h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Joke parties like UKIP/Veritas"

I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking the UKIP are a 'joke party'. Whilst their members are largely failures and far-right cranks (which is why a lot of Europhobic politicians who flirted with joining were eventually repelled) it's single-issue - namely British withdrawal from the European Union - is a popular one and likely to become more so. Whilst I think the European project is a noble and good one, the EU is abysmally run and this is increasingly isolating the British voting-public from it. Irritatingly, those who are pro-European tend to play down or ignore how badly run it is and those who are anti-European often have sensible ideas on how it needs to be reformed but refuse to engage with it because they are fundamentally against the whole European project. It's a frustrating state of affairs.

Question - what are UKIP/Veritas?

So the leaders of both major UK political parties are liars - hardly news is it ?

I voted in favour of joining the Common Market - (all those years ago) having experienced the EU in its reality, I would vote for our total withdrawal should the option be offered.

I still wouldn't vote for UKIP or Veritas.

"Question - what are UKIP/Veritas?"

First off they are two separate parties. UKIP are the United Kingdom Independence Party. They are a single-issue party who campaign on British withdrawal from the European Union and a re-negotiation back into the 'original' free-trade area. Initially, they attracted a great deal of interest from across the political spectrum (despite what the liberal and conservative media in Britain keep trying to pretend, EU membership is not a left/right issue - europhobes include the far-left Labour Party stalward Tony Benn and the New Right thinker (and deeply uncharismatic) Conservative John Redwood whilst Europhiles include the Conservatives Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine as well as Liberals like Tony Blair). However, it soon became clear that UKIP was just a club for far-right nationalistic and isolationist cranks and many Europhobes were repelled by the party. The behaviour of some UKIP MEPs when they reached Brussels pretty much confirmed this.

The party found a genuine 'figurehead', though in Robert Kilroy-Silk. Kilroy-Silk was an ex-Labour MP and chatshow-host who was fired from his BBC show after writing an article for a tabloid newspaper. The article in question was a rather juvenile and genuinely ignorant rant about 'Arabs'. In it, Kilroy-Silk accused them of being mysogynistic and repressive (therefore confusing conservative Islam with a race of people) and of having 'contributed nothing to the world' (which plainly means he's never read a history book nor visited the Middle East). There is some controversy over whether the whole thing was a set-up. The article had actually been printed before and passed with little comment. The re-print and subsequent furore looked a little suspicious. Anyway, Kilroy-Silk lost his chat-show job (no great loss) and decided to join UKIP and enter politics. However, after a few months of being their 'face' he fell-out with the party leadership and left accusing them of having no real ambition or 'vision'. He promptly set-up his own political party, 'Veritas', who I expect will contest the next General Election. I have no idea what their policies are but they are expected to be fairly populist and quite probably unworkable.

Thanks for that information, Zagreb, very comprehensive... I first heard of Kilroy-Silk in the sitcom Birds of a Feather - he sounds very opportunist and not very well-informed, to say the least!

I have read a couple of articles suggesting that UKIPs success in the local elections was more to do with their anti-immigration stance than the EU.

"I have read a couple of articles suggesting that UKIPs success in the local elections was more to do with their anti-immigration stance than the EU."

Probably wishful-thinking on the part of the writers. Anti-EU feeling in Britain is pretty strong, especially in England. If the EU is serious about keeping Britain (and other 'waverers' such as the Scandinavian nations) in it's fold then it really does need to draw strong boundaries between a nation-states self-government and Brussels. The European project is a good and noble one and it will, eventually, succeed but it needs to recognise that the French know best how to govern France, the British know best how to govern Britain etc. Things like the use of the metric system (which has been implemented intelligently here, side-by-side with imperial rather than replacing it) are fine but laws must remain with the nation states. And we need to concentrate more on pooling European resources (which are enormous) for both our own and the world's good. My favourite quote about Europe (I've no idea who said it) is 'There is too much talk about what Europe should *be* and not enough talk about what Europe should *do*'. I agree. Whilst Brussels fusses over the unworkable 'European constitution' we are still no closer to implementing a pan-national 'European Rapid Reaction Force'.

Actually it was a left trying to write them off as a load of bigots (I have some sympathy with this position).

Incidentally, I would view the implementation of metric system in the UK as a half-arsed mess. Less side by side and more a bit of some and a bit of the other. I don't see any road signs in kilometres and miles.

And let's face it the imperial system is an awful, awful set-up that does need to be gotten rid of. It seems to be designed solely to make sure that people who are bad at maths get ripped off.

"Actually it was a left trying to write them off as a load of bigots (I have some sympathy with this position)"

That's kindof what I meant. The writer was hoping that the large UKIP vote in the European elections was just people protesting about immigration and not (horrors) the fact that most British might be anti-EU.

"incidentally, I would view the implementation of metric system in the UK as a half-arsed mess. Less side by side and more a bit of some and a bit of the other. I don't see any road signs in kilometres and miles."

I disagree, I think it's been very well implemented because it's moved us into a newer, modern measuring system without screwing things over for those who still want to use old measurements for good reason (which is why we can still buy pints of milk and get pints in pubs). Incidentally, the reason we still use miles in road signs is because we don't trade miles on the open-market.

"And let's face it the imperial system is an awful, awful set-up that does need to be gotten rid of. It seems to be designed solely to make sure that people who are bad at maths get ripped off."

I agree, the Imperial system doesn't make very much sense and we should move on (as we did with money). However, too many people are used to imperial measurements to simply declare a year-zero and abandon the old system.

K'off. You have the bloody euro but I want a pint in the pub, nor some half arsed European measure only fit for girls and latin types...

The metric/imperial workaround has left me very confused. As someone who was educated entirely in metric, I feel I ought to think in metric, whereas more often than not I guestimate distance in miles, measure my height in feet and inches and think of my weight in stones.

It's all very confusing.

if the idea was to eventually replace imperial with metric it hasn't worked very well has it?
I wasn't taught any imperial at school, that was over 20 years ago
a gradual changeover is all very well but you have to actually make the changeover at some point

We have used the metric system in NZ for decades now, but most younger people think of their weight in pounds (I think of it in stones, because it sounds much less... )

And let's face it the imperial system is an awful, awful set-up that does need to be gotten rid of. It seems to be designed solely to make sure that people who are bad at maths get ripped off.

And the problem is ?

The Imperial system was based around human measurements - not some scientifically formulated clap-trap immeasurable by an average person.

Its all very well to say that 1760 yards to a mile is a strange ammount, but thats the fault of those Europeans as well - if the roman soldiers had longer legs it would have been 1500. Any way whats wrong with 8 furlongs to the mile ? Seems simple enought to me.

Personally I'd prefer it if the metric system was the only one used
my next preference would be to only use the imperial system
instead of which we teach people 1 system and then use bits of both systems, to my mind the worst possible solution

I doubt somehow that the average person has 12-inch feet.

My girlie feet are 11 inches long without shoes, so actually I'd have thought 12 inches was about right for the average man

Mol

Nah 12 inch feet would be pretty massive - UK male size 15, where the average is between 8 & 9.

You saying I've got massive feet? I'll have you know that they are ladylike and dainty ... just on a large scale.

Actually, just measured dear husband's bare foot, 10.5 inches, size 9. So I still don't think 12 inches is an unreasonable approximate average for a shod foot.

I was taught imperial *and* metric in school 20 years ago. Only remember the useful stuff in the most useful system, who needs hectares and acres anyway?

What was this thread about again?

Mol

>> I doubt somehow that the average person has 12-inch feet. <<

Actually twelve inches was the length of the forearm. How or why it became of foot I have no idea. Nothing to do with feet I suspect.

Donald