Tuesday
May072013
by 
Josh
Josh Bitter for some - Josh 219
Hooray, at long last! A politician with a really great cartoonable face. I'm sure I can hear the appreciative sharpening of pencils across the UK. I will certainly be trying to do him justice ;-)
Well done, Nigel, and all the best with the politics too.
Reader Comments (30)
I recommend watching Farage with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo on This Week the night of the election. (The video jumps right there.) Very personable and clear, he underestimates the percentage of the vote UKIP had won. I echo Josh's best wishes.
Ah, the good old days of Spitting Image!
And:-
"Hooray, at long last! A politician with a really great manifesto. I'm sure I can hear the appreciative sharpening of pencils by voters across the UK. I will certainly be trying to do him justice ;-) "
Joe - couldn't have put it better myself ;o)
He looks pissed.
Martin A - He's supposed to!
Maybe the little village where I grew up, Westerham in Kent, is destined for a statue of a third patriot on the village green? It already has General Wolfe, who defeated the French at Quebec, and Churchill, who defeated Germany.
When I saw the text but before the pic appeared, I was thinking of the other Nigel who's in the news today - also with a cartoonable face. Cheers!
"Hooray, at long last! A politician with a really great cartoonable face."
Perhaps so, but you've captured Dave with aplomb. Several plomb's, in fact.
I was forgetting that Farage smokes, too. How refreshingly un-PC he is.
JE +1 :-)
Douglas Carswell was good just now on Newsnight discussing the right response to the two Nigels.
On Sunday, I had a look at one of his speeches in the European Parliament for the first time. And then another one. And then dozens more. I can't remember similarly enjoying any speeches by any politician anywhere anytime since perhaps Franz Josef Strauss in Germany decades ago.
You probably know all of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUzEKrp8rHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dranqFntNgo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNnZPVpkkj0&NR=1&feature=endscreen
On the other side, I could not believe how low quality and attitude have sunk in this European Parliament. This discussion with liberal leader Guy Verhofstad from (the non-country) Belgium and another similarly hysteric French woman is absolutely painful to watch: How in the world could such people have become so powerful ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5zQT6jLarE
Apols for being the party pooper but I can't understand why you don't see the monstrosity of this:
"EU citizens who have been established in the UK for seven years or more will, depending on their circumstances, be able to apply for permanent leave to remain (provided they fulfil certain criteria and are eligible to apply for work permits)"
If Farage gets anywhere near Downing St I shall fortify the home with sandbags and anti-aircraft artillery, expecting the hordes to come any minute and check my "circumstances".
(add expletive here)
What is fascinating me at present is the number of times UKIP and the GWPF have croppped up together in web searches. Surely a coincidence. :-).
James Evans - I agree Cameron to a tee. Wide eyed and amazed that he is Prime Minister.
Manfred - because no-one knows who they are.
The four Welsh MEPs are Kay Swinburn,Ledbury?!, Cons.; Derek Vaughan,Wrexham, Lab; Jill Evans, Rhondda, Plaid Cymru; John Bufton, Rhyadader, UKIP.
Good upstanding members of society I have no doubt, but who are they?
I am reasonably savvy and never fail to vote in all our elections, but I could not have named one of them.
A search engine was necessary to find them.
European style democracy at its finest.
For the future, please engage with the Harrogate Agenda.
Poor Maurizio. BBC blacklisted as well! :-)
May 8, 2013 at 12:07 AM | Entropic Man
Great game!
Can I play?
http://tinyurl.com/d93ll4o
:)
OT
> I was forgetting that Farage smokes, too. How refreshingly un-PC he is.
The House of Commons is exempt from the 2006 Health Act that bans smoking in all enclosed public and work places.
However, the House of Commons Commission, which is responsible for the administration and services, voluntarily banned smoking within the Palace of Westminster.
I believe that this means that if you are caught smoking in the Palace of Westminster they can not fine you for it, but I wouldn't like to put it to the test.
EM,
So? Whats your point?
Google search results:
UKIP GWPF - 17,400
UKIP Socialism - 969,000
UKIP "Green Party" - 280,000
UKIP Greenpeace - 954,000
What is fascinating me at present is the number of times UKIP and the
GWPFSocialismGreen PartyGreenpeace have croppped up together in web searches. Surelya coincidencean irrelevancy . :-).Fixed it for you.
Latest YouGov poll taken after the council elections is quite interesting:
Lab 40, Con 30, UKIP 12, LD 11.
this shows a change of:
Con -1
Lab -1
LD -2
UKIP +4
so UKIP seem to have picked up support from across the political spectrum.
Something no-one other than ourselves is taking into account is the looming energy crisis. Imagine a long cold winter 2014/15 similar to the one just gone but accompanied by serious blackouts and steep price rises - that would surely have a major impact on the May 2015 election.
EM
The question is, how to find Ed Milliband? Where has he been since last Friday?
Google search and Google Earth cannot provide the answer.
May 8, 2013 at 12:09 AM | G.Watkins
Thank you for mentioning the proposed agenda. Conservative as I am, though not Conservative of course, no doubt you and I are far from each other on the political spectrum. Because RN is a brilliant researcher, I was eagerly awaiting the outcome of the Swan meeting but was disgusted when I saw it.
The Chartists turned into the Labour Party, many supporters of which would still dearly love to introduce totalitarian government of this country.
The constitution, being unwritten, is said to be flexible, but it should be made very difficult to change it. Evolutionary change should be introduced in small steps, each having the full approval of the public as well as appropriately informed constitutional lawyers who would hopefully be able to spot unintended consequences. I am strongly against ripping everything up and starting again from scratch on a Blairian whim.
I believe the agenda would destroy the UK just as surely as the Eu is trying to do. The kindest thing one could say about it is that it would turn us into a mini-USA. We have enough experience of democratic government - if the constitution were properly adhered to - not to ape other countries.
The President of the USA represents a concentration of power and is in effect an old fashioned king in all but name. Our constitutional monarchy is vastly superior. The tendency since Blair has been to remove authority from society and put more of it in the hands of the PM and his circle of intimate friends. This is anti-democratic. Instead, we should be distributing power more evenly amongst a whole series of independent bodies.
The Head of State can do nothing at present. She is tightly restricted by convention. But this is wrong. She should also have some real rather than theoretical power. One could imagine a role for HM as ‘closing the circle’. Situated nominally at the top of the hierarchy she could have special responsibility for protecting those at the bottom. She should have the power to refuse to sign into law any bill which, for example, attacks Magna Carta or the 1689 Bill of Rights. That is the sort of revolution that we would all would welcome, I believe.
Farage is a marvelously charismatic politician and entertaining speaker. But he is short on strategy, and that is where he will fall down if the EU fight ever gets real...
As someone mentioned Carswell, here's an extract from his blog today:
It is a disgrace that poorer families in my constituency are priced out of heating their homes so that rich people in London can feel good about themselves because they believe they are saving the planet. They aren't.
http://www.talkcarswell.com/home/if-i-wrote-the-queens-speech/2653
Voted Tory for fifty years; last Thursday voted UKIP. Had the desired effect; Cambridgeshire went from Tory to No Overall Control.
These, by the way, were the numpties who thought they had a 'copper bottomed' contract with BAM Nuttall to build our guided busway; it finished £50m over budget and us council-tax-payers are now having to stump up millions in interest until the dispute between the County Council and BAM Nuttall gets to court. Guess who's going to lose out and finishing paying the £50m...?
Against all the local advice, Luton & Dunstable opted for BAM Nuttall to build THEIR guided busway - and guess what..? Its now officially 'late'...
We hate to say 'We told you so', but - er - 'We told you so...'
Oh - it was due to the five months of 'global warming' we've just had, apparently....
Josh you capture call me Dave so well though, the look on his face is perfect for his mornings before his handlers tell him his PR appearances that day.
@sherlock1 - at least your boondaggle has a purpose.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4326932.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinnaker_Tower
Strangely, perhaps, a cartoon thread has some of the most thoughtful feedback I've seen for a while on BH.
TerryS: Seldom can EM have had his numbers fixed more effectively.
stanj: Interesting poll findings. Long way to go, of course.
John Page: Very pointed comment on energy and the poor. Carswell's on a roll. We need Tory MPs like him to make the most of the new 'climate'.
Dodgy Geezer:
Add to that the concern Maurizio expressed about what's been said about immigration.
It's certainly not downhill from here, not by a long shot. But with Farage and Lawson both in the anti-EU ring it promises to be a great ride, the second Nigel not being so bad at strategy.
Roughly a third of the pie, not too shabby for a "bunch of clowns". Are the Tories suitably shaken? Will there be a conservative Conservative government at long last?
You miss my point. UKIP and the GWPF are natural allies. Why are they avoiding each other?
On the UKIP Harrogate site is the following report.
http://www.ukipharrogate.org/news/save-the-yorkshire-dales/
The report is a discussion of a GWPF item on wind farms. At its end is this statement-
[from the Global Warming Policy Foundation which does not endorse this website or organisation in any way.]
UKIPs energy and climate change policy reads like the output from the GWPF. Lord Lawson has backed Nigel Farage's stance on the EU. The GWPF website extensively reported the UKIP election successes.
This has the air of a romance whose protagonists insist they are just good friends.