ABSURDUS apoPLEXUS

Poor Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader, being apparently threatened, booed and heckled and therefore reluctantly "forced to campaign with bodyguards", and all because of a trite misunderstanding, namely that his party is a cohort of racist lunatics. For some haphazardly cruel and blatantly illogical reason, the (obviously unpatriotic) media and (unsurprisingly) his political opponents have propagated the theory that UKIP and Farage himself are deep down xenophobic and ultranationalist ideologues.

The latest cause for this campaign against the UKIP are some innocent comments Farage made concerning Romanians neighbors, namely wondering who on their right mind would want to have some next door, which his entrenched foes have twisted into a diatribe of intolerance and malice. That could not be further from the truth. In reality Farage was diplomatically commenting on the poor musical choices of Romanian nationals and their propensity to listen to them in high volumes with open windows. Anyone in doubt of the former has only to listen to that country's entries to the Eurovision song contest; and let's not forget that in that same contest a couple of weeks ago the UK song received zero points from Romania. So for people to claim that Farage is a racist just because he has a well tuned ear (and a sense of justice) is absurd. He would for instance have no problem with German neighbors (they tend to wear headphones). Plus, being married to a German lady, saying otherwise would have made for some awkward moments with his in-laws at the Christmas table.

Some sources also allege that the UKIP is a hotbed for quirky extremists and kooky zealots that, due to the pending European elections and UKIP's increased visibility, have sprung up like snails after the rain for their fleeting chance to grab a wider audience. Councilor Mr. David Silvester for example claimed that the recent winter storms were heavenly retribution for legalizing gay marriage, as clearly stated in the scriptures, whereas candidate Mrs Anna-Marie Crampton expressed her belief that the Holocaust was orchestrated by Zionists to elicit guilt and MEP Godfrey Bloom referred to African countries as "Bongo Bongo Land" and women partisans as "sluts" (though he only meant they were untidy). Of course people like this have been expunged from the Party (too distracting from the core message of boarding up the borders and flipping the bird at the EU), but in a broader sense, how unfair to criticize what is essential outside-the-box, unorthodox thinking as loony, Copernicus pretty much got the same raw deal back in the middle ages. Surely some scientific, historical and linguistic radicalism is welcomed in the midst of these stale academic fields in order to spark debate and broaden their horizons.

In order to avoid such misplaced and unjust brouhaha over individual party members that overshadow the Party's core values, the leadership has decided to purge the more extreme candidates. To do so it has defined certain criteria that members must fulfill in order to be validated as official party candidates. An extract of the questionnaire that they have to truthfully answer among other things is shown below.