Nigel Farage

You are quite right SFD regarding the media and Labour, but I don't think I have ever witnessed such a concentrated attack at any one time. It really is a threat to a just democracy and only shows that there are a few that have a genuine concern that UKIP could be about to loose them their perks.

The BBC is so pro EU it's a joke. Nick Robinson in particular is verging on comical recently.

They only give Farage air time to try to undermine him.

Ref: Chris Patten, is that the same Chris Patten who was also an EU commissioner & now picks up a £100,000 a year pension from the EU for his services (btw, removable if he acts in any way deemed detrimental to the interests of the EU ) ?

Hardly likely to be impartial are they.

He done pretty well from Hong Kong as well but what the hell, it's easier to forget about the Kinnock and Patten types and trawl through UKIP's flaws instead.

I'm really not sure that people are so daft so as not to see what the game plan is and rebel against it, we shall see.

UKIP will get nowhere. They are essentially to the Tories what the SDP once were to the Labour Party. They'll create an almighty hullabaloo and win a few fairly meaningless elections (by-elections and Euros and councils) and then they'll collapse and merge into a bigger pre-existing party (which in this case would be the Tories) leaving little more than a footnote in the history books behind them. They aren't an alternative to the Tories; they are ultra-Tories (as if the modern Tories aren't frightening enough).

I really don't see a smear campaign being directed at them. The press is just reporting what their members say and do and, to be honest, it's mostly very unpleasant and usually hypocritical: how can Farage seriously complain about Europeans taking jobs in this country when he employs his German wife? It's just nonsense.

Do we really want to see an end to maternity pay or to pay fees for visiting our GP? How would the NHS (which they would privatise), or the rest of the economy, function if there were no immigrants? Do we really think we'd ever be independent of Europe even if we left the EU?

Britain never has and never will be a stand alone independent country. Everything from banking to industry to defence to policing to crime to football is truly multinational now and there's nothing a vote for UKIP will do to change that.

Maybe, just maybe, if various UKIPpers didn't call women sluts, didn't suggest that Lenny Henry buggered off to a black country, didn't opine that Mo Farah wasn't British and didn't suggest a whole host of other crackpot notions they wouldn't be so roundly derided. None of this creating a smear; it's just straight reporting.

And that's all we have to go on since they have denounced their last manifesto as complete garbage and haven't actually put up any detailed policies of their own to replace them.

It's a complete wonder that they haven't just been laughed out of town and that anybody treats them seriously at all.

The status quo....doesn't like any new boys trying to get into their ball game.......who does this upstart think he is ?

The green party would have a wind farm in everyones back garden given half the chances....not taken seriously....left alone because they are not going to rock anyones boat....UKIP a little bit different....so must be attacked..... they say what a lot of people are thinking.

FY 310 wrote:

The BBC is so pro EU it's a joke. Nick Robinson in particular is verging on comical recently.



Ref: Chris Patten, is that the same Chris Patten who was also an EU commissioner & now picks up a £100,000 a year pension from the EU for his services (btw, removable if he acts in any way deemed detrimental to the interests of the EU ) ?

Hardly likely to be impartial are they.  

Nick Robinson chaired the Oxford University Conservative Association, I believe (or similar). He's hardly a lefty. He's never struck me as pro-EU though.

"They only give Farage air time to try to undermine him." Are you serious? If he wasn't on the TV you'd be claiming he was being denied a say! But I suspect that given enough rope he'll eventually hang himself so there could be something, no matter how contra-intuitive it is, in what you suggest.

How's Farage's MEP pension doing?

zyph wrote:

The status quo....doesn't like any new boys trying to get into their ball game.......who does this upstart think he is ?

The green party would have a wind farm in everyones back garden given half the chances....not taken seriously....left alone because they are not going to rock anyones boat....UKIP a little bit different....so must be attacked..... they say what a lot of people are thinking.

Ah... the old silent minority line.

How does anybody know what anybody else is thinking? They don't. It's impossible. Not unless they put it into words. In which case they are saying it not just "thinking" it.

Just how anti-establishment is this public schoolboy ex-banker anyway? That sounds very much like a background of the establishment to me. In fact it could be James Brent!

It proves how much influence is had over the media by those that sit in the comfy seats that we never read about Kinnock's daughter having a nice little earner of a job in 10 Downing Street and a son with a nice little earner as the assistant director of the British Council in Sierra Leone, or how about Nicholas Ridley comparison of the EU to the Third Reich?

But hey ho, let's talk about sluts and straight reporting.

Kinnock's daughter is employed at No. 10?

I didn't realise that the Welsh counted as immigrants.

And Nick Ridley been a nutter for years but he's been off my radar for a long time. Who does he represent these days?

I don't really uderstand what you're saying.

Still UKIP's policies again: If you support them then what are they?

She was employed at No 10 but then that was when there was a Labour government, you know, it's who you know isn't it and if you have a title to go with then it has to be a case of working class boy done well for himself...and friends and family of course, but that seem to be standard practice in Europe.

Support is probably not the right description, potential UKIP voter maybe but not a supporter, bit like my association with Argyle these days. I am more of a critic of the old boy network that prevails with interest in great personal wealth, it's something that our Euro heroes champion, good old conservative values of greed and personal gain and all at the expense of the majority of course. From the Cardiff suburbs to the wonderful high class and well maintained streets of Tufnell Park, London. He's come good as our Neil.

I don't suppose we will be reading much about this in the press but still..

GetWestLondon, April 25 2014: Revealed: Labour candidate for Harrow Council is convicted fraudster

The Labour Party in Harrow is preparing for crisis talks after it emerged that one of its candidates was convicted of defrauding the council he is seeking to be elected to. Labour were "unaware" that a candidate put forward by them for election is a self-confessed council tax cheat. The revelation that one of their candidates in the upcoming election was forced to wear an electronic tag by a judge after pleading guilty to defrauding Harrow Council in 2007 has left the party's leader preparing for crisis talks with those responsible for selecting him. Yogalingam Dayanamby will be announced as a candidate in the Canons ward later today by Labour, and has already been featured in their manifesto, however what the party did not know was that he has previously been found to have falsely claimed £811.93 from Harrow Council. Over three years, the political hopeful falsely claimed council tax benefit after failing to declare he owned a second property, and was sentenced to a three-month curfew restricting the hours he is allowed out of his home in 2007.


Searchlight Magazine, March 1 2014: Conservatives select former BNP activist for safe seat

A Conservative candidate for a South Kesteven District Council by-election was a former British National Party activist. Dr Peter Moseley was selected to fight the single-member Aveland ward after the resignation of Conservative councillor Debbie Wren in January because of work commitments. Wren had been elected in 2011 with a large majority. The announcement by Grantham and Stamford Conservatives said: “Peter is a dedicated, local and hardworking individual who has all the qualities to really deliver for local people on South Kesteven District Council. Peter already has experience within Local Government working on Rippingale Parish Council and is a member of the Rippingale Business Club. I know that supporting Peter is the only way local residents will get the District Councillor they need.” But Moseley has a dark past. His name appeared on the BNP membership list leaked in November 2008, with the same address and mobile phone number as currently. The list described him as an activist and a “company director (remote environmental monitoring/web integration”. It added that he had an engineering degree and that his hobbies were “jive dancing, DIY”. It is unclear why those were of interest to the fascist party.


Brentism at it's best   

Oh dear, there's more!

Jack FM Oxfordshire, January 10 2014: Wantage Councillor Who Stole £150k From Pensioner To Be Sentenced

A Wantage councillor - who's facing jail having been found guilty of stealing 150 thousand pounds from a pensioner with Alzheimers - is due to be sentenced later. John Morgan from Highclere Gardens was convicted of stealing the money from now deceased 92-year-old Beryl Gittens between 2004 and 2012. The 74-year-old had been a Conservative councillor for more than 25 years.


Haringey Independent, 31 January 2014: Labour Party to review suspension of Cllr Nilgun Canver following conviction for lying to police

Haringey’s Labour group will review the suspension of a senior councillor after she was convicted of lying to police. Cllr Pat Egan, the party’s chief whip, made the statement after Cllr Nilgun Canver was found guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. She falsely claimed she had been driving the family's BMW after her son Burak crashed into a lamppost in Seven Sisters Road, on January 24, 2013, while uninsured. Haringey Borough Council’s former cabinet member for the environment was given a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £500 costs and a £15 surcharge.

Party full of freaks and weirdos
wonder if porkys a ukip voter

If you step beyond the other 'misdemeanours' (some of them involving far more offensive behaviour including child abuse) taken from the UKIP web-site by GOB you will find a section labelled "Issues". "Issues" is an extremely vague series of aspirations - some of which are quite acceptable - but a majority of them simply return to the mantra of "UK good. Rest of the world bad". That hardly amounts to a party that should be taken seriously.

For example, the 'issue' of Crime amounts to:
" • No cuts to front line policing.

• Make sentences mean what they say.

• No votes for prisoners - that’s what losing your liberty means.

• Prevent foreign criminals entering the UK - by re-introducing border controls that the EU forced us to abandon.

• Scrap the European Arrest Warrant, which sends British citizens to foreign jails without evidence, just to answer questions - replace it with a proper extradition system.

• Remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. "

So that's it on Crime. Not much more than 'get rid of foreigners & EU influence and we'll be OK'. "No cuts to front line policing" with no explanation of how that will be achieved.

They would build more grammar schools. Is that after they've set up secondary moderns or before? Does that mean they would abolish the Academy system? Who would pay for all that? I love the 'issue' that states "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech." What the feck does that mean? How would that be enforced? UKIP is still telling us that "Another wave of uncontrolled immigration comes from the EU (this time Bulgaria and Romania). Yet the political class tells us the EU is good for the UK." thus ignoring the fact that there has been no such wave from Bulgaria & Romania and ignoring the fact that most studies tend to demonstrate a positive contribution to our economy from such immigration. Also ignoring the fact that (apart from Polish immigrants) the majority of nationalities coming here in the last 10 years or so are from the richer European nations, the United States and the traditional sources of UK immigration from the Indian sub-continent. Let's discuss issues of integration. Let's by all means discuss how much is enough but let's base it on fact and not the scare tactics employed by UKIP.

That is all that you will find - a vague list of aspirations. The UKIP party doesn't have a manifesto. How can anyone vote for such a party with such a paucity of policy other than issues of knee-jerk anxiety & paranoia. That is what's so dangerous about UKIP & their fellow travellers.

Please let me stop anybody else before they pen another three or four paragraphs trying to prove which party is more honourable FFS! I wonder how many racists are amoung the 650 elected MPs in parliament? How many serving MPs have committed fraud that would have your average dole claimant in chokey? How many of our elected MPs have made themselves wealthy by insider dealing? How many elected MPs voted for hs2 because they have been offered jobs or contracts? How many have rent boy or teenage hooker skeletons hung in their closets along with their SS uniforms?
In case you hadn't noticed they are all on the take, that's why they are attracted to the job. And don't even start me off on the media.

...........and then there is PHONE TAPPING....I bet there's many an MP panicking over that......

...........and then there's jobs for the boys.....THE BULLINGDON CLUB.

Nigel Farage has a long way to go before he reaches the depths that some of those have reached.....he can't be that bad....he drinks in a local just 15 minutes away from me in Downe.

knecht wrote:

If you step beyond the other 'misdemeanours' (some of them involving far more offensive behaviour including child abuse) taken from the UKIP web-site by GOB you will find a section labelled "Issues". "Issues" is an extremely vague series of aspirations - some of which are quite acceptable - but a majority of them simply return to the mantra of "UK good. Rest of the world bad". That hardly amounts to a party that should be taken seriously.

For example, the 'issue' of Crime amounts to:
" • No cuts to front line policing.

• Make sentences mean what they say.

• No votes for prisoners - that’s what losing your liberty means.

• Prevent foreign criminals entering the UK - by re-introducing border controls that the EU forced us to abandon.

• Scrap the European Arrest Warrant, which sends British citizens to foreign jails without evidence, just to answer questions - replace it with a proper extradition system.

• Remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. "

So that's it on Crime. Not much more than 'get rid of foreigners & EU influence and we'll be OK'. "No cuts to front line policing" with no explanation of how that will be achieved.

They would build more grammar schools. Is that after they've set up secondary moderns or before? Does that mean they would abolish the Academy system? Who would pay for all that? I love the 'issue' that states "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech." What the feck does that mean? How would that be enforced? UKIP is still telling us that "Another wave of uncontrolled immigration comes from the EU (this time Bulgaria and Romania). Yet the political class tells us the EU is good for the UK." thus ignoring the fact that there has been no such wave from Bulgaria & Romania and ignoring the fact that most studies tend to demonstrate a positive contribution to our economy from such immigration. Also ignoring the fact that (apart from Polish immigrants) the majority of nationalities coming here in the last 10 years or so are from the richer European nations, the United States and the traditional sources of UK immigration from the Indian sub-continent. Let's discuss issues of integration. Let's by all means discuss how much is enough but let's base it on fact and not the scare tactics employed by UKIP.

That is all that you will find - a vague list of aspirations. The UKIP party doesn't have a manifesto. How can anyone vote for such a party with such a paucity of policy other than issues of knee-jerk anxiety & paranoia. That is what's so dangerous about UKIP & their fellow travellers.

Pre-bloody-cisely Knecht!

Now that's what should be being pushed by the media and not day after day & page after page of stories in a calculated and simultaneously arranged smear campaign of hate that would more aligned to an Argyle Boardroom or a BNP campaign!

Since the day when Farage completely wiped the floor with Clegg it was obvious that no pro European politician could match Farage and the only option left was to smear, well I think it will bite the ass of those that have promoted it, big time!

The only result of this campaign of fascist tactics is to highlight the desperation to cling to power at any cost and the very unhealthy ability to control 100% the media whenever things do not go to plan for the traditional political parties that have feathered their nest and want to continue to do so!

What happens if UKIP do manage to pull off a shock, will employers of UKIP voters be written to, will there be smears on shop fronts, casual beatings for UKIP supporters, guns given to opposing party members?

Never mind the politics, there should be concern and outrage of the control and undermining of the media and the depths that the old boy network are willing to go to just to retain power, wealth and status!

I do not believe that the majority will want UKIP to gain too much power but I really do believe that many like me will be tempted to give UKIP that cross on the ballet paper simply to give the old boy network a kicking and to remind those that are chosen to sit in the comfy seats that they are there to represent us and not their own Swizz bank accounts!

I never expected to see the day when the Tories, Labour and Liberals formed a coalition in peacetime, but I have now and I can only conclude that the desperation to undermine the political and democratic process is for personal power, greed and to retain London's gentlemen's clubs for the old boy network, friends and family!

This time the tactics have suited but the next time I hear a Tory criticise the Guardian or a socialist take a swipe at Murdock's Sun, I will probably have a chuckle!

It is very unlikely that UKIP will end up with my vote because of a lifetime of belief that socialism is the answer and I think that Europe offers that more than any other, but I am surely tempted to give UKIP my vote just to help retain what little control the people have over the old boy network and to show that we are not all persuaded by the PASOTI style of bully boy tactics!

Now, how about we talk about how Ken Livingstone has funnelled £238,000 through a 'tax-avoidance' scheme?

Just to tackle the point that we haven't been affected by the Romanian influx of workers, it's happening in Plymouth, my boy is a plumber, he works for a largish firm in Plymouth. They have lost a contract to a firm of Romanian plumbers who have undercut his firm by 50%! They have plumbers working for the minimum wage, is that what you do a five year apprenticeship for? If the migrant workers were doing low skilled jobs for low skilled wages that is fine they aren't undercutting anybody. Also how is it good for Britain that wages in that contract have halved? Minimum wage earners pay hardly any tax at all, cheap labour, end of. If the government dealt with it then there would be no need for UKIP.

Seaman have been undercut by cheaper alternatives for years, some cnut will always do it cheaper.

Unfortunately you get what you pay for, unless it is a council/ government contractor........

Every time I take a taxi in Muff it is always a Romanian driver.

When the two main parties continue to court capitalism it will always be so.

GOB wrote:

knecht wrote:

If you step beyond the other 'misdemeanours' (some of them involving far more offensive behaviour including child abuse) taken from the UKIP web-site by GOB you will find a section labelled "Issues". "Issues" is an extremely vague series of aspirations - some of which are quite acceptable - but a majority of them simply return to the mantra of "UK good. Rest of the world bad". That hardly amounts to a party that should be taken seriously.

For example, the 'issue' of Crime amounts to:
" • No cuts to front line policing.

• Make sentences mean what they say.

• No votes for prisoners - that’s what losing your liberty means.

• Prevent foreign criminals entering the UK - by re-introducing border controls that the EU forced us to abandon.

• Scrap the European Arrest Warrant, which sends British citizens to foreign jails without evidence, just to answer questions - replace it with a proper extradition system.

• Remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. "

So that's it on Crime. Not much more than 'get rid of foreigners & EU influence and we'll be OK'. "No cuts to front line policing" with no explanation of how that will be achieved.

They would build more grammar schools. Is that after they've set up secondary moderns or before? Does that mean they would abolish the Academy system? Who would pay for all that? I love the 'issue' that states "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech." What the feck does that mean? How would that be enforced? UKIP is still telling us that "Another wave of uncontrolled immigration comes from the EU (this time Bulgaria and Romania). Yet the political class tells us the EU is good for the UK." thus ignoring the fact that there has been no such wave from Bulgaria & Romania and ignoring the fact that most studies tend to demonstrate a positive contribution to our economy from such immigration. Also ignoring the fact that (apart from Polish immigrants) the majority of nationalities coming here in the last 10 years or so are from the richer European nations, the United States and the traditional sources of UK immigration from the Indian sub-continent. Let's discuss issues of integration. Let's by all means discuss how much is enough but let's base it on fact and not the scare tactics employed by UKIP.

That is all that you will find - a vague list of aspirations. The UKIP party doesn't have a manifesto. How can anyone vote for such a party with such a paucity of policy other than issues of knee-jerk anxiety & paranoia. That is what's so dangerous about UKIP & their fellow travellers.

Pre-bloody-cisely Knecht!

Now that's what should be being pushed by the media and not day after day & page after page of stories in a calculated and simultaneously arranged smear campaign of hate that would more aligned to an Argyle Boardroom or a BNP campaign!

Since the day when Farage completely wiped the floor with Clegg it was obvious that no pro European politician could match Farage and the only option left was to smear, well I think it will bite the ass of those that have promoted it, big time!

The only result of this campaign of fascist tactics is to highlight the desperation to cling to power at any cost and the very unhealthy ability to control 100% the media whenever things do not go to plan for the traditional political parties that have feathered their nest and want to continue to do so!

What happens if UKIP do manage to pull off a shock, will employers of UKIP voters be written to, will there be smears on shop fronts, casual beatings for UKIP supporters, guns given to opposing party members?

Never mind the politics, there should be concern and outrage of the control and undermining of the media and the depths that the old boy network are willing to go to just to retain power, wealth and status!

I do not believe that the majority will want UKIP to gain too much power but I really do believe that many like me will be tempted to give UKIP that cross on the ballet paper simply to give the old boy network a kicking and to remind those that are chosen to sit in the comfy seats that they are there to represent us and not their own Swizz bank accounts!

I never expected to see the day when the Tories, Labour and Liberals formed a coalition in peacetime, but I have now and I can only conclude that the desperation to undermine the political and democratic process is for personal power, greed and to retain London's gentlemen's clubs for the old boy network, friends and family!

This time the tactics have suited but the next time I hear a Tory criticise the Guardian or a socialist take a swipe at Murdock's Sun, I will probably have a chuckle!

It is very unlikely that UKIP will end up with my vote because of a lifetime of belief that socialism is the answer and I think that Europe offers that more than any other, but I am surely tempted to give UKIP my vote just to help retain what little control the people have over the old boy network and to show that we are not all persuaded by the PASOTI style of bully boy tactics!

Now, how about we talk about how Ken Livingstone has funnelled £238,000 through a 'tax-avoidance' scheme?

I agree with most of what you say GOB.....but I live in a very Tory area (Boris's little brother is MP)....voting Labour means a vote wasted against a Tory majority....so I have voted Lib/Dem for years, who might have a chance if the Tories are out of favour. BUT I never voted Lib/Dem for them to bolster up a damn Tory government....the alternative is to vote UKIP who might pick up enough disenchanted Tory/Lib-Dem/Labour voters to upset the status-quo in this leafy Tory suburb.

What's wrong with political correctness anyway? Isn't it basically just good manners? I was brought up not to be deliberately rude to anybody so why would I get hissy about deliberately ignorant behaviour being a right? Of course we do have the right to act like a twat if we want to; political correctness is just pointing it out after it happened and, maybe, trying to educate so that it doesn't happen again. Why does anybody actually want to offend anybody else? For the best part, with a very few well-deserved exceptions, I don't.

The MPs squalidly scamming expenses, which is a problem to every party, isn't so much party political as a damning indictment of corrupt individuals (some of whom remain not only in parliament but in the cabinet). I don't grasp how this translates into a positive for UKIP. Should the guilty be locked up? Yes, of course they should. Are they all guilty? No. I very much doubt it.

I still don't follow how ring-fenced privilege translates into a pro-UKIP mindset either. Farage hasn't worked his way up from nothing; he's had it all handed to him on a plate; he's as much a beneficiary as anybody else; he won't change a thing. The bestowing of advantage onto our children is deeply ingrained within our culture and stretches from the monarchy (entirely predicated on the concept) at the top all the way down through hereditary peerages in the House Of Lords to parents sending their kids to public school (where there is no evidence at all that academic attainment is higher) but their introduction into the Old Boys network is all but sealed from the moment they start. What has either David Cameron or George Osborne ever done to actually earn their Trust funds and vast private fortunes? Nothing whatsoever that I can see but they seem to be doing OK. The surprise would be if they weren't.

You won't find a more pro-monarchy or anti-inheritance tax (and most other taxes too) party than UKIP. You just won't. So if changing this is an issue that fires your passion then I don't understand why you would be inclined to vote UKIP who are just as likely, perhaps more so than most, to say "I'm alright, Jack, sod you" and pull the ladder up behind them.

If we want services such as a social security system, an NHS, roads not filled with potholes, decent schools for our kids, an adequately resourced military, enough policemen, recourse to the law when we need it and so on then they all have to be paid for. That means we have to pay taxes because even though it's unpleasant to do so not doing so sees everything we understand it to mean by "British", everything that makes us feel we are better than other nations, start to fall apart.

I'm sorry. Once you dig behind the soundbite UKIP is so riddled with inconsistencies in pretty much everything it says and does that it really does surprise me that anybody takes it seriously.

As for cheaper overseas labour... That's an inevitable consequence of free-market de-regulation, which UKIP is strongly in favour of, and if it wasn't Romanians it would be someone else: Scousers, maybe, or Irishmen or Geordies or whatever. And how is it any different if one of them takes a job from a Plymothian by under-cutting his/her pay? What does nationality have to do with it? Anyway get used to it because with 2m+, or whatever, people unemployed, zero hour contracts now dominating the workplace, the constant undermining of the trade unions and the indiscriminate slashing of out of work benefits (the unemployed are now even being compelled to work for their benefits or else they lose them altogether) people will become progressively more desperate and do anything at almost any price just to scrape a living and if they are more desperate than you are they'll be cheaper.

If that's how you see the future of our country then vote UKIP; if you'd prefer something else then don't.

Fair points there SFD, most of which I agree with. I do have a dilemma though because if the cost of having all of those lovely incentives is corruption on the scale that we see it today then I am really not sure that I would be prepared to sell my soul for it because a large amount of corruption today will be a Russian styled society tomorrow where the mafia make up all of the rules. Or do we already have that?

What annoys me is that, with all the airtime given to Farridge's shower, I've yet to see any given to another party who want out of the EU, and for much better reasons. Maybe that's because it's a party of the left. Sadly no candidates in the South-West, though: No to EU

The system is obviously falling way short of what we would all prefer to see. I agree with you. I just don't think UKIP will do anything at all to make it better. That said I don't suppose any of the other major parties will either.

If I decide to lodge a protest vote it'll go to the Greens and it'll be cast knowing full well that they are unlikely to win.

I am now exiled here in Thailand and will not be voting but if I could Mr Farage would get my vote. I have read this thread and the intellectual arguments but at the end of the day it's generally about personalities.
What are the alternatives: Miliband and Balls good gawd the thought of those two running the country is a truly frightening prospect.
Cameron and Osborne have the backbone of a slug.
People are sick to death of the current parliamentary system and it's time for a change.
My father 88 years old and a labour supporter all his life has told me he will be voting Ukip. When they can bridge that kind of gap then the main parties should be very worried.