Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Regrets, I’ve had a few

...and so has Ukip's Glenn Tingle, whom we met yesterday as he charmingly described Afghans as 'backwards tribal wankers' and said that Iran should be 'blown up'.

I said at the time that his rather bizarre answers to questions had provoked barely a flutter of interest - well now...the BBC has covered the story here. And is Mr Tingle suitably ashamed of his disgraceful response to the questions? Well the remarks were 'regretted' but...

UKIP said that Mr Tingle "regrets any offence he has caused through using such intemperate language".

"As an ex-serviceman himself, Mr Tingle is very passionate about matters relating to British service personnel and their safety," said the statement.

"In this instance, he has allowed his passion to get the better of good taste in terms of the language and black humour he has displayed."

He's not exactly denying the comments though, merely expressing regret that other people actually got to read them and might have been annoyed by the language. Is it worse to call Afghans backwards or wankers? Apparently, it's only the swear that's the big deal.

Look, I know we all say silly things from time to time - wishing death on others, hoping Richard Littlejohn gets run over by a train, and so on - and there's certainly a case to be made for us to have more colourful and outspoken candidates in our political life, as I've made previously during this campaign. And it's not a million miles away from Kenny Everett with the giant foam hands telling a Conservative Party conference to bomb Russia and kick Michael Foot's walking stick away. (I don't think Everett was trying to answer a genuine political survey at the time, though.)

But can you imagine the uproar if anyone from a major party had said this kind of thing? We don't have to imagine the uproar if a maverick Labour candidate in an unwinnable seat said something off-message - it was there right across every medium yesterday. Ukip just regrets being found out.

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