At the Barbers

I imagine David 'intensely relaxed' Cameron has his hair cut at Trumpers, but he'd be wise to pay a visit to my barbers once in a while. He'd get quite a shock. This amiable pair - brothers of Greek-Cypriot origin - have been plying their scissors in the same shop for 26 years. Both have retained a sometimes impenetrable 'Stavros' accent, but regard themselves as proudly English (not, if you please, 'British'), and their long years of observing the passing scene from their unchanging vantage point have firmly convinced them that their adopted country is going to hell in a handcart. But now, having long ago given up any hope of politicians doing anything about it, they've discovered what they take to be a real hope of reversing that hellbound handcart. I need hardly say that it's called UKIP, and its leader is Nigel Farage, whom they regard as one hell of a fellow. And it's not just the barbering brothers; it seems to be most, if not all of their clients. My barbershop soundings may not amount to much, but I do have a sense that UKIP really are going to stir things up - they are after all the only alternative to a three-party consensus on the Big Issue ('Europe') - and I can't help feeling that an eventual Tory-UKIP coalition would be more representative of how the nation thinks and feels than any other arrangement. Cameron would have to go, of course, but I'm sure he's very relaxed about that.