Somewhere in between

There is going to be a gap in my blog I'm afraid.

"Yes", you point out, "it started a week ago...". Well, so it did, Dear Reader. It's just that (as well as minor details like a gig at the Albert Hall tomorrow) I have something really major that has cropped up and I have to deal with it. And given that I need to work - well I need to keep getting paid, and intend to honour all my commitments to various choirs and causes if at all possible, something has to give.

And that something is the blog.

I very much hope that before the end of the month normal service can be resumed. And what is happening might give me a few new things to talk about - if I can - not sure. But for now I'm going to tie off a few posts from the year where I have left things hanging with some bullets below - and say auf wiedersehen.

1. I'm still not eating meat. Had a bit of fish, especially at the start, but that's reducing now. Don't feel much different physically (but feeling no worse is good) but feel happy that this is right for me now.
2. I blogged earlier on this year about dieting. That did not go well, until the last couple of weeks, which have seen a bit of a change, so I'l have to hold that one for now and see. 
3. Cigarettes. Clearly good to have stopped, but I still want one. If you're offering?
4. So glad to see the UKIP bandwagon has at least stopped speeding up following the by-election result. I do feel sorry for the Libdems, because I don't think they really had a choice about the coalition, but there you go. I'm sure Nick Clegg will relish his peerage in May 2015.
5. Not exactly a Green breakthrough - but not a collapse either. 3 MEPs (up from 2)
6. Three months until Kate Bush (in tribute to whom this post was named)!
7. Before that, Chas 'n' Dave on 21st June! 
8. I have lost count of the times and ways in which music has kept me sane, who I want to be etc. It matters.

Making plans for dealing with Nigel

I write this on a train from Edinburgh back to Kings Cross after a fabulous weekend with Voxcetera.

A good concert, a spot of clubbing, climbing Arthur's Seat in a hailstorm, and even a bit of culture. As I travel back the sun is shining and it feels that all is right with the world. 

Ah, yes, the European election. The cloud on my otherwise perfect horizon. The smug, Farage-shaped cloud. I do not understand why people have voted for UKIP because there is no chance I would ever do it. So I do not feel what those people feel.

As such, my "Why?" has to be speculation. But the lack of facts should never get in the way of a good blog, so here goes.

I don't think that the UKIP vote is borne of racism. Not for the vast majority. UKIP's best performances have not been in the area with the highest migration. London has performed much more as you would expect, with a drift to the official opposition.

And if a racially stronger policy was popular, we would not be celebrating the removal of the two BNP MEPs this morning, having lost 80% of their 2009 vote.

But I suspect the *fear* that jobs might be under threat to a surge of immigrants, no matter how far-fetched that actually is, is an issue. And the retired Colonels of Tunbridge Wells have always responded well to any call to raise the drawbridge.

More of an issue in my mind is that people do not see any real difference between the three major parties. There are no radical differences between them. If you want difference you either look to the Greens, or to Nige. And the Greens have done OK. Well, even. But they've never threatened a break through. Last time - in fact in my memory *every* other time there has been an alternative with the LibDems. Now they are part of government, so that one comes out. And their only chosen point of difference was Europe, more specifically the EU.

Ah yes, the EU. UKIP's rallying post. Author, if you believe Nige, of every problem this country has. The LibDems have struggled to say why the EU benefits us, just as both Con and Lab hint at the need to renegotiate treaties - which must mean they aren't the laws we should have. 

The first purpose of European union, back in the 50s, was to ensure coal and steel production was centrally controlled - with more than an eye on controlling rearmament. The Federalist goal has grown from there, and is still close to the heart of some Europeans, but of very few Brits. But Britain is a trading nation, and the Common Market was a serious attraction to us. Easier trade, breaking down of barriers, bigger markets - all good stuff. People don't see that in the EU. They see bureaucracy, and inefficiency, and perhaps corruption. 

Farage has played his hand on this well. Some of his claims are better supported than others. And of course no one significant* has left the EU, so we can't say that the world would end. He is saying "things are crap - do this and they will get better". 

So, do you** face a UKIP government in a year? Of course not. Will they fall back to a level of irrelevance as the Greens did after their big vote in the 1989 Euros? Perhaps, though not that far. Will they, horror of horrors, have enough seats to keep a Tory government in power at a disproportionate price? Yes, they might. But we have to find a way of engaging the UKIP voter with full-spectrum politics, and even more so the people who don't bother voting. And if we are serious about the EU we have to show the British people why it's a good thing. 

* Sorry Greenland, we love you, but you don't give me a working comparator here.

** I say you! because if it happens I'm off