Nigel Farage explains Democracy to M. Junker.
- JimmyGiro
July 17, 2014 at 6:34 pm -
I feel slightly dirty, liking a politician.
- jonseer
July 17, 2014 at 6:49 pm -
He is a courageous man, so I cannot include him among politicians, particularly the Westminster roost. While his policies appeal to my memories of Merry England, I am a convinced European and cannot imagine Europe being unravelled without a cost.
- Dioclese
July 17, 2014 at 7:22 pm -
The cost, jonseer, is around £530million a day to the British taxpayer and the sooner it is over, the better.
The great European project is not yet dead in the water, but it has turned it’s face to the wall and is coughing up blood. M.Juncker is on record as admitting to lying and ignoring referenda results. Do we really want to be part of a system led by such a despicable man? I think not. This is not democracy – this is dictatorship. Nobody voted for this creep. He should not be in the job!
- stephen lewis
July 17, 2014 at 7:52 pm -
I actually consider being part of a union as a good thing …. but when that union refuses to have its accounts audited, “persuades” through bribery and corruption and insists that countries keep voting until the answer is “yes”…. this raises serious questions about this particular union.
Looks like its time to start again afresh.
- Fat Steve
July 17, 2014 at 8:54 pm -
Whatever one’s views on Europe, UKIP , Democracy or Politicians, Farage is a star performer though the stage on which he plays couldn’t be more favourable to his act. Daniel Hannan though is the thinking Man’s Farage and worth watching on You tube if one is interested.
- Ancient+Tattered Airman
July 17, 2014 at 10:08 pm -
I totally agree Steve. Those two gentlemen are sorely needed in Westminster too………
- right-writes
July 19, 2014 at 9:22 am -
Steve, there are quite a number of commenters who reckon that Hannan, Carswell (and ilk) are like the “judas goat” which leads the sheep to slaughter…
I never really went along with this, until I say Hannan’s behaviour post EP election. He acted as Cameron’s extremely diligent agent there… scuttling about trying desperately to stop UKIP forming a Parliamentary group…
Fortunately he failed, but it is is not very much in the spirit of things to say UKIP stuff for most of a five year period, and to then attempt to stop the winning party from having ANY influence at all in the toothless EP.
- Fat Steve
July 19, 2014 at 10:05 am -
@right-writes To be honest I am not sure I know enough about politics to form a view on the political agendas of Farage or Hannan but I find them both in their different ways hugely entertaining orators when they are being critical of the people and the institutions that run the EU but on a more constructive note they are serving a useful purpose in highlighting what appears to be a pretty odd state of affairs in Brussels. where huge power is wielded with little or no accountability. The worry about the EU is the lack of transparency—I haven’t a clue whats decided in Brussels , by whom and how —-it just seems that life in Europe is affected by political fixes and taken in political directions that I have no knowledge of. I sorta get the impression one day I could wake up to a Europe which I am told is (e)utopian but many including myself might think dystopian ….but there again I get that feeling in the UK often enough now.
- Stewart Cowan
July 19, 2014 at 7:13 pm -
@right-writes – I agree. I accussed Mr Hannan on his Telegraph blog of being a double agent to keep ‘Eurosceptic’ Tories voting ‘Conservative’. It’s something they have to do to keep up the myth that one day – in a far distant year – in a galaxy far away – there will be a referendum or the even more unlikely ‘clawing back of powers’. I’m not saying these two definitely are Judas goats, but if they’re not they would have to have had replacements.
- Fat Steve
- Ancient+Tattered Airman
- bill40
July 17, 2014 at 10:30 pm -
To be fair the anthem is really rather good. It’s not that I don’t agree with Farage it’s just that I don’t want him speaking for me.
- Engineer
July 17, 2014 at 11:38 pm -
Beethoven’s ninth symphony used to be a truly sublime piece of music. Sadly, since it was appropriated by democracy-free Brussels Bureaucrats I can’t hear it without gritting my teeth.
- Robert Edwards
July 18, 2014 at 10:54 pm -
With great respect to you, Beethoven’s ninth is, if you deconstruct it, really rather banal. It is nothing when compared to, as I think of it, any of the others. It is known in my circle at least, as ‘Beethoven’s worst…’
Which might, in this context, be q. appropriate…
- FrankS
July 18, 2014 at 11:00 pm -
In other words, The Sausage Symphony.
I’ll get me coat…- RAB
July 18, 2014 at 11:29 pm -
Those Gangsters of the EU shouldn’t have bothered with a ditty from a long dead composer, they should have gone with something more contemporary that really reflects their views and attitudes..
- RAB
- FrankS
- Robert Edwards
- Mr Wray
July 19, 2014 at 7:17 pm -
To me it sounds to close to ‘Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles’ for comfort.
- Engineer
- Ho Hum
July 18, 2014 at 12:05 am -
Yeah yeah. Every politician can sound reasonable, and even quite funny, when not in power, if someone writes the right speech for them. But, nowadays, given the reins of real power, they all turn into authoritarian despots. I have no doubt that Farage balloon and his bunch of intellectual heavyweights who meet at the Groundhog Inn every Tuesday night, will prove to be no different
Democracy is all about voting for whose brand of authoritarianism you approve of. And sometimes, the denizens of this hostelry, seem to be prepared to let their avowed libertarianism be subborned by the charm of such as dear old Nigel, as, to parody his take on the High flying Junkers, he seems to be an appealing, clever and somewhat nice old cove
I say that with sadness, as over the years I have learnt that the only really sensible position to take is to distrust every one of them, as ultimately you will hate them all
- Junican
July 18, 2014 at 4:57 am -
Your view is almost certainly correct, but oh so cynical. At least Farage is direct, much as Maggie T was. When was the last time that a politician did not prevaricate since Maggie T was politically assassinated? There is a huge problem here, which is that politicians no longer have any idea of ‘the truth’. Everything is too complicated for them. But that is their own fault. They have passed laws which they do not themselves understand intellectually, but instead rely upon emotion. Listen to a couple of debates in the HoC and listen to the emotion.
Emotion wrecks are hardly the right people to be in power. - stephen lewis
July 18, 2014 at 9:16 am -
I don’t think I’ve seen any politician in recent times (and I’m talking 2 decades) speaking so honestly and positively whether in power or otherwise. Most politicians are speaking from their whip rather than their heart.
Frankly coming from the north of England destroyed by MT , I’d include her as well.
Maybe NF will be the same should he ever be fortunate enough to make it to a hot seat… but I think I’d rather give him a chance and find out than rely on people that I know have lied and deceived for decades. At least he is unknown as a quantity, the others are guaranteed charlatans (as a general group – even the decent ones have to toe the line or lose their status)
- Mudplugger
July 18, 2014 at 9:22 am -
My wise old father’s view of democracy was that you don’t vote for the one who will do you the most good, you vote for the one who will do you the least harm – on the grounds that none of them will ever do you any good.
Hence you should vote for those whose brand of authoritarianism you hate the least, not those of which you approve the most.- Engineer
July 18, 2014 at 9:58 am -
Quite. Expecting utopia will lead to disappointment. Finding the best compromise between the competing pressures and needs of sixty-odd (very odd, some of them) million people is always going to be messy.
Expecting to find a common platform for governance between several hundred million people of Europe, some of them with a Nordic outlook, some a Mediterranean outlook, some with a post-Soviet outlook is pretty much impossible. Much better to be pragmatic and stick to having lots of dialogue, but letting different nations sort their own problems out in their own ways.
- Ho Hum
July 18, 2014 at 3:13 pm -
Quite, but the majority of those voting are a daft bunch of fools, and hence we get authoritarianism for the masses, as imposed on them, and you and me, by the minority that they chose in their ignorance, stupidity and lack of wisdom
Even our dear old friend, the Engineer, seems, on occasion to think that I’m one too, so I guess when things sink that low, there really is little hope for you all
- Engineer
- Junican
- Hysteria
July 18, 2014 at 10:06 am -
At least Mr Farage speaks truth to power
you can disagree with his politics, his motive, ability and any number of things – but he at least has a go at attacking the big state.
- Mudplugger
July 18, 2014 at 12:29 pm -
The EU Emperor has no clothes – at least Farage has the balls to point this out repeatedly.
- Moor Larkin
July 18, 2014 at 12:59 pm -
Probably why he comes across as childish to many people.
- Hysteria
July 18, 2014 at 5:12 pm -
Well – that’s a view I guess
But wouldn’t you agree that we need more people speaking out against the placemen and apparatchiks?
- Hysteria
- Moor Larkin
- Mudplugger
- binao
July 18, 2014 at 6:33 pm -
I still think the whole eu thing has gone rogue and will cause a lot of trouble for us, in or out, before it settles down to something totally different from the present or the plan. My guess is that the actions needed to secure the euro will drive changes that will result in the eurozone separating itself from the rest, and it’s hard to see that being painless.
Mr Farage is hugely entertaining, but I don’t think for one moment that he personally will get very far. What he can be though is a totem for all those sharing his view; the longer he’s around, the more the future can be influenced. As has been said earlier, Dan Hannan is worth a listen too.
Problem is it’s all a bit like shooting fish in a barrel which people get bored with eventually. More serious, the younger electors only know the status quo; for them what Mr Farage is proposing is a real leap in the dark which they may, wrongly, compare with the Scots’ imminent vote.
Why won’t he get anywhere personally? I think of Mr Mandela- 10-15 years of work by Mnr De Klerk and others to bring about the change enabling release and elections, then both shortly shuffled off the stage.
Mr F may have got something going, but nothing’s going to change overnight. The power is in the wrong hands. - Gil
July 19, 2014 at 12:18 am -
Nigel’s great. The EU is his lifeblood. Pulling MEP salary and expenses while the peasants stand in the mud cheering him on as he rides past. If his populism helps to push the UK out of the EU, he’ll be in the south of France raising a glass to everyone as they turn the clock back to the 1950s and find it’s gone.
The EU has crazy ideas like 2-year product guarantees for people who’d rather just buy another telly when the new one goes on the blink, product safety networking for people who prefer E coli in their cosmetics and glass in their food, foreign TV decoders for people who prefer to pay ten times more for Sky and freedom to receive medical treatment abroad for people who think only Blighty treatment will do.
- right-writes
July 19, 2014 at 9:37 am -
Thanks Gil, I now know why we are in the EU….
Those boys really know how to protect us, don’t they?
Cheap at half the price.
But hey, we don’t pay you to hang around here, it’s time to return to your desk, room 4, row 3, desk 17…
Eurinfo, Berlaymont Building, Brussels, Belgium.
- Ho Hum
July 19, 2014 at 11:41 pm -
How much for that rather fetching tinfoil hat?
And do I send the cheque to ‘Old Fallout Bunker, Walmington-on-Sea’?
- right-writes
July 20, 2014 at 8:31 am -
Where do I send the cheque for said tin foil h?
12 Weirdimagination Street,
Cloud Cuckoo Land,
Deranged,
Tillit,
Herts. - right-writes
July 20, 2014 at 8:33 am -
But seriously…
If you imagine that the only alternative to the EU is 1950’s Britain, then fine.
I have a different reality map.
- right-writes
- Ho Hum
- binao
July 20, 2014 at 1:22 am -
Sorry Gil, but civilisation didn’t begin with the founding of the eu, despite the propaganda. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that such social & consumer ‘benefits’ as are commonly credited to the eu wouldn’t have been implemented anyway.
The whole world, apart from certain ME & African states, is progressing, & cooperating on trade and will continue to do so with or without Brussels (or Strasbourg).
- right-writes
- Ho Hum
July 19, 2014 at 1:35 am -
Yeah. And some of those dreadful Johnny Foreigners have this frightful idea that we should each of us have some more personal rights than those ever so nice boys and girls in Westminster. whose idea of Nirvana is that we should all do as they tell us, think that we should be permitted. That will never do, will it?
- Ho Hum
July 19, 2014 at 1:36 am -
Sighs again. That was a follow up to Gil…
- Ho Hum
- stephen lewis
July 20, 2014 at 10:44 am -
I’m always astounded by the idea that we can only have the left hand sweets or the right hand sweets. Surely part of the reason for this blog is that we can see stories of left hand or right hand on a regular basis.
Wives were not proper;y treated in divorce cases in the 60’s and 70’s .. so they swing the pendulum so far the other way that men are now living in squalor whilst trying to pay the house the wife lives in with the kids .. the idea that you can point the blame so one side suffers more than the other seems ridiculous to me.
It’s the same with racial abuse .. it was not good for minorities at one point in time so now let’s create laws that could penalise someone for an error of judgement when they were frustrated and fine them and criminalise them for 1 indiscrete word said in anger.The list of pendulum swings seems endless and this surely is the same with European union. The union didn’t have to mean that I had to accept every 1000 ridiculous laws just because there were 10 great pieces of legislation…. but it seems I do. That is the primary problem.
Suggesting NF is a charlatan because he accepts his salary is unjust, he accepts the salary like everyone else who was elected. He’s merely come to the conclusion that he’s flogging a dead horse attempting to encourage people to change so is left embarrassing the house for not working for the benefit of their electorate.
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