Rod Liddle

Sheesh, sometimes you read something and it makes you go all gooey inside. Take this email I got from Ed Miliband. Dear Rod, As I write this, Justine and I are on our last trip on the Labour campaign bus. We're heading back from an incredible supporter rally in Leeds to Doncaster so we can vote there first thing tomorrow morning. So while I have this rare, quiet moment, I want to say this: thank you. I am so proud to have fought this campaign alongside you. If our country votes for a Labour government tomorrow, it will be because of the dedication, passion and generosity of hundreds of thousands of people like you. Makes you feel all warm inside, no? I got it because I’m a member of his party. I don’t think Ed is proud to have fought alongside me, if I’m honest.

I thought Ed Miliband did rather well in that last debate. Insofar as it matters. In both of the last two debates he’s come across significantly better than much of the press would have you believe, to my mind. Insofar as it matters, again. But then I suspect that almost everyone gleans what they want from these fatuous pantomimes. Not me, however; I think Miliband is calamitous. It’s sometimes the trivial things that matter. Miliband’s intention to criminalise something called 'Islamophobia' almost persuaded me to change my vote. You stupid, opportunist, bien-pensant. But the above video might be the thing which finally does it. I was sent it by the party to which I pay thirteen quid a month. So Alan Partridge is voting Labour.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theelectionwhereeverybodyloses/media.mp3" title="Listen to Douglas Murray discuss Islamophobia" startat=1350] Listen [/audioplayer]A couple of weeks back I wrote an article headed: ‘Call me insane, but I’m voting Labour.’ Among the many hundreds of people who reacted with the rather predictable ‘Yes, you’re insane’ was my wife, Mrs Liddle. She pointed out that Ed Miliband had vowed that upon being elected, Labour would make Islamophobia a crime. ‘So,’ she concluded, with a certain acidity, ‘not only will we be substantially worse off under a Labour government, but at nine o’clock on the morning of 8 May the police will arrive to take you away.

I’ve been away, in the north, free from Wifi and mobile phone reception, mercifully. I watched Thursday’s debate in a noisy pub so heard none of it and was forced to rely on ITV’s subtitles. I was greatly attracted to the Ukip cause by Nigel Farage’s bold assertion that “Britain needs plain-speaking partridges.” Yes indeed. I think we are all sick of equivocating pheasants and less than candid quail. The deaf must be rolling around with laughter every day. I caught Radio 4 PM programme on the way home, on Friday. Its coverage of the debate consisted of taking three statements made during the debate and subjecting them to what they called statistical scrutiny.

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English, the London media turned paroxysms of outrage and the Ukip vote dutifully went up a little.

I suppose we’re going to have to suffer these confections until the first week of May. But it’s beginning to get my goat. First we had Ed Miliband trying to pretend he was a normal human being. Inviting a camera crew into his house. Ed posing in one of his many kitchens, looking about as comfortable as a man with an enraged porcupine sellotaped to his scrotal sac. Now the Prime Minister is doing the same thing. David Cameron in a scruffy T-shirt preparing sardines on toast for his missus. Yep, just like he does every day. All for the benefit of the media and to convince us, ahead of the election, that they live a bit like we do. Please give it a rest. We know you’re politicians and hail from a strange, distant, planet characterised by affluence and a kind of sociopathy.

I read that Jeremy Clarkson had been suspended by the BBC for 'a fracas' with a producer. We don’t know what happened yet – but that hasn’t stopped my phone ringing with requests for interviews from Channel Four News (natch) and, yes, the BBC – the producers beside themselves with glee. And already one witless columnist – the staggeringly hopeless Deborah Orr in the Guardian, who nobody has ever read voluntarily – demanding Clarkson resign. Before this imbecilic woman knows even the slightest about what has taken place. Strike one up for the usual 'liberal' fascism. What’s he done? Dunno – but sack the bastard anyway. Evil, stupid, people. I don’t know Clarkson – I met him once, when I interviewed him. He was very likeable.