Saturday, 10 June 2017

Move over UKIP!



I think we may have found the one significant party in UK politics which appeals to the BBC even less than UKIP...and, no, it's not the obvious choice for many of us, Sinn Fein.

Try this exchange on tonight's Newsnight special between Emily Maitlis and loyal Cameroon, soft-Brexit-backing Baron Barker of Battle (aka Greg Barker):
EM: I'm just hearing from Nick Watt that the DUP may align itself with the Conservative Party in a confidence and supply arrangement. Would that suit you? 
GB: I think that would be ideal. 
EM: So you would not mind, and there would be many people, Conservative voters and wider voter, who say the DUP represents everything that Theresa May meant when she talked  about a Nasty Party. 
GB: They are certainly not our allies of choice. Personally I would prefer to do a deal with the Lib Dems. We actually had a strong and stable coalition with the Lib Dems for five years, but that's not on the cards. So I think...what is the alternative? The alternative would be handing the keys to Jeremy Corbyn. 
EM: We are looking at the party that is homophobic, that doesn't really believe in climate change, that talks about creationism. 
GB: Sure, and I abhor all of those things...
EM: I mean, that could drag the party backwards, couldn't it?
Much more of that and the DUP might make the price of their continued 'confidence and supply' support for the Conservatives the full implementation of their manifesto policy to scrap the BBC licence fee and radically overhaul the BBC!