Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen -- a well-known figure here in the UK among the bookish, but probably less well-known abroad -- has had some timely UKIP-related posts on his blog in the lead-up to this week's European and local elections.  This, for example:

Fascism: I sometimes fear...

"I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."

And this:

 Miliband, UKIP and the 'I'm not racist but...' people.

Am fascinated
by these 'I'm not racist but' people they show us.
They say things like 'it's all got too much'
and 'there's too many of them' etc etc
So what do they think UKIP is going to do for them?
Put people on trains and ship them out?
And how will these people be chosen?
And who is going to do the choosing?
And if the people refuse to go?
Will UKIP have special police to do that?
And this is not racism?
And UKIP isn't deliberately holding out hopes for people who say those things that that is precisely what they would do?
And Labour can't say that about UKIP?
And that Labour should keep saying that 'people have concerns' instead of saying what I'm saying here?
For f.sake Miliband, it's what your parents fled from.
Say it. Say it. Say it.

We need reminding of these things.  Labour held our council here in Southampton, but my cousin Sandy stood as a Labour candidate out on the Norfolk coastal wilds and lost to UKIP.  I see the pictures of those grinning, beefy men in suits celebrating, and Rosen's words seem very appropriate.  Fascism does not arrive in fancy dress...