Standing Up to UKIP in Margate

Both the author and her husband are in this picture - if you look carefully...

This is the front of the anti-UKIP march that I helped organise on Saturday (well, if I'd waited until Saturday it wouldn't have been very organised.- ha-ha). 

Although I spent much of the day feeling anxious and "on duty" it went off remarkably well and everyone was kind and smiley and my jacket was admired as usual (despite the hi-vis vest on top of it) and there was singing and laughing and brilliant posters - and quite good speeches, although I didn't really hear most of them.  I spent 4 hours standing/walking without sitting down - which is why today I am completely knackered.  

It felt worth it - we brought out a lot of people who don't normally appear locally - and to feel the support we got from people waving from windows (yes there were some vote UKIP posters too) and vehicles, including an ambulance, hooting as they went past was great.

There were the predictable shouts from the fascists - the EDL stood by the clocktower - and the Britain First lot were outside the Winter Gardens "guarding" UKIP.   Nigel wasn't there - and neither was Douglas Carswell - he left the conference while we were still assembling at the station.  So really it was just the usual Dad's Army types there plus a few suits who walked briskly past us..

Interesting, if unsurprising, that the fash don't stick together - unlike us.  Although I have joked about Thanet SUTU being mild-mannered, middle aged people, with this march lots of young people were there, and it was good to have evidence that there is a real visceral resistance to them.  In some ways the young are more opposed, because they haven't seen this sort of thing before, whereas a lot of us saw the rise of the NF in the 70s and very nasty they were: old Rock Against Racism and Anti-Nazi League logos have been revived and re-utilised, and as well as the "official" SUTU and Socialst Workers banners there were many great home made, individual creative efforts.

Are the left better-looking than the right?

There is a wonderful set of photos here https://www.facebook.com/funk.dooby.5?fref=photo&sk=photos which give a flavour of the day.   I will post a few below - but the last observation I want to make is that while us lefties were a pretty cheerful, nice-looking bunch of people, it was quite striking that the fash and their chums on the whole are pretty ugly.  I wonder whether from an early age they'd experienced less positive reactions - as the less cute child they were smiled at less, and it goes on from there.  Can that have somehow transposed into a wider perception that the world was against them, and then a search for someone to blame?

Here's a section of the crowd photographing the far right who are "guarding" UKIP - if our lot look less than sunny it is because the fash are snarling and shouting at them...

I think my observation about the fash is fair.  That hoodie does him no favours. 

Two of my favourite home made placards from the demo - and the essence of the cheerful atmosphere!

I should also say that I did two media interviews, one with Meridian - which wasn't shown - since they decided it was more important to report on the "violence" - they failed to explain it very well, but essentially what happened is that a fascist ran to the crowd because he was being photographed, seized a placard and broke it and was then restrained by the police.  So that was Meridian's story.  The BBC rather awkwardly filmed me as I was walking along with the banner.  I was shown for a few seconds and said something good - but I looked beyond hideous.  Fortunately they used most of what I said behind pictures of the demo. 

Lord McAlpine

In 2012 I wrote some pieces which named a couple of people in the Conservative party who were rumoured to be involved in paedophilia (that's upper class child abuse... or is it just a more distinguished form of child abuse?).  At the time there was a great BBC-scandal because Lord McAlpine had been named as connected with the Welsh childrens' home paedophilia scandal/cover up.... he took offence, sued etc. and threatened to pursue everyone who had ever retweeted disobliging tweets about him.    Although I hadn't written much about him, I had mentioned his love of boxing matches in passing.   He died the other day, which is why I am now writing this, not because I have any thing scandalous to say about him - the love of boxing not being exactly connected with paedophilia - although I think the way it was seen in the Ancient Greek world at the Olympic and other games, leaves one in no doubt about the erotic stimulus in provided for some.

Anyway, what I guessed at the time was that Lord M (bottom) could have been mistaken for Peter M (below) - the now dead Welsh office MP, worshipper of Mrs Thatcher and apparent paedophile.

They are not that similar - but to a frightened child, one stout, rubicund, jowelly Tory probably is as bad as another.  So maybe this solves the Lord M thing, that he was wrongly identified when it was Morrison all along.  Unless of course it's true.  Apparently a lot of BBC journos believe it is true - but that may just be the strength of the conspiracy theorising.  I know nothing, only that he liked watching boxing, and this fact has not been thought worthy of mention in the obituaries.  After all, plenty of people like boxing apparently.

Despite the death of Lord M I don't think I shall bring back the very popular pieces on Tory paedophilia... who knows, someone else's lawyer may be on the qui vive for this sort of material, and I don't really want to be bankrupted.  At the time I wrote them a great deal was being made of some investigations into a place called Elm House in Barnes...here apparently more cavorting with the denizens of care homes took place.  Oh why do I say cavorting?  I am trying to be euphemistic, but why don't I just say rape?  Since then, nothing more has been said.  

As I wondered in the previous post, why do the Tories seem to be so heavily implicated in child abuse?.  Is it just a coincidence that nearly all the well-known men charged with it have been Tories?  I imagine Stuart Hall was a Tory (the commentator, not the sociologist!).  I'm not saying there aren't Labour voters who abuse children (probably their own, rather than purchasing other people's), but somehow child-rape seems to be an unpleasant metaphor for just how much these people care for the weak, vulnerable and marginalised and how insouciantly they screw us all.