VERITAS

On the one hand you want to laugh, but it's scary thinking that some people believe this shit.

So it's the BNP with extra tan, then.

http://www.veritasparty.co.uk/

I'm not defending Kilroy in any way, but thinking like that can be incredibly dangerous.

Kilroy isn't against immigration, he wants it controlled better. Why is beyond me; Australia [particularly Melbourne] is awesome thanks to its multicultural society.

Robert Kilroy-Silk arrived in Long Eaton, between Nottingham and Derby, in an old Volvo painted in lurid shades of mauve and purple. The general belief among the liberal London media is that Mr Kilroy-Silk is himself a lurid, not to say tasteless and disgusting individual, who deserves to be pilloried.

But while Mr Kilroy-Silk clearly has his weaknesses, including egomania leading to an inability to get on with colleagues, it would be wrong to allow these to obscure his strengths. He is very good at canvassing. As he walked down a pedestrianised shopping street he put a smile on the faces of most of those he accosted. He knows how to charm these members of the white working class, and is quick to sense how they are feeling. They enjoyed recognising him from his television programme, and were amused by his banter, much of which sounds better than it reads. Take Mr Kilroy-Silk's sally after asking for the vote of an old man with a stick: "Don't say no while I've got the TV cameras on me. Otherwise I'll get that stick and wrap it round your neck."

Mr Kilroy-Silk switched to a soft, insinuating, almost soppy tone: "What worries you about this country? We've had our country stolen from us, haven't we?"

The old man corrected him: "We're giving away our country piecemeal."

Long Eaton is in the Erewash constituency, held for Labour by Liz Blackman, who has made little impact either nationally or locally, and many Labour voters say they are determined to vote against the party this time.

It is hard to tell who the main beneficiary will be, but none of these discontented Labour supporters mentioned the Conservatives, who came second last time by nearly 7,000 votes. One man said he would vote either for the Greens or for Mr Kilroy-Silk, who since breaking with the UK Independence Party has set up his own tiny party, Veritas. Ukip is also standing in Erewash.

Two black men asked Mr Kilroy-Silk: "What do you bring for us?" He replied: "Straight talk. Telling the truth. End immigration."

One of the men, Bill Gonsalves, who left St Vincent in 1961, gripped Mr Kilroy-Smith by the hand, leading the candidate to joke: "He won't let go of my hand. Are you gay? Leave me alone. I want to go home" - the last two phrases uttered in his little-boy voice.

Mr Gonsalves said he is distressed by "these illegal bloody wars" and added after Mr Kilroy-Silk had left: "I enjoy watching his programmes on telly; I can only wish him all the best. I've been voting for the Labour Party since the time I was in St Vincent. I could never vote for them again."

He intends to vote for the Liberal Democrats, "because people like Charles Kennedy protested against the war".

Readers who are repelled by Mr Kilroy-Silk's vulgar sentimentality and never watch the kind of television at which he excels may find this hard to credit, but to many members of the working class he is a glamorous figure.

A self-employed man, who voted Conservative last time, said: "He's very like the president of America. He gets on with it. That's the kind of man we want. He's a bit like Bush, he is. Mind you I like Tony Blair in a way. I'd get rid of immigrants. We don't need too many people over-crowding this country."

A middle-aged woman ran out of a small shop with a look of delight on her face and said to Mr Kilroy-Silk: "Keep going. All the best." After he had gone she said: "I think he's fantastic. Because he tells the truth."

Asked what truth she meant, the woman replied: "The truth about immigration. I don't want to say anything more about that."

Another man came up to Mr Kilroy-Silk and said: "I'm a fan of yours." Mr Kilroy-Silk called out in boyish excitement: "I've found one, I've found a fan."

This playful side of him goes down well.

Mr Kilroy-Silk knows how to press the flesh. For his opponents in the political establishment he poses something of a dilemma: they cannot be as hard-line about immigration as he is, nor can they match his soft, ingratiating tone. Labour's working-class support is crumbling, but it does not look like it will go to the Conservatives.

How are we going to over-crowd the country without them?

Blair's fallacy - to imagine that the establishment believed in the end of class-based politics as much as he did.