Black Dog: You Are Andrew Pierce And I Claim My £5!

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Nigel Farage: Smug In A Pub

Here's a photo of Nigel Farage, pint in hand, looking smug in a pub.
Thought I'd post this just in case you haven't seen one recently.
Is there a Tumblr yet?

'Ukip Surge As Voters Reject Gay Marriage', Christian Institute.
This is, of course, utter bollocks, though it's a popular post mortem riff from the Tory right.*
In a YouGov poll published yesterday of people considering voting for Ukip, gay marriage hardly registered as an issue even when people were prompted and asked to give three reasons why out of a list of ten; but what else could they say after they've ticked "Europe" and "immigration"?
And besides, what kind of a nutter protests against marriage equality by voting for Ukip in a local election?
Time to end the disastrous democratic experiment etc etc.

* Tom Newton Dunn, from The Sun no-less, was asked about this on Today this morning, and pooh-poohed the idea, putting it succinctly; "Gay marriage isn't a left or right issue, it's an age issue."

A much-discussed article by David Davis in today's Telegraph, Tories Must Start Listening To Ordinary Voters, Not Their Old School Chums, only seems to allude to this issue in passing; "We have to do more to help conventional families through the hard times, including serious tax breaks for married couples."
The former Conservative leadership candidate proudly opposes gay marriage.

"UKIP fought the election on an increasingly hostile position to immigration. While the media became fixated with a few Nazi and racist candidates, we should really be looking at the party as a whole and analysing what their vote means and what is its long term significance."

Anti-racist and anti-fascist group, Hope Not Hate. 
Similarly, reading the politically idiotic Gay Star News you might get the impression all that's wrong with Ukip is that some of their minor local election candidates have said some bad things about The Gays.

Brokeback Coalition: Broken Record

Much musing on the newly-minted metaphor "the Brokeback Coalition" - the touching photomontage above comes from the Mirror.
The Daily Mail reports on the formation of a "Brokeback Club" of disgruntled right-wing Conservative MPs.
"Among the rebels are the Eurosceptics, as well as those who oppose the referendum on Alternative Vote, the rise in Capital Gains Tax and Ken Clarke's decision to jail fewer criminals...
"MPs yesterday dubbed the group 'the Brokeback Club' because they want to 'break the back' of the coalition and force Mr Cameron to fight the next election alone to win an outright majority, rather than as part of a non-aggression pact with the Lib Dems."
How apt that this ragbag of assorted right-wing nutjobs were inspired to come together by a comment (allegedly) made by David Davis in a wine bar called The Boot and Flogger.
It also sounds like an S and M club, which may be apt too.
Fagburn believes that the first comparison of the Cameron and Clegg coalition government to the two gay cowboys was also in The Daily Mail.
It was our old friend Richard Littlejohn way back on May 15th.
Littlejohn initially welcomed it, in an anything-but-Gordon kinda way.
"In this Brokeback Mountain-style love-in, Dave as Heath Ledger and Nick as Jake Gyllenhaal have saddled up for the long haul.
The sight of Cameron and Clegg staring fondly into each other's eyes stands in welcome contrast to the ghastly, self-serving politics of venality, resentment, hatred and mendacity honed and prosecuted by Gordon Brown."
But hang on Dick, wasn't it Jake Gyllenhall's character Jack who seduced Heath Ledger's Ennis?
I seem to remember Heath/Ennis's wife walked out on him in a huff.
And didn't Jake/Jack end up getting beaten to death?
Fagburn wonders how far this metaphor can be stretched?

The Brokeback Coalition

The papers are all loving it this morning that David Davis, the former shadow home secretary and eternal Tory shit-stirrer, has allegedly called the Cameron-Clegg marriage of convenience "the Brokeback coalition".
The comment was made in a wine bar, but sounded like a saloon bar sneer.
Davis was only (allegedly) quoting a quip from Lord Ashcroft, and in the past almost every newspaper has light-heartedly compared Nick and Dave's relationship to a civil partnership (Cameron even made that "joke" himself).
The story was broken by The Financial Times; "Davis in ‘Brokeback’ jibe over coalition - Remark exposes rightwing frustration at government."
But the other newspapers seemed reluctant to speculate on what David Davis might actually mean by the comparison.
That even they think it's wrong and it's doomed to failure? ("I wish I could quit you!")
Or that Davis thinks it's rather queer and a bit "funny"?
"You know friend, this is a god damn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation..."