Big changes could be coming to the UK

There’s an uneasy feeling that change is coming to Britain.

The cosy three-party system of Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat is being challenged by the United Kingdom Independence Party, which has recently demonstrated an astonishing surge in popularity.

UKIP got its first elected Parliamentarian when Clacton MP Douglas Carswell defected from the Conservative Party and fought his own seat for UKIP, winning by a huge 12,000 majority.

On the same day, UKIP came within 600 votes of winning another by-election, Heywood and Middleton, from Labour.

It secured 11,016 votes against 1,215 which it polled at the General Election in 2010.

A Guardian/ICM survey afterwards showed UKIP leaping five percentage points in a month and taking over third position from the Lib Dems.

The figures for party popularity: Labour 35 per cent, Conservative 31 per cent, UKIP 14 per cent, Lib Dem 11 per cent.

What some Britons fear is the nature of UKIP, which they believe to be fundamentally racist.

The party’s major issues are immigration and Europe.

It wants a clampdown on foreigners entering the UK and it wants the country to leave the European Union.

There seems little doubt that many Britons favour both of these policies.

Man-in-the-street interviews repeatedly show people saying: “I’m not a racist, but they are coming here and taking our jobs and getting state benefits etc etc.”

Commentators argue that influential Conservative MPs will seek to pressurise Prime Minister David Cameron into hardline policies to keep wavering supporters onside.

UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who presents a cheerful, beer-swilling, hail-fellow-well-met image, denies charges of racism and says his party’s policies represent the wishes of millions of Britons.

Trouble is he might be right.

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The cry we hear a lot these days is about “bringing government closer to the people”.

I am not sure how this is supposed to work.

The closest I come to government is calling up the council to complain about this and that.

Where I live there is a service titled Envirocall.

If somebody has dumped rubbish illegally in your street, or sprayed graffiti on your house or the wind has blown the rubbish bins into the road, you can contract Envirocall and council workmen will come and fix the problem.

Plus, if you have a large item of your own which you want rid of, an old sofa, for instance, they will take it off your hands – for a fee of course, usually £25 (Sh3,725). And if you spot anything dangerous, you’re invited to call.

It was this last category which prompted me to take action.

There is a footpath I use every day and at one point, a concrete slab is raised slightly higher than the rest and it is easy to trip over it — as I proved a couple of months ago when my foot hit the slab and I stretched my length, my mobile skittering far into the road.

I contacted Envirocall, described where the problem was and the council guys duly came — and fixed an entirely different part of the footpath.

I decided life was too short to keep calling the council and I let it rest.

Until later I walked the same footpath with an elderly lady and she pointed to the guilty paving stone and said, “I tripped over that last year and broke my jaw.”

When I called the council number again, I was very precise about the location of the problem.

I also mentioned that an old lady of my acquaintance had broken her jaw there.

Whether it was visions of paying thousands in compensation or maybe Envirocall was really on the ball that day, but 24 hours later, the problem was fixed.

***

Our local newspaper has been running a column entitled, The Things Kids Say.

A four-year-old passing a crematorium: “Is that where Grandma was crucified?” Little Gemma Breakingbury: “When Daddy dies, can we get a hamster?”

And looking at old photographs of his grandparents, a six-year-old said he felt sorry they had to live when the world was just black and white.

A biology teacher asked, “What’s the first thing a lady might do if she thinks she could be pregnant?” Pupil: “Cry.”

After a lesson giving the correct names for body parts, a little girl told her mum, “Boys have a penis and girls have a pyjamas.”

A six-year-old said his school was collecting funds for a disintegrator (defibrillator).

When a teacher asked the class if any of their parents smoked, one little girl said yes, there was always burning when her mother cooked.

Asked where milk came from, a nursery class decided “from the cow’s bottom.”

Cows also provided burgers, they said. “You just ask and they give you a lump of their leg.”

Finally, a weary mother, addressing no-one in particular, asked: “Why do I have to do everything in this house?” Said her two-year-old, “Because you’re a mam.”

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