Patriotism Is No Longer The Preserve Of Racists And The 'Far Right'..........From Daniel Thomas

With election campaigns gathering speed on both sides of the Atlantic, the long suffering electorates of both countries are being force fed hypocrisy and doublespeak on a massive scale.

Modern day elections are no longer fought on the campaign trail where candidates engage the electorate on their doorsteps or by debating their policies at open public meetings; they are won by the party with the slickest media campaigns where actual policies are replaced by mudslinging and the demonising of political opponents.

Dedicated grass roots party activists have been replaced by expensively recruited PR professionals, advertising executives and image consultants who design media campaigns based on information supplied by political scientists using information from pollsters and focus groups.

Proof of this perversion of democracy is not difficult to highlight. One would think that after a five year Parliament the current representatives would know exactly the issues that are of most concern to their constituents and therefore campaign accordingly.

In Great Britain at least, the days when politicians listened to their constituents and represented them in Parliament are long gone. Expensive foreign PR consultants are deigned to be better equipped to write manifestos and decide what's best for the people.

David Cameron's Conservative Party has hired Australian Lynton Crosby, a professional PR man, as their top election strategist.

Ed Miliband's Labour Party have hired American David Axelrod, President Obama's PR man, as their election strategist.

Nick Clegg's ridiculously named Liberal Democrat Party have engaged, as opposed to hired, a South African PR man named Ryan Coetzee. While the other two parties are paying their PR men out of party funds, the Liberal Democrats are re-charging the taxpayer for the services of Mr. Coetzee.

The idea that an Australian, an American and a South African are best qualified to articulate the hopes and aspirations of the British people is absurd. They are hired as propagandists to convince the electorate by fair means or foul, mainly foul, that the politicians are on their side when they are so obviously not.

As far as the British election is concerned, what should have been a straight forward exercise for the PR men in obfuscation and election bribery has been thrown into confusion by the rise of non-establishment parties, namely the United Kingdom Independent Party, known as UKIP, the Green Party and the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists.

The Greens and the Nationalists have their niches of support but it is UKIP that is causing the most consternation in the ivory towers of the establishment party elites.

After decades of sovereignty stripping, oppressive regulations and unrelenting looting of taxpayers money by the European Union bureaucrats, along with their policy of open border mass immigration, has resulted in a trickle of support for UKIP becoming a flood.

The UKIP message is simple: Great Britain should be a self-governing, sovereign nation as opposed to a chattel of the Soviet style EU. The British people should resume control over their borders and adopt a points based managed immigration system as opposed to the current free for all madness. British values should be paramount, with British culture unashamedly celebrated as opposed to being suppressed.

Up until the surge of support for UKIP, the three legacy parties used their long established strategy of insult and smear, accusing UKIP and its supporters of being racist and members of the 'far right'.

David Cameron lowered the tone of the debate, tarnishing the office of Prime Minister in the process, by accusing multitudes of decent British citizens of being "loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists" because they love their country and prefer it to be sovereign.

As the election campaign progresses and support for UKIP holds firm, it would appear that controlling immigration with a view to reducing the numbers, clamping down on EU regulations, returning some sovereignty to Parliament, teaching British values in schools and celebrating British culture is commendable after all.

The foreign PR men of the three establishment parties have decided that 'multi-culturalism' is not that hot after all and patriotism is no longer the preserve of racists and the 'far right'.

The pollsters and the focus groups confirm that UKIP's pro-British policies are resonating with the electorate and therefore, guided by their PR machines, the politicians have adopted the position that what was thoroughly despicable yesterday can be celebrated as laudable today.

In reality what is thoroughly despicable is the hypocrisy and base behaviour of an untrustworthy political class that knows no shame and which is devoid of ethics, principle or any trace of decency.

A pox on all of them.