I wonder whether the people who have created a monster ever come to regret it? It's a question as relevant to UKIP's Nigel Farage as it is to one of our greatest film makers, Sir Ridley Scott.
I finally got around to watching his much-criticised Alien 'prequel' Prometheus and believe it to be much misunderstood, in the same way that those who helped 'create' UKIP have misunderstood what their efforts have led to.
My take on the film: A humanoid master race infects the Universe with their DNA hoping that somewhere life will be created in their own image. It works on Earth, so they leave behind - fatal mistake as it turns out - a 'map' so when we're fully formed we can come and find our makers.
The trouble is their super-DNA also reacts with lowly worms, which in the right circumstances creates a monster intent not only on destruction but on adapting itself by splicing with other life forms, in effect recreating itself.
The humanoids figure this out too late and fail to destroy the one thing they know will lead to the destruction of their successful DNA project - the map, which ought now to be interpreted as a warning not an invitation. Because if we find the planet that is now ruled by killer-worms, our natural curiosity and creationist arrogance will doom us.
By the time we go to meet our maker along with Ridley Scott, the question we so desperately want to answer (in perhaps the film's key scene) is not 'Where are we going?' but 'How did we get here and how did you make us - and thus how can we make ourselves?'
Creation, not destiny is our primary concern. And that is our fatal flaw - by wanting to create life we end up destroying it.
The power to create something and then watch it, helplessly, spin out of control, is everyone's flaw - even politicians and their media cheerleaders.
Conservatives who hanker for a past that thankfully no longer exists, who fear all outsiders and minorities, whose anger at modernisation leads them only able to find fault, whose most loathed word is 'progress', these are the people who have created UKIP. And it is a monster that is eating the political party that they once proudly helped to put into power.
The likelihood of a Lib-Lab pact after the next General Election grows more likely with every day that this ridiculous EU-argument rages. UKIP will probably not win any seats in two years' time but it might prevent Tories winning crucial marginals. And if David Cameron steers his party closer into the UKIP current he'll lose the support of a growing number of floating voters
Thus, the one thing those Old Tories fear more than anything - handing power to a bunch of Lefties controlled by Ed (Balls not Miliband) - is the very thing that they are encouraging. The monster is destroying them. And they don't seem to be able or willing to stop it.
Prometheus, the film, has been deeply misunderstood because, like UKIP, it is charged not with answering questions but asking them. The difference is that Ridley Scott is asking: 'In our rush to create life are we sowing the seeds - and worms - of its destruction?'
Whereas Nigel Farage - and more disturbingly those in the Conservative media who loathe the Left - is asking: 'Who cares?'