WASHED AND READY TO EAT

There's something about the Euro elections that leads to some truly weird and wonderful stuff coming through the door of Woodford Towers. We all hear plenty about the anti-Europeanism of Nigel Farage and his mates in UKIP, but there's rather less coverage afforded to Mike Nattras MEP and his peculiarly-named 'An Independence From Europe' party. A postcard-sized A6 flier announces that this little-known outfit tops the ballot paper. We should apparently look for its logo, which - confusingly - is the EU symbol and the word OUT, with a big red cross through it. At a glance, therefore, it looks as if Mike is actually against his own plea to exit the 26-strong club of nations. A rambling, closely-typed statement touches on the following issues: extradition; road pricing; the EU Army (sic); the HS2 rail link; free movement of workers; the closure of the Welsh Assembly; incinerators; private prisons; flood defences and megatrucks (which are, I discover, 60-tonne, 25-me...

I try very hard to think myself into the heads of UKIP supporters and understand what makes them tick. I really do. After all, about a quarter of the population now seems prepared to vote for this barmy army. At a political level, all the stuff about disenfranchised protest voters is probably true. Some of the supporters are alienated from all the mainstream parties. Many are natural Tories and just feel that David Cameron is too wishy-washy. But plenty of the Tories who think Cameron's a sell-out still end up voting Conservative. The UKIP voter is a particular breed. These are folks who like moaning and griping and feeling hard-done-by. There's nothing they enjoy more than being stuck in traffic queues, worrying about which station is going to give them the best-value petrol and which one is going to rip them off. Almost certainly they'd use a pound's worth of fuel to get to a particular Nigel Farage where unleaded was a penny cheaper per litre. They'd moan all...