Farage

 

The Conservative Party is breaking up, possibly disintegrating.  None of them seem to know what Conservative should mean and there’s no unifying idea.
I blame Thatcher for this.  She sowed the seeds that led to the dysfunction of society, taking the Con Party with it.
But it’s a long story and not for now.  This is gonna be long enough.

The current collapse I credit to Cameron.
Cameron, when asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister replied “Because I think I’d be rather good at it.”  i.e. “it’s what a chap does”. 
His education omitted common sense.  It was absent in his circle, they didn’t need it.

He didn’t think much of Farage and was dismissive of UKIP "fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists".  Rather than toss part of his electorate a bone, he chose to insult them.
He seemed to think his modern, liberal conservatism would attract more support.

In 2009, Nigel Farage became (again) leader of UKIP.  A flamboyant figure with a flair for publicity, he was forthright and plain spoken.  He held many traditional conservative values.   Much of what he said appealed to a widening constituency.

In 2010 Cameron won the Election.  But only just and, as PM, the economic reality hit him.
We had to have Austerity.  (there were other options.)
The population, who had seen wages decline in the previous decade, were now to be poorer.  The system was to be supported by grinding them down.

By 2014, UKIP were a threat to the established political order.  They had more votes in the EU elections than any other party and hence more MEPs.
The writing was clearly on the wall.
In five years Farage had turned UKIP into an electoral force.

In his election manifesto of 2015, Cameron pledged to hold a Referendum on EU membership.  This to disarm UKIP and close the splits in his Party.  If he’d had any political nous, he’d’ve come up with something that unobtrusively kicked the can down the road.


The Referendum, in 2016, didn’t turn out the way Cameron had campaigned.

Nigel Farage had wrought a constitutional change in the UK, from outside Parliament and within the law.

David Cameron had neither the grace nor the common sense to put him in the Lords for this.
It would’ve been a recognition of the achievement and put him politically out of harms way.
He would most likely have gone off to make millions on speaking tours in the States and hanging round with his Trump cohort chums.

Instead Cameron went off in a huff.  Leaving behind a mess of his own making.  He’d forbidden his Civil Servants from making contingency plans in the event of Leave winning.


The subsequent debacle was years of Parliament obstructing Brexit.  Three quarters of MPs had campaigned for Remain. They were sore losers.

Farage quit UKIP after the Ref and the party faded away.  But the anarchy in the Govt left him grumbling freelance on the outside, attracting an increasing constituency.

In the chaos of Governments we’ve had since, there were three PM resignation honours lists.  None of those PMs had the wit to stuff Farage out of the way in the Lords.  A symptom of their lack of wit of how to be a PM.

In 2018 Farage was one of the founders of the Brexit Party, which became Reform UK.  Following the recent dissolution of Parliament he became the leader of Reform.  They are standing in 608 seats.
At least the tories will have someone to vote for.  Unlike the rest of us.

Electioneering

 

Last Wednesday I got stopped in the street by a coupla grey hairs.  Did I live locally, did I know abt the elections, had I heard of Andrew Feinstein and would I like a leaflet abt him ??

A's to Q's:  yes, yes, yes and, only if it'll make you feel better.
I told them I'd been following him since he exposed corruption in the ANC Govt and had to do a runner.
They were open mouthed.

They said they/ he'd been trying to find venues to hold public meetings but kept getting obstructed by the Council !!

I asked if they knew what was happening abt hustings ??  They didn't but are as amused as I am at the prospect.  The Council have stopped the public attending Council meetings on account of the amount of disruption,  so we look forward to Starm meeting more than that in an enclosed room.
I pointed out the Corbyn constituency had been denied hustings by the Labour pretender refusing to attend.  So we had a laugh about that.

I asked them what kind of reception they'd got out on the streets.  Said they'd had a few committed Starmtroopers but largely people didn't know what they were going to do and were grateful to learn there were options.  (doesn't mean they'll take them.)

I said it was a pretty safe seat, which is how he got it, but we keep our fingers crossed for the day.

I got the impression Feinstein's got a prob with getting the word out.  No poster campaign that I've seen and the only leaflets through my door have been Lab + Reform.

 

I let them kiss the hem of my robe and bid them go on their proselytising way.

Shoulda sent them to me YT Channel  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJI6LQRLOoU  

 

 

Rishi

 

An hour before I heard about Sunak calling a General Election I’d read his speech at Policy Exchange on Security  the previous week.

JFW  :facepalm:  I think the medical model is overused but the first word that sprang to my mind was “pathological”.
“axis of authoritarian states ...blah blah ... undermine our values.”
Fear of war in Europe.
“War in the Middle East as Israel defends itself ....barrage of missiles fired ...directly from Iran.” 
“Iranian proxies are firing on British ships in the Red Sea “Putin cut off the gas supplies....”
“Countries like Russia are weaponising immigration ...”

And a load more of “Russia bad and China bad” etc etc.

I’m in awe of how uninformed he, publicly, is.   Everyone knows Israel’s declared policy is the elimination of the Palestinians.  That the Pals are a people under occupation against whom Israel has no “right” to defence.  And it’s an unequal conflict.
That Iran’s attack was a response to Israel blowing up its Consulate and assassinating its officials.
That the Houthis are attacking shipping heading to Israel in an attempt to prevent the genocide of the Palestinians.

As for “Putin cut off the gas supplies....”  Chrissakes !!  The EU sanctioned Russia including not buying any more of their gas.  Even Joe Biden said so and, with the German Chancellor beside him, said the Nordstream pipeline project wouldn’t go through.
Shortly after, the pipelines got blown up but no one, officially, has said by whom.  Ahem.

Freedom of speech is threatened, the streets are choked with antisemites blah blah blah.

I haven’t watched the vid of this speech.  His brains must be dripping out of his ears.


I was sympathetic to Sunak when he got in.  It was a shit situation, even though he’d been part of it, but there was no one else to do it.

I’d’ve expected before he got the gig that he knew what was involved.  And, if not before, someone would have briefed him.
You gotta toe the line if you don’t want to end up in a  Kevin Taylor situation or, if you’re not that lucky, succumb to a sudden heart attack while on a hill walking holiday.  


Anyway, the week before, he looked to be having a nervous breakdown.  That or early dementia. 
There are various suggestions for why he’s gone at this time.  I’d like to think it was because he realised he was eligible for an ICC arrest warrant for the collective punishment of the Palestinians when he cut off aid to UNRWA.  He needs to skip to the USA or some other non ICC country asap.
But I don’t think he’s that aware.

More likely are the inflationary pressures when he's pegged his "success" to bringing down inflation.  Food prices are going up as the weather's wrecked harvests.  And the renewal of fixed term mortgage packages are going to double the repayment costs for nearly a million homeowners.


Everyone I’ve spoken to does think he’s gonna skip the country after the election.