Thursday 8 May 2014

"I have no time for you, sir!"

"I have no time for you, sir! None!"
The rejoinder to UKIP's leader Nigel Farage of a particularly eloquent and passionate but controlled member of the BBC's Question Time audience tonight as he dismissed the distortions and half-truths peddled by the populist snake oil salesman. Of course, the BBC has plenty of time for Farage - it was his 29th appearance since 1999, a record by far indeed.

But tonight, as the needle stuck yet again on Europe Endless, and as Farage even tried to justify his life of taxpayer-funded luxury as some weird sort of crusade, there was a sense of fatigue, of a bubble maybe not bursting, but certainly slowly, even subtly deflating. And the audience member's powerful face-off with the UKIP leader, pointing to how pseudo-patriotic populism has caused wars in Europe, could possibly be Farage's Nick Griffin Moment.  This could be the split-second event, the tipping point, when this over-exposed, hyped-up faux "character" was finally laid as bare and empty as the Emperor's wardrobe for new clothing.

Though of course, Nigel still got away with plenty of fibs - right to the very end where he claimed a presumably UKIP led British government outside of the EU would stop Pfizer's attempted takeover of Astrazeneca. In fact, the truth is UKIP favours a raft of "free trade agreements" which would effectively hand our sovereignty over to the the men in the Boardrooms and at the Directors' tables of multinational corporates. In such a scenario, any government trying to stop such a takeover would likely face being sued for damage to profits by Pfizer, whose right to taxpayer funded compensation would be written into law.

So, as the man said, no more time for Mr Farage. Please.

1 comment:

  1. Very shrewd observation. I think you are right

    ReplyDelete