UKIP – Poster Frauds

Yesterday brought the launch of UKIP’s poster campaign in support of the party’s campaign for elections to the European Parliament (EP). Party backer Paul Sykes is paying a cool £1.5 million to fund this – and fund it directly, not through Nigel “Thirsty” Farage’s party machine. Anyone would think that Sykes does not trust the party he supports to spend his money wisely.

Another squeaky finger up the bum time coming!

And now the posters are out there, the debate has started as to the credibility of the assertions they make, with UKIP’s chief spinner Patrick “Lunchtime” O’Flynn doing his best to justify arguments which expose his party’s hypocrisy and dishonesty in roughly equal measure. Starting at the very beginning – as always, a very good place to start – the first poster deploys an unemployed construction worker.

What's that, "Lunchtime"? Those rotten politicians wouldn't let you any closer to Parliament?

This may seem surprising, given apparent labour shortages in that industry, but “Lunchtime” is adamant: “Unemployment may have been falling slightly in construction, but there have been an awful lot of builders out of work in the last few years and their pay rates have fallen since the accession of the A8 countries”. Sadly, he has yet to come up with a reliable citation for that one.

from Political Scrapbook

Still, what’s another pair of burning trousers to a party spinner, eh? Next is the tired chestnut asserting that “75% of our laws are made in Brussels”. Except they aren’t, and nobody said they were. “The 75 per cent figure was stated by Viviane Reding” says O’Flynn. Except she didn’t say 75%, and neither did she say what the UKIP poster is asserting. Fire extinguisher for Mr O’Flynn!

from Beaubodor

And while we’re on the subject of quoting Viviane Reding, that is, as the late John Smith might have put it, a bit rich coming from a party whose leader accused her recently of “scraping the barrel”. So Ms Reding is one of those sources from which UKIP can pick and choose, in the style of well-cultivated hypocrisy. Then, as “Lunchtime” gets his blazing trousers extinguished, there is unemployment.

from Beaubodor

“26 million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?” howls the UKIP poster. The inference is clear: freedom of movement rules mean all those rotten foreigners are coming over here to take your job. Except the 26 million figure includes UK unemployment. So the total has been bulked up by sleight of hand. O’Flynn says “There’s nothing wrong with that”.

Man of high principle speaks

Well excuse me, “Lunchtime”, but there’s everything wrong with that. And there is also the minor fact that O’Flynn is on the UKIP list for the East of England – he is ranked first, ahead even of the party’s sitting MEP Stuart Agnew. So it is in his own personal interest to push this mix of whoppers and frighteners, in order to secure a well-remunerated job for Himself Personally Now.

Doing whatever it takes to get elected? New party, same as all the other parties.