Nigel Farage has has claimed the leftie-commentariat has shown more condemnation for the “bit of fun” parody calypso about UKIP, than the systematic rape of young children in the north of England by Pakistani gangs.
Citing the special punishment saved for UKIP by some, Farage insisted Mike Read wouldn’t have had any trouble with the song had he released it under any other context, and compared it to other, uncontroversial albums that involved white men singing in a ‘black’ style such as 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday. Farage accused his detractors of “screaming blue murder”.
Speaking on London’s LBC radio, Mr. Farage said: “We’ve had more condemnation and outrage from left-wing commentators about Mike Read’s calypso than we’ve had over the grooming and rape of thousands of young girls in the north of England. It shows, I think, a very twisted set of priorities”.
Commenting on the self-censoring tendency of contemporary British society and Nick Clegg’s remark that the song would not appeal to people who were “generous hearted and diverse”, Farage seemed bullish and warned against people taking satire too seriously. Farage told listeners: “No doubt if we took Mr. Clegg’s arguments to their logical extension, we’d ban every impressionist, we’d get rid of every cartoon, every satire, because everything we ever say or do could cause offence to someone… I honestly do not believe that calypso song of Mike’s caused offence, I think it was confected outrage”.
Mike Read’s UKIP Calypso was originally performed privately at the UKIP conference as “a bit of fun”, but Read, who is a well known and popular disk jockey whom previously fronted British pop-music show Top of the Pops, decided to release the single for charity. The record was released on Monday, but the parody was quickly jumped upon by some, who variously labelled it “racist” and “atrocious”. Shocked at the strength of feeling about his novelty record, Read withdrew it from sale on Wednesday.
The systematic rape of children in Northern English towns by mostly Muslim Pakistani men has over the past couple of months become a by-word for the apparent failure of multiculturalism in the UK. The failures of social services and police in Rotherham over the rape of 1,400 young girls has been called a “national scandal”, but some including Mr. Farage have accused many figures on the left of being conspicuously silent over the matter.
Listen to a clip from Mike Reed’s UKIP Calypso:
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