UKIP And Political Correctness

Metropolitan journalists must love Godfrey Bloom. Not only does he give them license to exercise their feelings of smug superiority, but he does so in the dog days of August. A dopamine fix and valuable copy all rolled into one. It is therefore not surprising that the "Bongo-Bongo Land" story has run and run.

The latest journalist to give vent was that Uriah Heap of the political classes and Metropolitan moderniser to his fingertips,  Matthew D'Ancona. Writing yesterday in the Telegraph, he opined that modern-day political correctness  was no more than politeness necessary in a diverse society, and that the Bloom furore marked a 'fork in the road' for UKIP, who he describes as a "fringe party".

D'Ancona's fork in the road analogy is very telling, as it offers the binary choice so common in Metropolitan circles: you either follow our "correct" way, or you are by definition a racist / sexist / homophobe, blah, blah, blah, spouting prejudice, hatred and deliberately causing offence.

In practise there is a third way, and that is not to be gratuitously offensive but not to shy away from hard truths either. In that narrow sense D'Ancona has a point: Bloom did overstep the mark with using a disparaging and dated phrase that can only be interpreted as dismissive and derogatory. Although it was not racist, it hardly helps UKIP's cause when the party makes great play of exploiting our links to the Commonwealth. Whenever we talk about that in future, the question "do you mean Bongo-bongo land?" will not doubt be used against us.

However, in the wider context D'Ancona is very much in the wrong. His emphasise on being polite completely ignores that politeness segues very easily into lying, or at the very least avoiding telling others painful truths not in order to protect others but to protect yourself. For instance, not mentioning to someone that they are fat is no doubt polite, but it would be immoral not to do so if that person is dangerously overweight.

Politeness, in short, can very easily be a camouflage for outright moral cowardice, and it is moral cowardice that so completely infects our political and media classes today. Having by and large led shallow, easy lives in Metropolitan circles where the greatest social crime is to say something that doesn't make others feel good, they refuse to confront issue after issue on the spurious grounds that it is "impolite" to do so.

It is therefore "impolite" to face the truth that Islam contains some tenets wholly at odds with Western civilisation. Instead, we are told time and time again that terrible crimes committed in it's name are 'nothing to do' with the religion. It is "impolite" that the lawless sub-cultures of Romania and Bulgaria will probably lead to an explosion of crime when those countries  are given full unfettered immigration rights at the end of this year. It is "impolite" to mention that much foreign aid is wasted, and that if we were really serious about helping Africa and developing nations, we would instead unilaterally withdraw from the morally truly wicked Common Agricultural Policy.

Cosseted and buffered against the harsh winds of reality, this is precisely how our gilded Metropolitan elite would prefer things to remain, hence the blatant attempts at moral intimidation aimed at Bloom and UKIP this week. However, it is this culture of lying and cowardice that the rest of society is heartedly sick of. Both Bloom and UKIP were largely given the benefit of the doubt during this last week by an electorate who see UKIP as it's last best hope of ridding themselves of a political class that has become so completely morally corrupt.

There should be no return to the 1970s world of casual insensitivity and prejudice so typified by Rupert Rigsby from Rising Damp or Gene Hunt  from Life On Mars, but nonetheless the public are prepared to hear hard truths, and look to UKIP to utter them. In short, we must continue to be thoroughly rude, but not gratuitously so. To Political Correctness, we must never bend the knee.