Helmintholog

Charles Arthur has a thoughtful screed up this morning about why he’ll vote Green, though he lives in a constituency with an unshakeable Conservative majority — and the MP is the deputy speaker.

It’s a nice argument, but I live in the same constituency and I have news. There is no Green candidate here. What we do have, perhaps uniquely, is three candidates to the right of Michael Howard — Ukip, Veritas, and English Democracy.

This is worrying for social democrats, in a deep way. The reason people move out here from civilisation is really, of course that the state schools are incomparably better than in London. State provision works, probably because the children are better parented. But why is it that state provision works better in places where the political culture is so much opposed to it?

Here is a very interesting slideshow, found through Ros Taylor on the Guardian’s election blog. I have posted about it before, when I took the survey, but this is a very lucid explanation of the Axis of UKIP, as they call hostility to foreigners and criminals.

What strikes me is that the Axis of UKIP corresponds very closely to the Liberal / traditionalist divide in Protestant Christianity, which is not about sex but boundaries. It just so happens that sexual behaviour is the boundary easiest to cross in a modern society.

in British politics today must be Ken Clarke. If he were leading the Conservatives, they’d very probably win ths election, and would certainly cripple Blair.