Here is a stunningly brilliant article from Peter Hitchens, the finest commentator that we are lucky to have got, on his trip to Rochester and Strood to see what is happening on the ground.
What a beautiful place Rochester sounds like. The people there are just like the ones in Dickens' novels - irreverent, humorous, and sticking two fingers up at those in "Parliment" up in "Westminster" in the "capital". That is why the modernisers can't understand them. They should read Dickens, not write tomes on "Compassionate Conservatism".
But what Hitchens says about Strood is positivelu frightening. I knew things were bad, but I didn't know they were that bad. In Strood, they don't even trust UKIP, it seems they have given up. That is worrying and those spinners in Westminster need to sort things out before it gets any worse.
Here are some extracts from his brilliant article which give a real insight into what is happening in our country. It is so good that it is worth reading the whole thing.
Anger and apathy in the glory of old England... and a vote that may change it forever: Modern England comes as a shock to most Westminster persons, writes PETER HITCHENS
Modern England comes as a shock to most Westminster persons. The former Tory MP Matthew Parris was so appalled when he visited Clacton that the resulting article was used in UKIP propaganda in the by-election there. Mr Parris appeared to be looking down a very long nose indeed at that town’s people and their lives. It didn’t seem to cross his mind that he – as a politician, broadcaster and influential journalist – might have helped to make it like that.
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Its High Street is a glory of old-fashioned Englishness, a chapter from Charles Dickens in brick, stone, timber and plaster. Almost every enterprise is named after a Dickens character. At this time of year, when the dusk begins to fall quite early, and the yellow lights come on behind the small panes of glass, it is so moving and evocative that I almost stopped breathing at the sight of it.
But then Dickens and his books are real to me. The place must be as mysterious as Japan to most modern English people, for whom Dickens is a firmly closed book. It is also, like so much of picturesque England, a museum where you can buy and eat the exhibits.
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In Rochester the UKIP office had been full of optimism and busyness. People were coming up to UKIP candidate Mark Reckless in the street to offer encouragement.
But in Strood, despite the lovely autumn sunlight, I found a curious angry apathy. A few weeks ago, in Scotland, everyone I spoke to about the Referendum had an articulate opinion on ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. All planned to vote, None resented the process.
In Strood, my wholly unreliable and unscientific sample was the polar opposite They were a very English sample – not a Pole or a Somali to be seen. After a while I began to dread asking anyone his views, and to wonder if I was the victim of an elaborate trick, and they were all actors hired by Downing Street to confuse me.
Almost everyone I talked to in Strood (I took up station close to KFC and not far from Morrisons) was disillusioned to the point of cynicism. I can’t really disapprove of this on principle. I am a hardened non-voter, and can’t remember when I last bothered to cast a ballot in the safe Labour seat where I dwell. But if I lived in Rochester or Strood I should certainly vote next week, because it seems to me that, on this rare occasion, it would make a difference.
If the Tories can’t hold this seat, politics in this country will change deeply and forever. If they do hold it, politics in this country will remain the same. That’s quite an incentive to vote whatever way you feel. I’m still amazed by the Prime Minister’s direct appeal to Labour supporters to vote Tory, which they are as likely to do as they are likely to tandoori and eat their grannies.
But in many cases this is a crossroads that ordinary human beings aren’t even interested in visiting. People told me they were sick of immigration, sick of low wages, sick of false promises. I said that in that case UKIP was their ideal party, but they said that no, it wasn’t. They had heard of it. They knew what it was, but they didn’t trust it. Some thought the whole election was a waste of money.
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So I expect that UKIP will win, not least because I personally will be glad if they do. I am amazed that it has taken so long for ordinary Tory supporters to see through their party and particularly through David Cameron, an unusually transparent snake-oil salesman, even for these times.
But the polls can’t really cope with the kind of people I talked to in Strood. These are the great unmoved, the people who neither speak nor vote, the biggest political party in Britain if anyone could mobilise them. I am surprised that they remain unstirred.
Yet others are stirred. If UKIP win next Thursday, it will be first because the Tory circle cannot be squared. The Tories cannot win new voters without driving away just as many old ones. And they cannot shake off the hatred which clings to them from the Thatcher years.
Second, it will be because those who pinned false hopes on Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and then pinned equally false hopes on Anthony Blair in 1997, are turning once again to someone who looks and sounds as if he knows what to do about a country in deep trouble.
If that is so, then next May’s general election will mark the boundary between the long, settled Labour-Tory era and a new period of groping and uncertainty. Political parties take a long time to die, and they can still kick and bite quite hard while they are expiring. Rochester and Strood won’t mark the end of this long process, but it might well accelerate it quite sharply. I daren’t go further than that. I have no great expectations. But as all readers of Charles Dickens know, such expectations can turn out to be deeply misleading, or worse.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836143/Anger-apathy-glory-old-England-vote-change-forever-Modern-England-comes-shock-Westminster-persons-writes-PETER-HITCHENS.html