Say Hello to 'UKIP Diner'

I sometimes forget we live in a little bubble of cosmopolitan sophistication. Central London restaurants are packed to the gills every night with forward-thinking, fashionable, liberal, creative people, discussing cutting edge ideas, and enjoying exciting, exotic cooking.

Venture out to the provinces however, the land 'where critics dare not go' and a new type of restaurant-goer is emerging.

I can imagine ‘UKIP diner’ very well. Definitely a ‘motorist’ sort of real-life Alan Partridge character, male obviously, he drives a Rover with a pair of mesh/leather mix driving gloves and a copy of the Michelin guide in the glove compartment. UKIP diner plays golf, wears pink lambswool v-necks with a logo, ginger corduroy trousers and pats waitresses bottoms.

UKIP Diner is no Tripadvisor warrior - he complains in restaurants - he says what he likes, and likes what he bloody well says. 

Recently I’ve been thinking of ways to identify UKIP Diner properly, but as my arse rarely leaves our beloved capital city to brush the tall backed seats of provincial gastropubs I’ve struggled to encounter him.

So imagine my joy when the other day I stumbled across UKIP Diner’s manifesto for dining out, a kind of ‘what to avoid’ list of ingredients and dishes fellow UKIP diners should be aware of.

Carrots - Don’t trust the Dutch. Never visit a country with no hills. Should be purple or white really, and still would be if it wasn’t for William of Orange, who invaded our precious Isle and ruled us for thirty years. Tulip loving clog wearers. Avoid.

Balsamic vinegar - turns you into a lefty Guardian-reading Birkenstock-wearing Islington Estate agent’s window botherer. See also Rocket salad.

Wine - this suspicious beverage is brewed by the French, and that says all you need to know about it. It comes in two kinds - red which is drunk by snobs in ‘la-di-da’ restaurants, and white which is drunk by women. Never seen the point really. Apparently there is rosé too, which is just red and white mixed together.

Sole - Soles are well known as the fish introduced by handout-seeking Bulgarians dropping them into the sea on their way through Dover, the open floodgate to benefits Britain. Get this pescatorial emblem of layabout culture off our menus!

Potatoes - another sneaky foreign import, this time from the swarthiest nation of all, South America. Eat too much of them and you’ll soon be paying off corrupt governments, producing home-grown cocaine and taking the afternoon off work for a siesta. Swerve.

Paprika - this peculiar spicy red powder is well known to actively induce the wearing of gypsy clothes and begging on London Underground.

Pasta (also known as Spaghetti) - The filthy Iy-ties first came over here 100 years ago and have been stealing our cafe jobs ever since. This wobbly muck is simply a con, it’s just re-shaped boiled bread. The rotten war-dodgers will charge as much as £30 a bowl up in London.

Cucumbers - disgusting. Look at the shape. Quite obviously some weird bio-concoction bred to infect our minds with filth by the gays.

Pierogi - this mysterious Eastern European gloop is in fact a substance which causes the mind to actively become weak and dislike work. The packaging of Poland’s main brand is ‘Kasia’s’, Polish for ’Calais’, and its main ingredient is dough which roughly translates as ‘benefits’. You work it out.

Paella - Those lazy work-shy Spaniards have been coining it off our holiday pound ever since we discovered that baked desert of a donkey sanctuary and its peasants 50 years ago and turned it into a seaside resort. This dingy slop is simply yellow rice pudding with bony bits of rabbit foot and prawn heads. Politely decline.
Apparently now there’s a ‘Spanish food revolution’ where in right-on bits of London, soppy ‘foodies' order the same bowls of deep fried nibbles you get free with your sangria in Marbella. Imagine!

Melissa Foodie, stand-by UKIP Candidate for Thanet (will consider other places) - October 2014