Toby on Triffids … sorry… ‘Tuesday’

 

Britain’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh, is a Yorkshire treasure who has become a national treasure. Born in Ilkley in 1949, he left school at 15 to become an apprentice gardener with Ilkley Council. Later he went on to study at Shipley Art and Technology Institute and then on to the wonderful career that has given pleasure to so many millions. So it is fitting that the Christmas season has been marked by his two-part tribute to the garden belonging to the most deeply loved of our national treasures – “The Queen’s Garden.”

Before Christmas, Alan gave a remarkable interview in which he talked about UKIP. What he said was, “I have some sympathy for the clarion wake-up call they’re trying to give the country.” Of Nigel Farage he said, “He’s saying what a lot of people, what the electorate, seems to think a lot of politicians are frightened of saying. He’s a good orator. He’s a populist. He’s a man people warm to.” And on immigration he said, “We have a problem in this country in that we’re just not big enough to take everybody who wants to come here…I do think we have a problem in that if people come over here they are instantly allowed benefits with rather too much ease…I think if I moved to a foreign country what would I do? I’d keep my own identity but I would feel some kind of obligation to fit in, to learn the language.”

Now, if a UKIP candidate said any of these things, our politically correct media and political class would immediately hurl accusations of ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ at him or her. Because these words come from the hugely popular Alan Titchmarsh, they simply don’t dare. Recently, the Conservative MP Mark Garnier said that there was no need to pay any attention to the views of the electorate in places like Ilkley, or indeed like Thirsk and Malton, because we were only “dog-end voters in outlying regions.” Well Mr. Garnier, I for one am proud to be a “dog-end voter in an outlying region” and next May you and the rest of your divided and decaying party will find that we’ve a very nasty bite indeed!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby