Dear Mr Farage,
My name is Steven Patrick Morrissey, although those fondest of me like to call me Steven Patrick Morrissey. I’m a singing star, if truth be known and I’m writing to say that I’m flirting with you. I don’t mean it that way – not like Ena Sharples giving Albert Tatlock the glad eye after a couple too many milk stouts in The Rovers – I mean flirting politically. I live in Los Angeles, Switzerland and Rome mostly these days what with having made my pile but whenever I think back to England over a cup of imported Typhoo, I like to think of it as ultimately English and not filled with a lot of cheeky people come to settle there from overseas, with their overseas ways and platform shoes. It’s not that I’m a racialist – I don’t have best friends, for hygienic reasons, but if I did, I suppose some of them would be from other countries – Peru, Pakistan, Cornwall, various assorted nations. I just think things were at their best back in the 1960s when everything was nice and placid and black and white, when old women nattered over the back wall about what a shameless strumpet that Vivian Nicholson was and what she had coming to her was best not worth mending for the ha’porth it takes to skin a rabbit up a tree. Everything made sense back then, you see, and I think that we need a return to them days, when "curry" was something you did when you needed a favour, not a pungent meal that gives you the backyard trot, if you catch my meaning. I bid you good day.
Steven
Dear Mr Morrison,
Well, well, ha! A bone fide pop star and a British one at that, flying the Union Jack! It’d be great to have a "Charming Man" like you aboard the good ship UKIP, helping us spread the message "What Difference Does It Make?". A hell of a lot, actually, if you vote for a party that stands for traditional values – so "Come On, Eileen", vote Farage in South Thanet! I’d be happy to stand you a pint of Old Disgruntled Bitter in one of our great British pubs – if elected, I’d ensure a one-pint cap per foreigner, so as to put an end to these beer shortages that are currently endangering the British way of life. So, there’d be plenty of ale left over for us Brits to quaff. Beer, you know. Drinking beer. I can’t say it often enough. It’s the oil that keeps the motor of British Common Sense running! I look forward, then, Mr Morrison (we could call you "White ‘Van’ Man!") to meeting up over a plate of roast beef to toast Her Majesty The Queen and her newborn great granddaughter!
Nigel
PS, you’re not some sort of embarrassing lunatic, are you? It’s just that we’ve had one or two slip through, can’t imagine why.
Dear Mr Farage,
Oh, dear. Oh dear. It’s hard to convey in pen and ink, but I’m pursing my lips, Mr Farage, pursing them like Martha Longhurst having found a bit of gristle in one of Betty’s hotpots. You see, I do like the cut of your jib, Mr Farage, especially when it comes to Europe. All these wine lakes and butter mountains, they’re nice to look at but they’re bleeding us dry. I say, we leave the Euro and go back to the old pre-decimal coinage system – you know, shillings, coppers, threepenny bits. You know where you are with a threepenny bit, whereas I can stare for hours at a "two new pence piece" and not know whether it’s worth half a shilling or a quarter crown. Not to be Mr Chancellor or anything but I say we go back to the days when we used to "make do and muckle" – Ena would take in Minnie’s laundry, Minnie would do the same for Ena, Deirdre would wash the biscuits then at lunchtime everyone would sit up on the hill drinking dandelion & burdock and eating tupperware sandwiches while hand jiving to Tommy Steele! Life was grand – and there was none of that crime you get today because no one could afford anything worth stealing.
But as I say, I must take issue with you, Mr Farage. Roast beef? Queen? I assumed when you said you wanted the death penalty back it was for eating ham sandwiches and living in Buckingham Palace shamelessly when there’s folk making do in two up, two downs with outside lavatories which are so cold some winter’s nights you’re grateful for the price of bedpans. I’m not one to be truculent or unreliable but I’m going to have to reconsider whether you’re "one of us", or "one of me", more precisely. I bid you good day.
Steven
PS What’s Ian Brady really like? I’d be fascinated to know. Word to the wise, I shouldn’t have him in your cabinet just yet. He might have picked up bad habits in prison – you know how they like to pilfer.
Dear Steven,
Well, since between you and me, numbers aren’t quite what they could be for the party as we hove in on the big day, I’m prepared to make one or two compromises in order to get a big name like yourself on board and really getting the hipswinger young peoples’ vote in. Instead of outright execution of the Royal Family, how about compulsory castration for one or two of the minor Royals – Harry, say, or Edward, certainly Andrew – so that their hobnobbing doesn’t create any further strain on the budget when we’re all pulling together as Britons? As for meat, well, here’s a suggestion. Why not have execution for those caught preparing halal meat? I have it on good authority from my Minister of Culture, Oscar Balloon (prospective candidate for Loathing-On-Sea) that these self-styled Muslims have a hideous way of practising slaughter – they send specially trained suicide bombers into the abattoirs who blow the animals to pieces – a cruel death. Common knowledge, this, but of course you’ll hear nothing about this on the socialist BBC (apropos of which, memo to Mr Dimbleby – any chance I might finally get to appear on Question Time? I am the Voice of the People, you know). I look forward to hearing from you and standing you that pint of vegetarian beer!
Nigel
PS, I’ve been kicking round a new slogan, a nod to your friend and mine Mrs Thatcher – "UKIP if you want to – but Nigel’s not for kipping!" You’ve a way with words – any chance you could play about with that a bit so that it makes some sort of sense?
Dear Nigel,
Hmm. Well, I’ve had a look at the other candidates – Mr Cameron? He reminds me of a bottom I once accidentally caught a glimpse of as a child. Mr Miliband? Not to be disrespectful, but he looks like something that only recently crawled out of the sea. I’m all for evolution and so forth but he’s a touch amphibian to my mind. Mr Clegg? He’s about as much use as a wet flannel on a Wednesday morning. Miss Sturgeon? The one bent on making us all Scottish? I’ll toss no one’s caber but my own, thank you so much. No, you might have to do, Mr Farage. But on one condition – that at least three of your cabinet ministers be members of the animal community, i.e. livestock. And I must stand firm on execution of the monarchy, especially those horrible Ferguson daughters. I bid you good day.
PS I had a look at that slogan and jiggled with it a bit. How does "I feel very sick and ill and morose today, hang them all" sound?"
Dear Steven,
Well, I’ve done as you said, appointed a couple of cows to the cabinet. Guardian had a field day with it, Steve Bell did a two page spread cartoon but hasn’t affected us in the polls. I still come up best as "politician you would like best to have a pint with." By gum, fond of the British people and all that but they really are thick as two short planks, aren’t they? And if they think I’m buying any of them a pint after the election they can bloody well run up a tree. Anyway, re the execution of the Royals thing. How’s about we appoint a herd of cows to make up the firing squad? See what sort of job they make of it. Poetic justice and what have you, and, if for any reason it doesn’t work, well, we gave it a try, eh?
NIGEL
PS We "workshopped" that slogan of yours, and it turns out people really liked the "hang them all" bit, so we’ll be using that, if you don’t mind, ta very much!
Dear Nigel,
Cow death squads, eh? That sounds like my kind of thinking. You’ve given me food for thought, Mr Farage. Meat-free for thought. I bid you good day.
Steven
