If there’s a problem, it must be a EU problem

Yes, I know, TBH shouldn’t be doing this, attacking UKIP. It shouldn’t be doing it because in the St Ives Constituency, a vote for UKIP is probably a vote less for the Tories, so I should be encouraging people to back UKIP, so as to further sink the chances of Tory PPC for St Ives, Mr Derek Thomas. And, yes, I also know that Mr Thomas is a nice man but that, in my book, doesn’t forgive him for representing the Nasty Party; and, yes, I know his chances of winning the seat are rather slim, about 13% in fact (see last week’s post).

But last week’s Cornishman published a letter from Mr Stuart Guppy, who is the branch chairman of UKIP St Ives. Mr Guppy’s letter (page 53), quite rightly lamented the fact that ‘profiteering pharmacists are selling prescription drugs to Europe, rather than supplying local surgeries and hospitals,’ and so putting NHS patients at risk – as reported last month in the Observer and elsewhere. So far, so OK. But while pointing the finger at rogue pharmacists, Mr Guppy reserves the real blame, for, yes, the EU, and, by implication, our membership of it. If only trading drugs ‘in this way within the EU’ wasn’t legal, there wouldn’t be a problem. This is, claims Mr Guppy, ‘just one of hundreds of diktats that urgently need cancelling’. It’s the EU’s fault.

UKIP claims that it is no longer a single issue party. If so, then the party’s leader, the rather scary Lord Pearson, really should have a word in Mr Guppy’s shell-like. Well, whatever, The Baulking House will be offering a small reward to the person who, in the run-up to the General Election, offers the best example of a non-EU problem that UKIP in Cornwall contrives nonetheless to  blame on the EU. Like Mr Guppy’s drugs.

Pity TUSC stops at Bristol – Cornwall’s loony Right deserves a fight

In the absence of Monster Raving Loony Party candidates in the General Election, Cornwall will just have to do with the next best things. The Cornish Democrats promise ‘a regionalised version of route destination signs with a Cornish flavour’, declare that membership of the EU is apparently in ‘contravention of Her Majesty’s coronation oath’, believe in ‘Christian-based values’ and will provide us with ‘dubbed versions of Postman Pat to Thunderbirds in Cornish’.  The Taliban would be envious of many of  the party’s manifesto promises. ‘Strong traditional values’. It’s that scary.

Meanwhile UKIP would have us all swear an oath to the Monarchy, celebrate (compulsorily?) the Last Night of the Proms, build 17 nuclear power stations and increase defence spending by 40%, all achieved by massively cutting spending. Oh, and there will be a transfer of land and property back to the Royal Family. I kid you not, and I haven’t even mentioned immigration yet.

And of course there’s Mebyon Kernow.

But why should the bonkers right-of-centre parties have all the fun? The recently launched TUSC party tells us that ‘The working class and peoples of Britain face a ruling class offensive which will intensify over the coming period’, and characterises the occupation of Afghanistan as ‘imperialist’. All of which and more sounds rather pre-Soviet Union meltdown. Pity is, for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition,  the working class stops at Bristol South. If only the party could be persuaded to field candidates this side of the Tamar, the General Election just might grab our interest. And the loony right in Cornwall surely deserves a good scrap. As the brilliant Harry Hill would urge: ‘Fight!’