Smoke Me A Kipper: Neil's Farrago

Subtle pseudonym, right?

Straight-talking, beer-swilling man of the people Neil is the leader of a dwindling UK political party, which apparently isn't racist even though it's anti-immigration, and also full of racists. As he prepares to launch his campaign on an upcoming referendum, however, he stumbles on a plot by shape-shifting aliens to sabotage his political career. 

With only his trusty bodyguard (whatever his name is) and a couple of asylum seekers to help him, can Neil thwart the alien threat and deliver the speech of his lifetime to kick off his referendum campaign? Or has the mono-balled purple-helmeted warrior cashed in his last lavish expenses claim? 

This 15,000 word novelette parodies people you might once have thought were beyond parody. Though obviously not Nigel Farage, UKIP and Jeremy Clarkson. That would be silly.

I really hate racists, particularly racists that claim to speak on my behalf. Which, as I'm a straight, middle class, white man, is pretty much all racists. So I wrote an extended short story about an alcoholic, racist politician. I tried to get it out ahead of the UK General Election in May 2015, but real life intervened, and it ended up appearing in July.

In a way, the book already feels very old-fashioned. Written before the so-called 'migrant crisis' of 2015, it focuses on racist attitudes to Eastern European migrants. UKIP now seems to have ignored that demographic in favour of an even softer target, Syrian refugees. I loathe the bigots with an even more powerful passion than I did when I wrote Neil's Farrago.

Smoke Me A Kipper: Neil's Farrago is available in paperback and Kindle edition from Amazon.