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Ukip Calypso by Mike Read? The horror! The horror!

We should have seen this coming. It was surely predicted in the Old Testament

Patrick Strudwick
Monday 20 October 2014 17:27 BST
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Nigel Farage has backed DJ Mike Read's new Ukip song
Nigel Farage has backed DJ Mike Read's new Ukip song

It is a story that worsens with every single word: Ukip releases song called “Ukip Calypso” by former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read. Please take a moment to gather yourself. It is likely your psyche has shattered. And you probably haven’t even heard it yet.

I have. It came out of the tiny speakers of my iPhone, which for several minutes became like a remake of Poltergeist: Ukip the ghoul in the television, a ghostly hand thrusting through the glass to snatch the bewitched Carol Anne: me the little girl screaming. We will all soon be Carol Anne. The forces of darkness – by which I mean the media’s conspiracy to elevate Ukip’s omnipresence to a level George Orwell would have described as “a bit bloody much” – will sweep it into the charts on a tidal wave of bigotry and filth, trumpeted by the winged monkeys of fear, reaching the top spot on a river of progressives’ blood. You get the idea. There can be no metaphor too hyperbolic.

The lyrics alone constitute a transgression too far even for a party unencumbered by facts, niceties or cultural enrichment: “The British people have been let down/that's why Ukip is making ground…From Crew to Cleethorpes, Hull to Hendon they don’t believe Cameron’s referendum… Coaliton could be a fact/With any party we could make a pact.” Morrissey need not be worried. And all accompanied by a tinny twangy backing track that may well involve ukuleles. Just don’t tell anyone in Ukip where calypso music comes from. Mass vomiting, not seen since the last exceptionally rough Dover-to-Calais ferry ride will ensue.

We should have seen this coming. It was surely predicted in the Old Testament. I do not currently have the emotional strength to go thumbing through Leviticus but judging by Ukip’s own logic (courtesy of Oxfordshire councilor David Silvester) if gay marriage was the cause of last winter’s flooding, the moment David Cameron decided to limit EU immigration must, in some horrifying celestial sphere, have caused the Ukip single. We are all doomed. Except Farage, of course.

But let us prise ourselves away from the television set and Farage, the mad axeman of British politics, just for a moment. Instead, try to focus on another festering sight: Mike Read. It is tempting to say we should at least be grateful for a Radio 1 DJ that does not consider his listeners sexual targets regardless of age. But that would pander to the masses, a cheap shot worthy of … Ukip.

No, his historic crimes are, almost refreshingly, of a political and musical nature. He rapped at a Tory conference. His smug, banal presenting style helped inspire Smashie and Nicey. And he banned – though latterly denied this – Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax”. And so, as the airwaves start to fill with the sounds of his cod-Calypso, a noise that even guards at Guantanamo Bay would consider an infringement of human rights, there can be only one antidote. With DJs “ironically” throwing Ukip Calypso on the turntables, as will surely come to pass, we cannot allow evil to triumph. We must instead switch on the sounds of Holly Johnson extolling the joys of man on man back door sex. It is our only hope. Run Carol Anne, run.

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