I'm tempted by Nigel Farage !

durhamjen, I certainly wasn't 'sighing' because you mentioned that you, personally, had been affected by cancer. Anyone who's been touched by any serious illness deserves sympathy of course. What a rather mean thing to say about me!

Tried to copy but UKIP has managed to get it banned perhaps, as they wished to. A picture of Farage when he was a punk with shaved head and huge mohican, etc- sticking 2 fingers up behind a policeman near Picadilly Circus.

Here he is in 1983

Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP circa 1983... UKIP wanted it banned, so here it is!

Here in Australia we had an MP who said a lot of the same things as Farage, Pauline Hanson. She preyed on people's fears, and got elected to be the federal MP for MY area. I was utterly horrified because I saw through her from the start, and I was equally horrified that over half my neighbours had voted for her anti-immigration, anti-Asian stance.

I joined the Ipswich Anti-Racism Committee to fight against what she stood for, and we defeated all her attempts to get re-elected.

But one lesser known aspect of her tenure as federal MP for Oxley, was that we might as well have had no federal representative at all. The people in her office were useless, they had no idea of their duties at all. If you wanted your MP to deal with a problem she was both unwilling and incapable. She refused to learn about or understand any political issues at all. People had to go to their (Labour) Senator for any representation they needed, and the Senator's office found its work doubled almost overnight.

I don't think Farage is as thick as Hanson - but that could well make him even more dangerous.

I think the linked article that annodomini posted should give even supporters of UKIP a degree of unease.

If anyone actually could demonstrate that they could cure cancer, Ana, people would vote for them in order for them not to have to go through what I have been through,
Thanks for your sympathy, not that I expected anything else from you. You actually said that none of us obviously had first hand experience of that dreadful disease. I tell you that I have and all you do is sigh!

Nigel came through my door today! He is now in the recycling bin.

Sigh...

feetlebaum did not say he wouldn't vote for UKIP 'whatever', durhamjen. And yes, I do realise it's highly unlikely that any party (or any one person) could guarantee a cure for cancer, Penstemmon.

Obviously no one gets my point.

Ana the chances of UKIP doing anything useful, never mind curing cancer, are very remote!
ps I have lost family and friends to cancer..they would not have voted UKIP either!

Ana, my husband died of brain cancer in January 2012.

I do not understand, Ana. Feetlebaum said he would not vote for Ukip whatever, presumably because of their policies in dividing the country.
I would not either because their policies are abhorrent.
They might promise a cure for cancer but would definitely not deliver.

Obviously none of you has had first-hand experience of that awful disease.

I'm sorry - you mean if UKIP (or any other party) said they 'would cure cancer' you wouldn't vote for them because you disliked some of their other policies?

Note that feetlebaum said 'would' not 'could' or 'would try to'.

I don't think people really know about very much about UKIP policies other than the anti EU / reduce immigration soundbites.

Their pay for a visit to your GP, privatisation of the NHS, reintroduction of selective schooling, anti-green / anti-ecological etc are all part of their retrograde policies...

These are why I won't be voting UKIP.

Oh that and their dubious links to extreme groups in Europe, their poor screening of candidates and their total lack of experience ..... seems like a recipe for disaster

I agree with Feetlebaum and wheniwasyourage. Even the photo on the front page put me off, as I told the newsagent when I bought my Guardian today.

Hear, hear feetlebaum! I had been thinking the same, along the lines of "I wouldn't vote for Ukip even if the Archangel Gabriel was the candidate".

Not a polite comment, Ana, as we're all (still) entitled to an opinion, and neither feetlebaum nor I has said anything rude (or ridiculous) about people who are planning to vote for Ukip; we are merely putting our own points of view.

That's a ridiculous thing to say, feetlebaum.

I wouldn't vote for Ukip even if it would cure cancer...

Apologies for digging up this thread again but I thought that if you haven't already read this article about UKIP and Mr Farage, it might help to focus your voting intentions in the Euro-election.

One of the doctors at our surgery is always off sick; no mention of his job being compromised because of it .

I suspect it is all part of phasing out health care on such a large scale - much the same as they're doing with pensions and have done with dental care. I do think it is now prudent for youngsters to make sure they have health insurance whilst it would be a price they can afford (not so for older people where the cost of premiums would rocket).

The rot starts when hospitals are thought of as businesses and business managers are put in charge. Recently one such manager was brought in as 'Matron' at the hospital where my daughter-in-law is a paediatric sister. She developed tonsillitis and had some time off. It recurred a few weeks later, the 'Matron' informed her that she had already taken her allocation of sick time and, if she did not come in her, job would be compromised. She was told that it did not matter what was wrong, she had to be there. She knew that she could not compromise her patients and reported him as he had said that it didn't matter even if it was D&V. We wonder how the Noro virus takes hold. Very few of the managers in the NHS have medical training so I can't see how they can have any idea how to run one efficiently.

That is shocking re the nurses. Sounds like it is a policy being quietly employed on a trust by trust basis. Unfortunately there will be more of the same as there are many billions more cuts from NHS budgets that Osborne has in the pipeline. he is only half way through his austerity measures. I said a couple of years ago the NHS is as good as it has ever been and about to take a nose dive. We will never see it as good again I think.

It may well end in civil uprisings first, but hopefully not in my lifetime.

You may well be right Experigran but it won't be happening anytime soon in many EU countries as most of them are rebelling about 'foreigners' taking their homes and jobs. I lived for a while in Spain and they are very blunt about how they feel about 'foreigners' - daubing on walls: English go home. The Italians have complained about immigrants as have the French - it isn't just the British that are concerned about the numbers involved.