Nigel Farage exposes shame each and every one of our spineless politicians should feel

"If Hitler invaded hell I would feel compelled to make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." Churchill's famous wartime quote was, of course, his wry way of explaining why he had to parley and treat with the monster, Stalin. What our prime minister was trying to convey was that sometimes, for the greater good, one must make concessions to the lesser evil.

In Churchill's mind, Hitler was even more deplorable than Lucifer. Should the two clash, better to side with Satan than align with Adolf. Which brings us forward 80-odd years to today, and Nigel Farage's undertaking this week to pay good money to the despotic Taliban to accept the return of Afghans who have illegally entered Britain. The Reform leader's unapologetic pledge caused huge ructions here, but those were largely confined to left-leaning media and Labour politicians.

Out in the "real world" a proposal that even two or three years ago may have been rejected as unacceptable was broadly accepted. It's an unmistakable sign of how and why so many voters reacted positively to Farage's uncompromising "send them back" speech in Oxford on Tuesday.

Traditionally kind-hearted Brits have "had enough". That's what happens when people's generosity and tolerance is persistently taken for granted and abused. They eventually pull up the drawbridge.

"I used to care about them [the illegal immigrants] but I'm sorry, not anymore," was one comment I heard in radio vox pops (street interviews) on Tuesday. "They're just taking the p*** now."

The abject failure of successive UK governments to control immigration, and their automatic reliance on what they arrogantly presumed to be the infinitely flexible, good-natured tolerance of our resident population, has finally bitten them on the behind. Hard.

According to reports, the Taliban has said it is "ready and willing" to work with Farage to accept Afghans deported from the UK. They promise to "embrace" such returnees.

God knows what the nature of that "embrace" might be. But the fact that so many Brits no longer care is an indictment of our elected leaders' spineless immigration non-policies. Shame on each and every one of them.

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I had to smile at actor and comedian David Mitchell's defence of "mansplaining" - the way men can sometimes patronisingly talk to women - this week as: "It's just what we men call conversation."

Mitchell's point is that men mansplain to each other too. He says men tend to have a "little mutual explain" rather than delving into "emotional stuff". So we women shouldn't feel patronised, then. In fact, we're almost being treated like honorary men. Isn't that even worse?

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So... wind energy is "clean". It's "free". Well, maybe the first, but definitely not the second. Because not only do wind farms need to be built and maintained - definitely not cost-free - it turns out that they also cost us a small fortune when we have to (get this, folks) switch them OFF. Yup.

Believe it or not, disconnecting wind farms from the grid dials up our energy bills. Ofgem, the energy regulator, admitted this week that the higher than expected hike of 2% in household power bills was significantly due to the rising bill for paying wind farms in remote locations to "switch off" because the network couldn't handle their input, and paying for gas plants to fire up to replace that energy.

Roughly £15 of the autumn rise of £35 is down to this.Octopus Energy, the UK's biggest household supplier, put it succinctly: "People need to benefit from these 'cheap' renewables rather than having to pay to switch them off." "Green" Energy Secretary Ed Miliband? Hello? Ed? Hello?