Charles Kennedy's drink problem was bad.
Why, then, is Nigel Farage's drink problem good?
For that is what he has: it is not a sign of normality, but of something else entirely, for a 49-year-old man to be in the pub all day, every day.
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Peter Hitchens has just told his readers to vote UKIP.
ReplyDeleteHow do we spin this one?
He has taken care of that one:
ReplyDelete"Oh, and if any of you really care what I think about Thursday’s election, I urge you above all not to vote Conservative and, if you must vote at all (and why should you? You don’t buy goods you don’t want. Why vote for parties you don’t like and who don’t like you?), to vote for UKIP, which is a useful weapon against the Tories – even if it has feet of clay and has no long-term future."
At least he didn't say vote for Labour. Then he'd have no readers.
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know...
ReplyDeleteHe is on record that in 2015 he will support the party that wants to save what remains of Sunday trading restrictions and renationalise the railways. The first of those is already Labour Party policy and the second one will be.
Unlikely. Very unlikely. But still more likely that any other endorsement by him at a General Election. On his own stated criteria.
He'll tell people not to vote again, though.
Labour does not make enough of a fuss about its total opposition to the Coalition's deep and often personally cruel cuts in defence, to the cutting of disposable incomes outside London and its environs by the abolition of National Pay Agreements, to the deregulation of Sunday trading, to the devastation of rural communities by letting foreign companies or even foreign states buy up our postal service or our roads, and to Royal Mail privatisation's severing of the monarchy’s direct link to every address in this Kingdom.
If it did, then it would deserve every support from everyone patriotic and pro-military, or non-metropolitan, or who wants to keep Sunday special, or who supports family and local community businesses, or who cherishes rural communities and the countryside, or who defends national sovereignty over our economy and our infrastructure, or who values the Queen's head on our stamps and her crown and initials on our post boxes.
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Peter's clearly right that, for conservatives, the only two options are either not voting at all-or voting UKIP.
Labour may espouse the policies you describe-but UKIP alone stand for grammar schools and against mass immigration, for low taxes for the poor, and against the ECHR, for marriage between Man and Woman, and against war in Afghanistan and (most of all) against our membership of that wretched German supranational empire.
That is the reason that true conservatives can either vote for them-or not vote for anyone.
If we had a better option, we'd take it.
UKIP are alone at the moment in speaking for the millions of us who oppose open borders and everything the Liberal Elite stand for.
That's why they are getting so much abuse from that same Liberal Elite.
'He has taken care of that one...'
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure. PH is pretty fastidious when it comes to plugging the 'don't vote' line, so to deviate in this manner is rather significant. Which, by extension, I suppose, makes the UKIP 'rather' significant too.....
Sorry for a second post.
ReplyDeleteBut the Daily Mail's fisking of UKIP's manifesto (under the title UKIP: More Tory than the Tories?) summed it up, for me.
On every manifesto issue, from gramar schools to multiculturalism, the Mail had to admit UKIP's policies are (as Tebbitt says) what Tory policies SHOULD be, if they were still a Tory Party.
I'm surprised the Mail doesn't follow the obvious implications of that-and abandon them.
for marriage between Man and Woman
ReplyDeleteFarage was all for giving that up until Cameron decided to legislate for it.
if they were still a Tory Party
When, exactly, has the Conservative Party ever had the policies that you list?
You ignored all the other policies (EU withdrawal, end to mass immigration, grammar schools) which UKIP have always had, alone of all the parties.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Tories...
Well,even in 1994, they voted down an attempt to lower the homosexual age of consent-which Labour rammed through with the Parliament Act.
And they voted against Labour's abolition of Section 28 and the Married Couples Tax Allowance-both of which only passed thanks to Blair's huge Commons majority.
John Major famously wanted "a grammar school in every town"-even if he didn't do anything to bring that about.
So the Tories were certainly more conservative in the past than now.
But I agree with you that they've never been conservative enough.
My point is that UKIP is the only party that now has what you might call real Tory policies.
For once David Lindsay, I feel moved to say "back on topic please." You have made a valid point.
ReplyDeleteFarage does appear to at least cultivate the image of a heavy drinker. The media are far more tolerant of his drinking than they were of Kennedy's.
UKIP is the only party that now has what you might call real Tory policies.
ReplyDeleteCall them that why, exactly?
You are quite clueless about the Major years. You obviously cannot remember them.