Five things we hate about Ukip, a former banker’s racist club

1. Ukip has outdone even the Tories at the old game of “I’m not racist but…”

   They want to ban Muslim women from wearing a veil—and any new immigrants from settling in Britain.

   One candidate recently said that “One should not shy away of contemplating forced repatriation”.

   In the European parliament Ukip’s Nigel Farage heads up an alliance with Francesco Speroni of Italy’s Northern League. Speroni said the ideas of mass murderer Anders Breivik “are in defence of Western civilisation”.

   Tories worry about Ukip nicking their votes. But they love racist scapegoating that divides workers and deflects anger.

   
2. Ukip’s success has convinced sections of the Labour Party that its anti-immigrant drivel is the voice of the working class.

   But Farage wouldn’t know the proletariat if it smacked him in the face. After graduating from an Eton group public school he became a City trader.

3. The European Union is a tool of the bosses. But Ukip is more bothered about the fig leaf of social protection it grants workers.

   It says the working time directive costs bosses billions by making it harder to overwork their staff.

4. One big hit for this supposedly single issue party was its opposition to gay marriage.

   It sacked the leader of its youth wing when he said he supported equal marriage. And its culture spokesperson Winston McKenzie likened adoption by same sex couples to child abuse.

5. Ukip is obsessed with law and order—and dead set against giving the vote to prisoners.

   But in doing so they’ve disenfranchised their own Tom Wise—the cop turned Ukip representative who was the first MEP to be jailed for fiddling expenses.

   Wise stole £36,000, which he spent on fine wines and a new car.

Building Society’s war on our homes

Nationwide Building Society likes to tell us it’s “on your side”. But it has a funny old way of showing it.

It plans to ban landlords who take its loans from accepting tenants on housing benefit.

Currently Nationwide is the largest lender to landlords with tenants on housing benefit.

So the move could rob many poor tenants of a roof over their heads.

With them on our side, who needs enemies?

Private landlords grab stock

Will local councils stop at nothing to get rid of housing stock?

Liverpool council has given up on regenerating 179 boarded up houses. So it’s selling them off cheap—some for just £1.

More than 100 people have applied for each of these.

The council will prioritise those who can show themselves to be the most local.

The rest will be sold to private landlords, or housing associations at subsidised rates.

Let’s hope this doesn’t give ideas to all the other councils that will have empty homes if the Tories’ bedroom tax goes through.

Fit to work lobbyist assesses own test

The Tories may have ruled out any U-turn to spare disabled people from attacks on their right to a bedroom.

But they still plan to review the Work Capability Assessments they use to drive people off Disability Living Allowance.

Many people have died after being found fit for work, generating acres of bad press for the government.

So to make sure that the assessments are fair and “perceived as being fair”, the Tories have taken on Paul Litchfield from BT.

He’s a member of the Fit For Work Coalition that lobbies for forcing—sorry, “supporting”—people with long term health conditions into work.

And he was in the working group that designed the tests in the first place, alongside assessment firm Atos and US health insurance giant Unum.

Someone you can trust to be fair and impartial then.

Developers demolish Berlin Wall

Some 24 years after the Berlin Wall was brought down, angry protesters gathered around what’s left of it again last week. But this time they wanted to make sure it stays up.

Property developers had begun to demolish a section for luxury flats. They already hauled away a popular mural of the Brandenburg Gate monument, which the wall once stopped people visiting.

Dirty tricks in Brighton

Tory councillors in Brighton are kicking up a stink.

They came into their office at City Hall on Thursday of last week to find a human poo on the floor.

Tory councillor Dawn Barnett suspected dirty tricks from other parties.

But maybe some council workers had found the Tories’ latest below-inflation pay offer hard to digest.

It takes big bucks to open Obama’s door

US President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has rebooted itself under the name Organizing for Action.

Supporters want to raise £30 million to turn it into a permanent lobby. And to do it they’re selling their most valuable asset—access to the president.

At least half of the group’s budget is planned to come from rich donors who can fork out more than £300,000 each.

In return they get regular meetings at the White House—including a quarterly chance to catch up with Obama in person.