Don't mention the V-E-T-T-I-N-G

Love the fact that UKIP's leader, Nigel Farrago (Family Motto: Not Actually Racist, Just Popular With Racists), thinks it's impossible to vet all his party's candidates. Nigel, it's perfectly possible. What you need are the following:

1. A database of UKIP candidates. (You must have one. It's probably next to the national membership list. You know, the membership list? Nigel...?)

2. A computer linked to the intertrons. (A computer is a data-processing machine, Nigel. No, they're not big enough to fill a decent-sized room nowadays. No, they don't use miles of magnetic tape. From that description you're probably thinking of Joe 90. Yes, BIG RAT - you said it.)

3. A teenager (that's a young person - try to find someone in 'jeans' and a 'tee shirt' if you're not sure) who knows what 'Google' does and can spend a week trawling Facebook and Twitter (or 'doing investigative journalism').

There. Fixed that for you, Nige. Bit surprised that you and your high-powered team of Britain-savers couldn't figure it out for yourselves, to be honest.

And it's a pity that I wasn't there to advise Nigel before we discovered that UKIP really does contain people who hold somewhat unfortunate opinions, such as:

Sterilise the English lower orders to stop them breeding so prolifically.

Wear sterile face masks to prevent catching TB from Slavs.

Keep women subordinate to men.

And, Wagnerian timpani please - Holocaust Denial.

Then of course there are the Ukippers who think homosexuality is vile, and that gays are involved in some kind of 'conspiracy' to destroy our British way of life. That is pretty much what Tory Christian types think, so - as with racism, sexism etc - there's quite an overlap. No wonder Cameron and his buddies are worried about support draining away. (Tory Christians, by the way, are the guys who think Jesus should have joined the money-changers in the Temple as an unpaid intern.)

There's something almost touching about the Farage outrage over the way these stories have appeared in the Tory press, with the Mirror and the Guardian struggling to keep up. Of course the Tories are smearing UKIP - smearing is what they do, and the Ukippers are just getting what Labour got - completely one-sided 'reporting'. But it is, above all, heartening to see two parties of the far right tearing into each other. Farage may claim that UKIP takes votes from Labour and the Lib Dems, but we all know what his party is really about - recruiting mostly ignorant white men with a narrow-minded view of Britain's past, present and future. And that means undermining the Tories.

And that's not even the best part. Consider: less than a month after Maggie Thatcher was laid to rest her snobbery, her bigotry, her smiling arrogance, her shabby jingoism, has resurfaced in UKIP. And it's going to spoil things for the Tory party that betrayed her and ended her career as Britain's first de facto president-for-life.

The Ukippers are Zombie Thatcherites, cruder in their political ideas and more openly prejudiced than the original version. And they are on  the march to the ballot box.