[News] Nigel Farage and Reform

[Guinness Boy]

Every time I see Farage, I'm reminded of Christopher Hitchens' line to Sean Hannity:

"You give me the awful impression, I hate to have to say it, of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position ever."​

Born to a certain level of middle class privilege, but with a bit of impostor syndrome when put amongst the golden sons and daughters of old money aristocrats. His unspoken, Uriah Heep like, inferiority complex makes him hate those he considers his betters, but at the same time, so desperate to be thought of as on their side that he goes further in his bigotry and extremisim than they would.

The worry about him is not the election, but us following the same path as France and taking the radical right option because seemingly everything else has failed. The policies being put forward by the Labour Party are not that much different from Macron's: Keep belief in the 'market is king' drivel to keep happy those that have the money; try to fiddle around the edges to make things a bit better for the working classes. This worked for a bit under Blair because there was money around. There now isn't and something far more radical is needed from the left. Success of the Starmer plan is dependent upon growth and we have obstacles in the way of growth, Brexit being the most obvious, but more fundamentally, Western capitalism in it's current form relied on the Western working classes being employed in manufacturing, in order for them to also be consumers. The shift of international capital to the location of the cheapest sources of labour makes this a dying model that more and more obviously works only for those who own the means of production. Biden has managed to do some Keynsian type stuff with the growth that the US has experienced, but it's still not shifted the views of a lot of those who see no future in the model. If the same happens here, Farage could be placed like Le Penn was to exploit desperation.

The danger is that these heckling fantasists convince everyone that there is nothing wrong with the vehicle, it's just that the current engineers aren't removing the grit from the engine. In the depression era thirties, and in post Soviet Russia under Farage's mate we have seen which groups in society are considered to be the 'grit' by those who both sell and believe these lies.

Great post.

Elsewhere on NSC we see the swing from Tory to Labour coincided with Truss. Farage economics are Truss on speed.

This is why Macron might just be a genius in calling the French election. Let the loonies take over the asylum. The first budget that hits them in the pocket, the first daft law that affects their family and the people will turn. It’s easy to yell populist nonsense from opposition. It’s much harder to deliver it as both Johnson and Truss found out.

While Le Pen being in charge of anything more dangerous than a tub of jelly is a scary proposition, the French might just be the canary in the coal mine.

 

[Eric the meek]

 

[Baldseagull]

You can't negotiate with Putin, you make an agreement and he doesn't stick to it. Get your money up front Nigel, he will shaft you too.

 

[Guinness Boy]

 

[Eric the meek]

You can't negotiate with Putin, you make an agreement and he doesn't stick to it. Get your money up front Nigel, he will shaft you too.

You are right of course. But do you see what Farage is doing? He is trying to set the parameters. Shape the battlefield. Set the terms for peace.

First, he is declaring the war a stalemate. Now why would he be doing that?

Those of us familiar with the Ukraine war thread, knows that a stalemate might have been true a couple of months ago, prior to Congress agreeing to send $61 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine, but is it true now? If you are a Russian propagandist, then perhaps yes. Otherwise no. The momentum is now with Ukraine, who are already taking out multiple Russian anti-aircraft systems across the occupied territories. But it is the 15 types of drone that are doing us all a favour - degrading Russia's ability to finance another war. Long story short, Ukraine is deploying 100,000 drones each month, and with its long range kamikaze drones, is slowly dismantling Russia's oil refining industry and export capacity of refined products daily. Russia has no defence against them.

Second, is it up to Farage to set the terms for peace negotiations anyway? I would rather have thought that is up to Ukraine....

Why would Ukraine give up their lost territories, and abandon their citizens to Russian occupation just at the very point when they were closer than ever before to recapturing them? Of course they wouldn't.

Treat Farage and his ideas with extreme suspicion.

 

[nicko31]

Galloway, Corbyn and Farage really do have a special place in the venn diagram of life

 

[Pevenseagull]

Maybe it's just me but I find the idea of judges being elected rather than chosen based on knowledge and experience an utterly hellish idea.

"Well we have this chap Sir Peregrine Woolstenholme who's been a KC for the last 15 years and presided over a vast range of cases, and has one of the finest knowledges of the English legal system of anyone alive. Alternatively we have Dave Shithead who props up the bar at the Dog & Wanker pub in Moulescomb who thinks we should hang anyone with a degree. Should we put it to a public vote?"

In the USA they elect sodding LIBRARIANS.

We really shouldn't even have Police and crime commissioners ... Particularly given the people who have been appointed as PCCs.

 

[Machiavelli]

General Sir Richard Dannatt on Radio 4 laying into the media for saying that we spend too much time listening to a man who has no MPs and has never been an MP. His general thrust is the media are using him because it creates column inches and that’s a dangerous game to play.

Yes, about time some figures within the establishment start chastising others within the establishment for elevating this charlatan.

 

[Machiavelli]

Every time I see Farage, I'm reminded of Christopher Hitchens' line to Sean Hannity:

"You give me the awful impression, I hate to have to say it, of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position ever."​

Born to a certain level of middle class privilege, but with a bit of impostor syndrome when put amongst the golden sons and daughters of old money aristocrats. His unspoken, Uriah Heep like, inferiority complex makes him hate those he considers his betters, but at the same time, so desperate to be thought of as on their side that he goes further in his bigotry and extremisim than they would.

The worry about him is not the election, but us following the same path as France and taking the radical right option because seemingly everything else has failed. The policies being put forward by the Labour Party are not that much different from Macron's: Keep belief in the 'market is king' drivel to keep happy those that have the money; try to fiddle around the edges to make things a bit better for the working classes. This worked for a bit under Blair because there was money around. There now isn't and something far more radical is needed from the left. Success of the Starmer plan is dependent upon growth and we have obstacles in the way of growth, Brexit being the most obvious, but more fundamentally, Western capitalism in it's current form relied on the Western working classes being employed in manufacturing, in order for them to also be consumers. The shift of international capital to the location of the cheapest sources of labour makes this a dying model that more and more obviously works only for those who own the means of production. Biden has managed to do some Keynsian type stuff with the growth that the US has experienced, but it's still not shifted the views of a lot of those who see no future in the model. If the same happens here, Farage could be placed like Le Penn was to exploit desperation.

The danger is that these heckling fantasists convince everyone that there is nothing wrong with the vehicle, it's just that the current engineers aren't removing the grit from the engine. In the depression era thirties, and in post Soviet Russia under Farage's mate we have seen which groups in society are considered to be the 'grit' by those who both sell and believe these lies.

This is absolutely spot on, and deserves replying to just so those that missed it originally have another chance to give it a go.

 

[Machiavelli]

Just thought I'd leave this here for anyone that can bear it:

 

[cheshunt seagull]

So, someone who built his entire political career around his country’s right to self-determination free from the imaginary control of other countries or organisations doesn’t think that another country should have the same rights when faced with a real threat, not just to its borders and culture, but its very existence. What right does he or anyone from anywhere but Ukraine have to decide what part of their country to give up permanently? That is what negotiation would mean.

 

[Wallace]

What do you think the benefits are of leaving the ECHR (of which Britain was a founder in 1950) and what does it mean we could do that we can't do now ?

How would the online Sales tax handle omni-channel retailers ? Which of the following should be taxed ?

Stores selling bulky items like furniture or some musical instruments, where the customer may receive extensive in-store support and advice before completing a transaction online and having the product delivered.
Or a customer who browses and researches online, before visiting the store to purchase the item
Or where a customer can purchase products online via self-service machines or apps in the store, with purchases collected from a counter or delivered to the customer’s home.
So what should be taxed, any transaction with no visit to a retail store or any transaction where the product is delivered to a home address or any order placed online or some other combination ?

And finally, how much should business rates be reduced by, how much would this save and how would we replace that income, or what should be cut to pay for it ?

Because it's always interesting to know why people have read these policies, considered them and decided these policies should win their vote, but I haven't had a lot of luck getting Reform supporters to discuss anything beyond the one liners that are printed on the pamphlets

Apologies but I don't have the time to leave the sort of in depth response you are looking for but in a nutshell...
ECHR. I voted to leave the EU and all it's institutions, untill we leave ECHR this cannot be achieved.
Online sales tax. I wouldn't expect it to be levied on click and collect purchases, it is primarily proposed to deal with Amazon type retailers who funnel a large proportion of their UK profits through third party countries.
Reduce business rates for small and medium size businesses.


The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Apologies but I don't have the time to leave the sort of in depth response you are looking for but in a nutshell...
ECHR. I voted to leave the EU and all it's institutions, untill we leave ECHR this cannot be achieved.
Online sales tax. I wouldn't expect it to be levied on click and collect purchases, it is primarily proposed to deal with Amazon type retailers who funnel a large proportion of their UK profits through third party countries.
Reduce business rates for small and medium size businesses.


The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

FFS. You voted to leave the EU, not ECHR. We signed up to ECHR long before joined the EU.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Apologies but I don't have the time to leave the sort of in depth response you are looking for but in a nutshell...
ECHR. I voted to leave the EU and all it's institutions, untill we leave ECHR this cannot be achieved.
Online sales tax. I wouldn't expect it to be levied on click and collect purchases, it is primarily proposed to deal with Amazon type retailers who funnel a large proportion of their UK profits through third party countries.
Reduce business rates for small and medium size businesses.


The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

I’ve already pointed out the ECHR is not an EU institution, so try again.

Going to work is a Victorian attitude. Before that most people worked at home in cottage industries.
Working from home saves travel costs, and commuting time. Firms have found employees work longer hours, achieve more. Your sneering attitude about sitting around in pyjamas says you don’t think much of your fellow man.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Galloway, Corbyn and Farage really do have a special place in the venn diagram of life

If that place were a room in a house, it would be the shitter (and to be precise, down the pan and round the U bend).

We have now had a couple of years of the conflict. Let us reconsider how things were in 1941, two years after the start of another conflict, albeit this time one that had the UK under siege from Fascists. As is always the case, the shit-housers were wheedling for a negotiated settlement:

"Unbeknown to Mosley, MI5 and the Special Branch had deeply penetrated the BUF and were also monitoring him through listening devices. Beginning in 1934, they were increasingly worried that Mosley's noted oratory skills would convince the public to provide financial support to the BUF, enabling it to challenge the political establishment. His agitation was officially tolerated until the events of the Battle of France in May 1940 made the government consider him too dangerous. Mosley, who at that time was focused on pleading for the British to accept Hitler's peace offer of March, was detained on 23 May 1940, less than a fortnight after Winston Churchill became prime minister.[1] Mosley was interrogated for 16 hours by Lord Birkett but never formally charged with a crime, and was instead interned under Defence Regulation 18B. Most other active fascists in Britain met the same fate, resulting in the BUF's practical removal at an organised level from the United Kingdom's political stage."

Farage is just a pound shop Mosely with a less aristocratic wife, and a shittier jacket. I'd love to see him interned.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Apologies but I don't have the time to leave the sort of in depth response you are looking for but in a nutshell...
ECHR. I voted to leave the EU and all it's institutions, untill we leave ECHR this cannot be achieved.
Online sales tax. I wouldn't expect it to be levied on click and collect purchases, it is primarily proposed to deal with Amazon type retailers who funnel a large proportion of their UK profits through third party countries.
Reduce business rates for small and medium size businesses.


The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

The ECHR is not any part of the EU or it's institutions and was never part of any referendum.

Why do you want to leave the ECHR, what do you believe it is stopping you from doing ?

Sales tax, you are simply repeating what was on the pamphlet with absolutely no further explanation of how it would work, who it would effect, what the rates would be, what it would cost to set up, how much money it would bring in.

And 'reduce business rates' you've added 'for small and medium size businesses' without any detail of how much, how much that would save any business, how much it would cost the Exchequer and what cuts would have to be made as a result.

I'm sorry, but you have had a whole day to think about it, but added absolutely nothing to the three meaningless slogans you first posted

 

[dsr-burnley]

That is true but really … reform? If you are a Reform voter ( or Tory for that matter) can you please explain exactly what part of the ECHR that you disagree with such that you want us to leave. I find it ironic that reform who are more than happy to use Churchill name are trying to trash one of his greatest accomplishments.

I'm not sure that Churchill had much to do with it. However it is clear that Churchill wanted to see a more united Europe (not that he wanted the UK to be in it, of course) and that he thought European human rights were undoubtedly a bit sketchy compared with the UK.

But primarily, Churchill did not expect the ECHR to be able to dictate national policy over and above the democratic government's policy, as they have recently done with the case ruling that Switzerland's government's policy on the environment is illegal under ECHR. It's an abuse of power. The ECHR should not be able to override national, democratically elected governments. It is not their role.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Apologies but I don't have the time to leave the sort of in depth response you are looking for but in a nutshell...
ECHR. I voted to leave the EU and all it's institutions, untill we leave ECHR this cannot be achieved.
Online sales tax. I wouldn't expect it to be levied on click and collect purchases, it is primarily proposed to deal with Amazon type retailers who funnel a large proportion of their UK profits through third party countries.
Reduce business rates for small and medium size businesses.


The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

Your first reason is factually incorrect.

Your final paragraph is incredibly ignorant. Many companies have already moved to a hybrid or at home model precisely to boost the economy. The company I work for is mostly virtual and we don't currently have an office in the UK, though we'll get a small one in London soon. And why? So we can hire the right people, wherever they live. So we can run globally so there's normally someone doing something every minute of the day.

When I first started in Software I got a job in Crawley because I could get there easily from Brighton. Everyone was in 5 days a week unless we were away on client site, in which case we were in their office. And our team was restricted to people who could get to Crawley. Now my boss lives in Lancaster, his boss lives in Boston in the US, I have one colleague in the New Forest, another in Essex, many others in Ireland. And, far from sitting around in my PJs, I got up to do a client workshop in Japan at 4am the other day which saved my company a four figure airfare and the planet another person taking a flight. The quid pro quo was I could take the dog out when the workshop was over and finish at 3pm without a 2 hour commute in a tin can full of pricks on their mobile phones.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I'm not sure that Churchill had much to do with it. However it is clear that Churchill wanted to see a more united Europe (not that he wanted the UK to be in it, of course) and that he thought European human rights were undoubtedly a bit sketchy compared with the UK.

But primarily, Churchill did not expect the ECHR to be able to dictate national policy over and above the democratic government's policy, as they have recently done with the case ruling that Switzerland's government's policy on the environment is illegal under ECHR. It's an abuse of power. The ECHR should not be able to override national, democratically elected governments. It is not their role.

You’re not sure Churchill had much to do with it?

Winston Churchill and the Council of Europe - Documents, Records and Archives - www.coe.int

www.coe.int

The ECHR does not dictate national policy to any country. A group of Swiss women complained to the Court that their own government were not protecting them.

Switzerland condemned by the ECHR: a decisive step for climate justice in Europe

The verdict of the European Court of Human Rights states that Switzerland does not adequately protect its citizens from the effects of climate change, which constitutes a violation of their human rights.

www.justiceinfo.net

 

[Zeberdi]

The crux of all this is to get the economy working again from the ground up. As a country we need people to be dealing with eachother face to face. We need our town centres to be vibrant places for shopping, dining, entertaining etc. This won't happen all the time people spend their weekend their shopping online, getting takeaways and watching Netflix. Then on Monday going to work which involves lounging around the house in pyjamas with a laptop. Covid is over, wakey, wakey Britain, it's time to do some work again.

No from a work perspective we don’t. That’s a really parochial view, one I would expect from someone doing a blue collar job who has no idea of the multinational aspect to large sectors of the workforce now nor how much business is already done on video conferencing platforms and emails. ‘As a Country’ we need to be productive and engage with our international trade and industry partners overseas and also work to reduce our carbon footprint, both domestically and globally.

I frequently attend virtual work conferences and seminars with people as far away as Kazakstan, Iran, Japan and all over Europe. My daily work often involves communicating with our offices in Scotland and Wales. I worked from home all through the pandemic and can do so, just as productively now but choose not to as I prefer to separate my home-life from work life and also enjoy being in a shared office environment but that’s a personal choice - many of my colleagues work from home 75% of the time. We simply would not be able to do the work we do if we had to rely on face to face contact.

I agree the heart of small town high streets are apparently dying but you can thank the technological age for that - (and not helped by the fiasco the Tories have made of the economy) - thousands of post offices, banks and retail outlets gone and everyone moans about it in one instant then “click” in the next, another online purchase completed, another app downloaded.

However, that does not have to be the end of the story for our town centres - cafés, restaurants and bars, coffee shops, drop in community hubs, interesting charity shops and street markets can fill the vacuum that’s been left by the retail trade and out of area supermarkets. It’s up to Councils but investment in green urban spaces, attractive street furniture in pedestrianised areas, encouraging street entertainment and relaxing outdoor dining licences all make a difference.