If there is anyone I loathe more in British politics than David CaMoron and thee Tories it is Nigel Farage and UKIP. I may joke about the Tories being closet racists and xenophobes, but that’s only me trying to be provocative. UKIP, on the other hand, really are racists and xenophobes – they just don’t admit it, even to themselves. The fact is, as all sensible people realise, Britain must be part of the European Union – most of our trade is with the EU. Being part of a wider European community makes sense, and the protests of people like Farage, however sensibly and reasonably they might like to frame them, amount to little more than the ravings of a lunatic.

Amusingly, though, Farage has claimed the American teaparty movement as kindred spirits. As anyone reading this will probably know, the teapaarty movement are even more right-wing than republicans, and advocate small state individualism. They call themselves libertarians. It’s supposed to be a grass-roots movement, but I suspect that is an illusion – I suspect the whole thing is a construct generated by the right and their allies in the media, plying those worst hit by the crunch with platitudes and slogans about ‘taking back our country’, but more on that soon. Such philosophies have always struck me as very short-sighted, as while they sound like they advocate freedom and tolerance, in reality they generate freedom for some and servitude for the many. Those with the ability and resources cease power while others are left to starve. I firmly believe we need a large state as both a safety-net and a mechanism which guarantees fairness and equality for all. Everyone has a right to free healthcare and a decent free education; everything else simply ensures inequality and suffering. Thus it is very telling that Farage would ally himself to the teaparty movement: both pretend their politics are reasonable, fair and adult when in fact they are self-centred, narrow-minded and frankly stupid.