UKIP and Nigel Farridge as I always call him — surely, Nigel, a true Brit like you doesn’t want garlic and frogs’ legs in your surname — is now being heralded as a new force in British politics and in a sense of course he is.

He represents the fact that Labour has completely abandoned its core constituency — listen to the quotes from the Ukip voters of Rotherham — and that most of the tabloid press in this country is run by a cleverly vicious bunch of divide-and-rule xenophobes who, by sheer brainless repetition of moronic and racist cliches, have managed to persuade countless working-class people to vote for a party which in power would operate directly against their own social and political interests.

On economic and social issues the opinions of the Ukip elite make Thatcher look like Arthur Scargill. But of course, since Ukip hasn’t actually announced any policies other than “They’re taking your jobs, they talk funny and their sausages have unpronounceable names,” none of their voters have cottoned on to that yet.

Labour’s response to the massive protest vote for Ukip should be to stop worrying about Murdoch and the Daily Mail and create a programme to deal fundamentally with the grotesque inequality in our society and make the obscenity of food banks redundant. Then publish it, and call on all those — like me, who went door-to-door for them in 1997 — enthused by the idea of a Labour Party which MEANS something again to make up an army of activists to go into the forgotten places all over Britain and tell people who never vote that this time their vote will make a difference.

I would most certainly do that and I am sure many of you would too. The votes of those who don’t usually bother to vote would sweep Labour into power.

And a proper socialist government could then deal with the whole question of the EU. As an internationalist, I love the idea of unity between the people of Europe but the current structure is simply a vehicle for greedy bastards to exploit cheap mobile labour.

Come on Miliband, discover a spine and thousands of us would get out on the streets and back you all the way.

Very busy time for me at the moment, I’m happy to say. Started off a couple of weeks ago with five gigs in four days — an anti-nuclear benefit in the punky-reggae part of Bristol which basically went on all night, a lovely gig in Penarth, then a mad Sunday charge from a lunchtime show in Bath to the Something Else festival in deepest Essex and, the next day, my “Local And Vocal” show at the Brighton Fringe.

And last weekend I was at Strummercamp, the Manchester festival set up nine years ago to celebrate the musical legacy of the leader of the greatest band in the history of music. Although it naturally rained nearly all the time, for about 10 minutes on the Saturday afternoon the sun actually came out. OK, we’re talking Manchester here. It didn’t actually come out, but at least it got a bit “bi-curiousa” and the dreadful weather didn’t spoil a fantastic festival.

This weekend it’s our annual Glastonwick real ale and music festival here in Sussex-by-the-Sea. The hippies in Brighton are doing a sun dance for us. Hope it works...

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