Meet John Leathley. John is a 23-year-old student at Durham University, and finds time between his studies to play at being the Ukip candidate for Sedgefield, County Durham. I say 'play' because Sedgefield is Tony Blair's old seat, and the Labour machine have it pretty much locked down.
Maybe that's why John decided to relieve himself by indulging in some rather unparliamentary language about the writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, when she appeared on Question Time last November.
Posting in a Ukip members' forum on Facebook - and let's all pause for a moment to imagine the sort of Socratic symposia that must go on in that virtual venue - John posted that Alibhai-Brown 'needs a good shag'. It's unclear how this would have helped exactly, as Leathley's prescription came at the end of a screed which began with the assertion that 'sleeping with women (when done properly) makes them crazy'. Perhaps Alibhai-Brown was being entirely too sane for Leathley's liking?
A fellow Kipper responded to Leathley's assertion by stating that they would 'stick a cannon up her arse and fire her into Israel, see how long she lasts :D' (there's no word, as yet, on whether this bizarre, emoticon-capped statement was the result of its author being slept with properly).
Leathley warmed to this theme, chortling that Alibhai-Brown would 'love a big black thing up her arse'. What he's doing there, you see, is comparing a gun to a black man's penis. Such wit! Doubtless the debating societies of Dunelm are distraught at the thought of losing such a gadfly to the world of professional politics.
In Leathley's defence, it might be pointed out that he has apologised, and hasn't tried to pass this particular exchange off as 'just banter'. Perhaps, however, his apology might mean something more if he'd bothered to spell Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's name correctly.
(For more on Ukip, and the way they attempt to cultivate a bantz-y reputation in order to distract people from the more cynical side of their policies, check out this piece I wrote for So So Gay last year.)
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