Godffrey, Godffrey Land

UKIP as a party are a bit mad sometimes. The main issues they address of Europe and Immigration are not mad things to talk about. Nor are some of their minor policies such as grammar schools and international aid.  But some* of the people representing them lack respect that should be given if you're to be considered serious politicians and that this lack of respect is born out of having flawed arguments and being bad politicians.

Take Godfrey Bloom MEP for example, he is considered great amongst UKIP people. Yet this is the chap who turns up to only 28% of things he is supposed to, votes against cuts in EU budgets, votes for a financial transaction tax, displays flagrant misogyny every second time he opens his mouth and for this excellent service is paid and claims more than the PM. 

 Godfrey Bloom MEP who is the second most sleepiest MEP in the EU Parliament chamber after Roger Helmer. Clearly this man is doing great work for our country.

So what has the well worth it Godfrey been saying today? Well he's been using the racist phrase of 'Bongo Bongo Land' to describe the rest of the world. UKIP have distanced themselves, to an extent, from these comments by saying they could be 'considered disparaging by members from other countries'. But Godfrey in all his wisdom will not be quiet and still stands by those comments and says "If I have offended anybody in Bongo Bongo land, I will write to their ambassador at the court of St James."

 By the looks of what is being said on twitter, Godfrey Bloom is about to be sent a load of these.

Godfrey has to learn something from this in my mind. It's not necessarily that he is a racist and must be punished because this to him was a joke, but now UKIP are supposedly a 'big boy party' that you have to be respectful in language to gain credibility. I think Godfrey has the odd idea that it is best in this particular way "upset the BBC and the Guardian." Obviously I'm not important enough to upset the BBC and Guardian, but I personally find that the best way to upset the left is not to use racist phrases but to expose their elitism and deliberate attempts of oppression. You're also credible for talking about policy which helps if you want to be a serious politician.

But what is more important to me is Godfrey's argument where he used the phrase. Usually when people use these phrases it is to distract attention from their argument because there is a severe hole in it. So unlike the Gaurdian let's explore Godfrey Bloom's argument. Basically he was saying it should be a personal choice to give to charity and shouldn't be done through international aid. He also said that we should stop giving international aid because despots are buying 'Ferraris and apartment in Paris' with the money. He also said that Pakistan bought a squadron of F18s with our money.

Aid going out to help people in countries across the world.

Well first off I'd like to agree with Godfrey on the basis that people should have the personal choice to give to charity. The UN arbitrary figure of 0.7% of GDP in aid is a silly thing to meet as people should chose to spend their money how they like. I would like to point out though that I do urge people to give more to charity as it does do some great things.

Secondly Godfrey is partially right in the fact that some of the countries that get this money are dubious and may be spending it on swanky flats in Paris. But I'd say to Godfrey Bloom that the vast majority of our aid money is given to charities now, so unless you want to accuse Oxfam of buying Ferraris instead of vaccines, I would stop exaggerating the amount. But on the point of F18 fighters in Pakistan I find that highly unlikely as they don't have any F18 fighters in Pakistan. Even if they did our aid money doesn't go to the military forces of countries and if it was stolen from our aid pot we wouldn't know. So how does Godfrey know and exactly how it was spent?

So what does this whole shenanigan prove. Godfrey is really bad at having an argument because he is using fanciful examples to scaremonger people into believing him. If he has to use phrases that are racist and does not show respect to people there must be some hole in the issue he wishes to talk about. And there is a big hole here. Although I agree with Godfrey that we should cut our international aid budget, his argument should be based on sound principles not scaremongering over F18s. But then again UKIP are full of arguments with big holes and this is just the latest one. Remember when they said 38 million Bulgarians and Romanians will come to the UK when there are only 36 million of them.

*What seems to be a growing number of 'some'.