at every doorway).  In the last few years, everything I've heard anecdotally has been bad stuff about it.  Terrible delays in treatment for cancer patients, poor communication, people with awful conditions waiting months to get seen or tested properly.  There is a great move to close smaller local hospitals (because of their poorer outcomes and higher mortality rates) and worst of all, an alarming number of cases of GPs misdiagnosing cancers and other terminal conditions.

The anecdotal business about GP misdiagnosis (Strat, Paul C, and now Marion are 3 that spring immediately to mind) is extensive, so much so that a whole radio programme was devoted to it recently.  It is clearly a statistically measurable factor in mortality rates!  Has it always been?  Or is this a more recent development, down to GP reluctance to incur expenses on the practice for tests etc.   I admit I have been lucky in this case - recently I've been despatched to one of those "within 14 days" appointments and had biopsies etc. in rapid time.  However, there have been other occasions when I've been told not to worry and given appointments several months hence, or had to fight to get seen to.  In both these cases I ended up in hospitals having ops with general anaesthetics....   However, this is not about me, I'm a pushy middle class person who actually does want to get her health sorted out rather than suffer in silence, or simply ignore the problem.

All in all I am beginning to suspect a conspiracy.  It is an acknowledged bit of government policy to farm out as much of the NHS as they can to private interests.  They know people don't like it - because the NHS is one of this country's great secular religions.  We worship it - see 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.

It isn't perfect, it isn't as enviable as it was, but we can't contemplate charges for visits to doctors etc. So what can they do to resign the British people to privatisation?  Easy really - make the whole service, experience and so on, so bloody awful that people start wondering if there's an alternative.  Once they are thinking that, you feed them the "common sense" answer that we just haven't got the money to provide the health service of our collective dreams, and we must find ways for people to contribute.... and so on.  Once enough people are suspicious and heartsore at the treatment of family and friends in the NHS they will begin to turn against it.  I hear it happening all the time, they may focus on individual doctors, or hospitals (some people make QEQM - our local hospital - sound like a prisoner of war camp), but they are beginning to criticise the system, and when there's critical (sic!) mass the government will win!

Obviously there must be critique of the NHS - but also constructive suggestions.  We don't have an alternative, it would be unbearable to have a US system.  We are the 8th or 9th richest country in the world - if we can't provide a proper social health service, what on earth are we spending the money on?

(Last Days of) Pompeii - the Movie

I've just come back from seeing this rather spectacular but also slightly dull new film.   The spectacle consists of lots of CGI eruptions and earthquakes and pyroclastic flows.  There was a considerable amount of jeopardy - mostly from the volcano, but also endless threats from the baddie - an evil senator and his minions.   The plot was plotty - all sorts of twists and turns - every time one got weary of volcano jeopardy there would be another outbreak of hand to hand fighting.

The reason it was dull was because one had, if one has seen Gladiator and Spartacus , seen it all before.  Better special effects - of course.  In fact there was an intriguing scene in which a speculator tries to interest the senator in a deal to invest in new buildings in Pompeii - the magnificent maquettes could easily have come from the Effects department of a film company, used in some stirring finale in an age where there was no CGI.

The plot consists of several factors which have been seen before, namely: a gladiator with a past, and a grudge, a gladiator who has to fight for manumission, a slave (gladiator) falling in love with a rich man's daughter, an evil senator with designs on the heroine (Quo Vadis - that one), a cruel, cold-hearted killer in league with the senator, an idle self-indulgent owner of gladiators, a rufty-tufty gladiator trainer (lanator), a loyal servant, a decent Roman, two gladiators becoming friends (see above).   In addition to this they added a great deal of multi-ethnicity - which was probably right, but they may have overdone it a tad... It was a pity they did not include Nero or some Christians - then they would have been playing with the full deck of Roman film stereotypes.

M and I amused ourselves with guesses about plot and character - he predicted "senator's daughter" early on, almost right, and I predicted "this will not have a happy ending" - the ending was lifted from Robert Harris's Pompeii - to an extent, from an original idea based on some Pompeiian body casts.

I am sorry to say that to date I have failed to read Edward Bulwer (Lord) Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii" but I have a feeling that it contains several of the above elements.  I kick myself repeatedly, it would be so easy to write this tripe, why am I failing to do so... And why haven't I managed to read Lytton's book?  I have started several times but lost interest in the first chapter.  If memory serves, it is not very well written, it may even be quite badly written, possibly it has become dated without becoming a classic, possibly it contains a cast of what are now stereotypical characters but were then relatively fresh and original.  In an age when educated boys got "a thorough grounding in the classics" Lytton's book was a sort of "classical civilisation" option, for girls and the lower orders.   I wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty bad - after all it was Lytton who wrote the original opening line "It was a dark and stormy night...."  I have never quite seen why it is so derided, yes, it's not very interesting, but it sets the scene..."and I dreamed I went to Manderly again"   "and the clocks were striking thirteen" - many more celebrated opening lines could be grafted on to it.

Pompeii itself was interestingly represented, a lot of aerial shots - easier perhaps because we have so many plans of the city.  No longer do we have huge sets of Ancient Rome created in Cinecitta (a pity) but presumably extras running through narrow corridors that will subsequently be draped with falling masonry, flaming timbers and exploding pyroclastic bombs.   Set the scene by having the heroine taken in a carriage through the bustling city streets at the Venalia (sic?) festival - see the happy smiling Pompeiians etc etc.  Then show us a few shots of the forum, with that statue we all recognise, and some gateways  (and all the archaeologists in the audience start muttering "That doesn't look like the Porta Capuana" etc.) and of course, Vesuvius rearing majestically above it all - not very far away at all - I'm sure it's a bit further away than that.  But perhaps it's because it's covered with plants, whereas nowadays the vegetation doesn't go all the way up (did it then?).    And what is this "venalia" (sic?) festival.  I must have misheard, or maybe they made it up.  Or do they mean Vinalia - a wine festival - and not as I had thought a festival of venality (though I'm sure the Romans could have had one of those too).

Is it worth seeing?   Meh, depends what you like.  Yeah, if you enjoy demos of fighting and lots of jeopardy - and it would be a good one to take your kids to impress upon them what happened, although you should point out that in fact the eruption happened over 6 days - not the afternoon/evening that the film shows.  But friends, Pompeiians, countrymen, I come to be nice about this film, not to bury it - so lets' rejoice in this, there are two facts in the film, firstly it happened in AD 79, secondly it occurred when Titus was emperor - just try to remember that Titus was not the venal and corrupt one, that was his younger brother Domitian who succeeded him.  Other facts can be verified with reference to Wikipedia or the letters of Pliny!

The Resistible Rise of Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage is a superficially "impish" version of a type that I find familiar, latterly from the ghastly networking breakfasts that I used to go to when I was trying to set up a business.   He is a commercial person who has not got much intellectual training behind him, and has spent his life concluding that what his "common sense" tells him must be right and true, because all the chaps in the saloon bar or at the nineteenth hole agree with him, largely because, like him, they are not strong on critical faculties, and their knowledge of the world, society, humanity, economics is restricted to the small number of things they have experienced.

Their views are comforting, because they do not encounter opposition or disagreement, since most of the people they meet are either their employees, or people similar to them.  When they do meet someone who disagrees, they can easily dismiss them as a "leftie" or a "nutter", or, perhaps a "foreigner".  

We all have a bit of "them-ism" in us.  Few of us can agree with the humani nil a me alienum puto (I don't find anything human is alien to me) of Terence - we all have our prejudices, our dislikes (one of mine being heavily blinkered small businessmen).  UKIP seems composed of people who have formed a party against everything and everyone that challenges their limited worldview.  Unhappily, there are many other people in the country who have had even fewer opportunities to understand the world and are happy to follow UKIP's lead.   Something is rotten in the state of England, and unfortunately it cannot all be put down to a scheming uncle.

If, as shorthand, and on the understanding that this is an over-simplification, I refer to the typical UKIP candidate/activist as a small businessman (women too sadly) then a great deal of their policy becomes clear. For years there have been various spokesmen (not women usually) for the Federation of Small Business(men) interviewed on the radio on phone-ins and consumer programmes, and they have usually argued fiercely against any improvement in conditions for workers... no statutory sick pay, no maternity leave, compassionate leave, flexible working, job-shares, paternity leave, adoptive parent leave.  Left to them, children would still be drawing coal trucks underground and going up chimneys.  Of course, not all small business operators are the same: we don't have employees in our business, Architectural Archaeology, so we haven't been destruction tested on these issues.

These views, dictated by common sense and self-interest have been transferred wholesale into the UKIP manifesto.  In addition, they apparently wish to privatise the NHS.   This is wonderfully Un-English/British of them.  It has long been known that large sections of the population would probably go to the stake for the NHS - it has been apotheosized during the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.  Yes, GPs make mistakes (bad ones), yes people die, yes, there are useless individuals in the system - welcome to the real world... but on the whole, the UK is very proud of the NHS and loves it, warts and all.   Yet UKIPers, who claim to love their country, would deliver their fellow citizens to unaffordable insurance and illness and toothache and so on so that they could save a bit of money.

Why?  Because UKIPers are not really for anyone except themselves.  Their agenda is to reduce their own expenditure - they will pay less tax under their regime, unhealthy, disabled babies will not be born to be a burden on the state, the small businessmen will not have to subsidise the feckless and weak who get ill, or manage to have accidents, and this will mean more money for them.

This whole Poujardiste agenda is actually half-concealed, while they use people's ignorance and anxiety about "them" - whether these are Eastern European gypsies, or famine dodging Sudanese, to attract attention and support. The EU is composed of foreigners, so they can't care about us, so they must be screwing us in some way.  Foreigners wish to come here to work - how very dare they?!  Who would have thought people were so frightened about schools being full, about having to wait a little longer for a doctor?  Whatever happened to British pluck?  We are now such a nation of snivelling ninnies apparently, that we will tolerate suffering people being refused asylum, rather than have to spend an extra 30 minutes in an NHS waiting room.

UKIP shamefully like to try and use Christianity too - not because they are Christians, but to highlight the fact that they are not Muslims.  When Jesus said "who is my brother?" he meant everyone was, not just a few special people who were his siblings.  But if you ask Nigel and his chums "who is your brother?" their answer would probably be "Fuck 'em, I'm an only child."   Who was it who said the only true interest is self-interest?  The trouble with UKIPers is, they don't really have any other interests.