Just a few idiots...

Nigel Farage is often to be heard on television and radio bemoaning the fact that it's only the poor loves in UKIP that get picked on by the establishment.  'Every party has a few idiots' is a refrain that we hear so often from the man that I am beginning to suspect it's either tattooed on his eyeballs or was implanted directly into his brain via sophisticated hypno-indoctrination.  The tireless way that he trots it out again and again after each messy incident just suggests that it can only be pure reflex, some Pavlovian response to the stimulus of yet another one of his party doing or saying something stupid.

This week's candidate was UKIP Parliamentary candidate for Eastleigh, Patricia Culligan, who yesterday tweeted the following:

The link was to a Daily Mail article, which I have saved you all the trouble of having to read.  It essentially was the story of Liberal Democrat candidate for Liverpool Riverside Paul Childs, who has revealed as he prepares for his election campaign that he is HIV positive.  The article details statements by Mr Childs to the effect of how devastating the diagnosis was when it came 'I never expected it to happen. I remember being at work, sitting in a corridor and bursting into tears' he is quoted as saying.  It's a brave admission for a parliamentary candidate to make, in a society which still exhibits a certain amount of ignorance of and prejudice towards people with the condition - a state of affairs which Nigel Farage sought to exploit with his comments about 'health tourism' and HIV sufferers coming to the UK to get free NHS treatment in the televised leaders debate a few weeks ago. Indeed, Mr Childs says that it was those very comments that motivated him to come forward and speak out against what he calls Mr Farage's 'scaremongering'.  You will note that so far, there is no indication in what I am saying that Mr Childs 'deliberately became HIV positive' and that is because there is none.  The article (coming from a tabloid in the worst traditions of the word) saw fit to mention Adrian Hyyralainen-Trett, Liberal Democrat candidate for Vauxhall, who revealed on buzzfeed that during a 'troubled phase of his life' he had contemplated suicide many times, attempting it on more than one occasion, taking drugs and getting involved in various self-destructive scenarios.  Eventually he settled on attempting to contract HIV.  His comments 'I thought "perhaps if I can make myself so ill, get the worst strain possible, that would be one way of getting rid of myself" illustrate just how much he was suffering at that time.  His additional comments, that when he was diagnosed with HIV he realised that he did not want it at all, and it had all been an attempt - no doubt borne of his struggles - to 'annihilate' himself, speak to just what a tragic set of circumstances these were.  His bravery in not only turning his life around to the extent that he is now a Parliamentary candidate, but also speaking out about his experiences, are to be applauded - they are true examples of the resilience of the human spirit, of a man who endured extreme mental health issues and overcame.

However, what Patricia Culligan saw first and foremost was a point scoring opportunity.  She didn't think to properly read the article.  She didn't allow herself to be affected in any way by the human issues that it reflected.  She simply saw what her political credo told her to see and she ran with it. And why should we be surprised, given the example of her party leader on national television?

As you might imagine, twitter responded, and today she saw fit to tweet the following:

This has to be one of the least convincing 'apologies' I have ever seen.  An apology involves accepting wrongdoing or mistake and offering contrition. It involves, bluntly, taking responsibility for what one has done.  When it is offered with any qualification, such as 'due to a mis-reading', then it is not meant.  It is the difference between 'I'm sorry I did this thing' and 'I'm sorry I was caught'.  An attempt to deflect the true nature of the act.

There was no 'mis-reading' of the article that could have possibly motivated any decent human being to gleefully point to it in the terms used.  To say that a second Lib Dem Candidate has revealed he deliberately became HIV positive and incite the 'v costly' free care on the NHS is to take two utterly separate issues and attempt to conflate them.  The NHS and it's free treatment of either gentleman is not covered at all in the article, save to repeat and comment on the remarks of Farage himself.

This then, is the core philosophy of UKIP at work.  A story of the tragedy, bravery and resilience of two extraordinary young men, twisted and contorted into a point-scoring exercise.  No warmth, no regard for the humanity of either of these men.  No acknowledgement of the struggles they face.  Just a Victorian freak show mentality of pointing at the 'other' and exclaiming how disgusting they are.  Whether the 'other' is an immigrant, or a homosexual, or a man with HIV, they are all fair game.  I advance that Ms Culligan is not sorry for her 'unintended offence' - she is sorry that she was caught out.  Someone with even an ounce of sensitivity towards potential upset would not have tweeted what she did, even if the report HAD said what she thought it had.

That's the take home message for me - never mind calling UKIP supporters racists and homophobes and swivel eyed loons.  Never mind all the pro-Farage rhetoric about his 'plain speaking' and 'no nonsense' and 'honest common sense'.  The reality is much more mundane.  UKIP doesn't care.  There is no sense of compassion or decency to anything that they say or do, merely a drive to say and do whatever is necessary to get attention and cause a fuss.  I desperately hope, for the sake of the nation as a whole, that their act is seen through by the electorate before it is too late.