Saturday 10 August 2013

Where is Bongo Bongo land?

You might have a better idea after UKIP's Godfrey Bloom's made reference to the 'country' in a speech given last month.

Bloom was criticising the government's foreign aid policy and used the term Bongo Bongo land to describe the type of countries that receive aid from the government.

It's a perfectly legitimate debate to discuss whether the country should continue to giving aid to some overseas countries when so many cuts are taking place here in the UK.

You also want to be confident that the money going to these countries is being spent on those who truly need it and not being wasted by corrupt government officials.

But when you start referring to these countries as 'Bongo Bongo land' you can't seriously expect to get away with that.

Is 'Bongo Bongo' land a racist term? Mildly at a low level - but really it's a derogatory term to describe some nondescript country most likely in Africa.

Does anyone under the age of 50 ever use this term? I'd like to think not, but it doesn't surprise me that a member of UKIP would come out with such a term.

This is the problem UKIP have. They want to position themselves as being outsiders to the mainstream political establishment.

They want to be this no nonsense, tell it how it is, plain speaking Party ordinary people can relate to. That would be fine if we were living in the year 1955, unfortunately we're now well into the 21st Century.

UKIP have gained a lot of success in recent months but with that success comes greater scrutiny and analysis of the Party and its members.

Bloom's comments might never have been reported a couple of years ago but things are changing for UKIP and they need to mind their language.



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