Charles nearly gets it right

Apparently Prince Charles has been overheard as comparing Putin's actions in Ukraine with Hitler's expansionist policies in the years building up to World War 2. In a way he has a point. Hitler used the pretext of protecting German speaking peoples in other countries in order, first to intimidate, then to invade them outright. Poland is the classical example of this method, and in Putin's encouragement of Russian speakers in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine to rise up against the central government, we do see a sort of parallel.


It is hazardous enough for the future king of England to be sounding off against the leader of one of the world's most powerful countries, so perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on him for failing to mention another worrying parallel with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis: Nigel Farage and his UKIP henchmen.


Nigel has discovered just how successful an appeal to the basest instincts of the population can be. I understand a consensus has been agreed between the main parties not to label Farage or UKIP as racist- not because it is rude, and certainly not because it isn't true, but because every time they do, UKIP experiences a bounce in popularity. This is really frightening, because it means that people must be saying to themselves:
Really? A racist party? That's the one for me then.
Hitler came to power in 1933 by saying he would reverse the ignominy of the Versailles treaty of 1919, which stripped Germany of much of its  political power, just as UKIP now says we are being stripped of our power by the EU. Hitler also pointed out certain ethnic minorities as being another significant cause of Germany's problems, just as Farage now targets the immigrants from eastern Europe as being responsible for many of our problems today.


In America recently the Tea Party was threatening to carry all before it with its policies of "all government is bad; let the people (ie big business) run their own lives without interference". Fortunately, when it came to the vote, the American people saw them for what they were, namely a bunch of right wing nutters, and they were comprehensively trashed in the congressional elections. I know we have just seen UKIP make extraordinary strides in the local elections, and maybe they will do the same in the elections to the European parliament. But I am still hopeful that by the time the general election comes around next year the British people will have nailed UKIP for what it is: a racist party, run by racists, and one that should be confined to the lunatic fringe, which is exactly where it belongs. Please God.