My limerick response to Mike Read’s Ukip Calypso

Only another traditional verse form will do

Nigel Farage has urged supporters to buy Mike Read's Ukip Calypso song and push it up to the No 1 spot (PA)

Listeners to the Today programme on Radio 4 will have woken with something of a jolt on Tuesday morning. Not to the soothing tones of a Naughtie or the resonance of a Humphrys, but to the sound of veteran disc jockey Mike Read, in a mock Caribbean accent, singing (sic) a calypso in support of Ukip. It includes the soon-to-be-immortal lines "To Jean Claude Juncker we are giving away/£55 million every day" and it has understandably caused something of a storm, Read using a traditional Caribbean form of expression, adopting a comedy West Indian accent, to complain about immigration. It is only right that the response to Read and Ukip should come in the manner of a traditional British verse, the limerick...

He was once characterised as Smashy

The DJ who was irredeemably flashy

But now he's got views

And he's back in the news

With a calypso branded racist and trashy

Mike Read was a famous pop picker of yore

He's a disc jockey right to his core

But it's not rock and roll

That's now stirring his soul

It's the immigrants who are breaking the law

So he's taken the Caribbean form of song

To address what he thinks has gone wrong

The cod accent he employs

Offends and annoys

And you could say it's all gone Pete Tong

He sings of bananas, kettles and tax

And of an immigration system so lax

What you will hear

Is the politics of fear

With a questionable regard to the facts

He invokes the towns of our nation

Where they're united in condemnation

He finds referendum

Rhymes with Hendon

In Thanet, too, they're sick of immigration

In UKIP, Read's interests are vested

But as a politico, he's yet to be tested

Yet he's kept his nose clean

If you know what I mean

And unlike his colleagues, he's not yet been arrested

Farage, as we know, is all front

And he's never afraid to be blunt

It's publicity he's after

He's game for some laughter

And Mike Read? Well, he's just a total stunt

Take it serious? You must be joking

Although anxiety is what they are stoking

They picture a land

Where hoovers are banned

And Nigel will be prevented from smoking

Mike Read says the calypso is satirical

But his critics say it's too political

Stick to spinning the platters

And leave what matters

To those who are a tad more lyrical