UKIP In Charlie Bloom Meltdown

You may not have heard of Charlie Bloom. He’s from the Southampton area. He doesn’t belong to a political party. He worked hard for over 45 years and is now enjoying his retirement. And last Thursday he was in the audience for BBC Question Time. Here, he demonstrated the ability to spot a spiv at fifty paces.

And another squeaky finger up the bum time

He told Nigel “Thirsty” Farage “I'm old enough to have read about McCarthyism and I'm old enough to have read the Rivers of Blood speech. I'm also aware of what happens in elections where a climate of fear is caused amongst the electorate by the charismatic, the bombastic and, to me, the very dangerous. This has driven Europe to war in the past ... I have no time for you sir, none”. It was the one moment when Farage was on the ropes and wobbling.

This intervention provoked a veritable tsunami of reaction from anguished UKIP devotees. The combination of paranoia, abuse, ignorance and other forms of bigotry was remarkable in its vehemence, as witness “‘Shouty man’ on BBC Question Time [Charlie Bloom] was planted by the Lib Dems as revenge for Clegg’s annihilation by Nigel Farage” from an appropriately-named specimen called UKIPhobia.

Quite apart from the impossibility of any political party planting a member in the Question Time audience, this showed a determination not to engage with Bloom, or accept his objection to Mr Thirsty, but to play the man before the ball. And someone called David Jones did just that: “oh dear we have a Labour voter on our hands what a shock”. So a Labour and Lib Dem supporter at the same time. Or maybe not.

The queue of Kippers wanting to discredit Bloom, rather than debate with him, was seemingly endless. And it included Marty Caine, who has passed before my inspection before: “It is called [BBC Question Time] because you are supposed to ask questions not verbally abuse someone because the [Lib Dems] are failing”. So that’s another who thinks taking issue with Farage makes you a Lib Dem.

Perhaps someone out there in Kipper land could manage a different form of abuse? You betcha, says Sarah: “You are utterly retarded. You think you're a communist street urchin in 1940s Stalingrad” moaned Nationalist_UK. Zelo Street regulars may recognise the kind of language used by James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, who likes derivations of the word “retard”. He’s in UKIP too.

As, it seems, is someone calling themselves “Dirty Politics”,  who widened the abuse to include Bloom’s family: “What a nasty lefty homophobic bigot you are planted by the BBC, with an equally disgusting daughter who has horrendous views”. Yes, the party of Roger Helmer calls “homophobic bigot” on others. And now it’s the BBC’s fault, and not the Lib Dems or Labour.

But don’t worry Kippers, you’re not paranoid, as they’re not coming to get you. Yet.