Well, This Is What I Think

Ouch. There will be a few of these, no doubt, as the UK election progresses to its climax next month.

One has to feel a little for politicians and their minders, sometimes. Even when they are about as far across the political divide from ourselves as it is possible to be.

Not only do they have to watch what they say, but as Nigel “UKIP” Farage discovers here, they even have to watch the signs they are walking next to as well.

Cue some poor media adviser flack being sacked for not predicting the photo, one suspects, and a bonus from the media proprietor to the photo-journalist who we bet stood there for a while to get the shot.

OK, yes, it’s utterly trivial, but it’s fun. And it’s Friday.

Perhaps more worryingly for Farage and his party, and the Tories, both of which constantly rail about the cost to the National Health Service of “health tourists” chewing up NHS resources in Britain, stats have just been released showing that holidaying Brits cost five times as much to Spain, Italy, France etc etc as incoming tourists cost the Brits.

The gap is largest in the cases of Austria and Germany. Austria’s health service spent 43 times more – £5.6m – on treating British travellers than the NHS did on those from Austria – £130,000. Germany, which is visited by 2 million Britons every year, had to pay 34 times more than the NHS – £22m compared to £643,000. Still, they’ve both got pots of money, so who cares, eh?

One of the joys of following an election is when a few facts interpolate themselves into the bullshit.

We will bring more to you as we go along.

Meanwhile, on the same theme, we sincerely hope the photographer who snapped this shot of Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe in South Africa has already fled to somewhere safe, as this photo has gone viral worldwide, and the afro-fascist doesn’t have a reputation for a very vibrant sense of humour.