It is not our normal practice, as a politically neutral newspaper, to criticise an individual party during an election campaign, but we will make an exception with UKIP. In the course of two days, readers will have learned of the disturbing views of UKIP's parliamentary candidate for Leicester South regarding Muslims, and the admission of the party's leader that it is running a "paper candidate" in the election for mayor of Leicester.

Leicester South hopeful Abhijit Pandya has said the anti-Islamic diatribe published on his blog was an attempt to highlight issues regarding integration and employment "which we should not shy away from discussing."

Really? To us it seemed like a wildly inflammatory rant which boiled down to a crass and nasty characterisation of Muslims as lazy, intolerant spongers who are a threat to the British way of life. It was not part of a reasoned debate about multiculturalism, but a series of sweeping, unsubstantiated generalisations which demonise the Muslim community.

The matter of UKIP's "paper candidate" for the mayoral election is obviously a lot less serious. However, we do think that parties should do voters the courtesy of engaging in the electoral process properly rather than just seeking to get their name on the ballot paper. It seems particularly daft to run a candidate in an election, which has a predominately local focus rather than national one, if you have nothing whatsoever to say about local issues.

Voters will make up their own minds on May 5. However, it is difficult to see how anybody can take seriously a party which has managed the distinction of showing itself to be both unpleasant and silly in the course of a single week.