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| Farage dons the tinfoil as his 'Brex appeal' begins to falter | Farage dons the tinfoil as his 'Brex appeal' begins to falter |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| As someone who has failed to get elected to parliament seven times at current tally, Nigel Farage would not be in the House of Commons for the tributes to Jo Cox. Instead, the Ukip leader opted to tour the airwaves, where his statesman-in-waiting software appeared to be malfunctioning. Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to address widespread revulsion at his “Breaking point” poster last week, Nigel suggested the killing of the Labour MP hours later made it “unfortunate timing”. Agreed. It would have gone over a lot better in 1936. | As someone who has failed to get elected to parliament seven times at current tally, Nigel Farage would not be in the House of Commons for the tributes to Jo Cox. Instead, the Ukip leader opted to tour the airwaves, where his statesman-in-waiting software appeared to be malfunctioning. Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to address widespread revulsion at his “Breaking point” poster last week, Nigel suggested the killing of the Labour MP hours later made it “unfortunate timing”. Agreed. It would have gone over a lot better in 1936. |
| Moves in the financial and betting markets would appear to indicate this is squeaky bum time for the leave campaign, particularly Farage’s provisional wing of it. Is Nigel going rogue? Ancient referendum campaigning law declares that if you can’t spot the liability at the table, then it’s you. Farage has spent significant portions of the past 24 hours denying he is a liability – “I wouldn’t have thought so, would you?” he wondered of the BBC – and attempting to cast his allies in the official leave campaign as more unpleasant than himself. | Moves in the financial and betting markets would appear to indicate this is squeaky bum time for the leave campaign, particularly Farage’s provisional wing of it. Is Nigel going rogue? Ancient referendum campaigning law declares that if you can’t spot the liability at the table, then it’s you. Farage has spent significant portions of the past 24 hours denying he is a liability – “I wouldn’t have thought so, would you?” he wondered of the BBC – and attempting to cast his allies in the official leave campaign as more unpleasant than himself. |
| “Michael Gove had better look at his own posters.” Boris Johnson’s plan for a migrant amnesty for those in the country for more than 12 years was “a strange thing to say”. Never mind getting his country back: you get the feeling Nigel would currently settle for getting his campaign back. | “Michael Gove had better look at his own posters.” Boris Johnson’s plan for a migrant amnesty for those in the country for more than 12 years was “a strange thing to say”. Never mind getting his country back: you get the feeling Nigel would currently settle for getting his campaign back. |
| “I still think we’re going to win,” he declared on Today, sounding distinctly like someone whose certainties in this regard have a half-life slightly shorter than some of the more violently unstable radioisotopes. Even homophones have it in for him. As he insisted on LBC: “Nothing I said has been inciteful.” Nigel increasingly seems out-strategised by his own metaphors. Asked again to paint a picture of post-Brexit politics, he said of Ukip: “We effectively will be like the canaries in the mineshaft.” Does Nigel know what happens to canaries in this line of work? Perhaps someone needs to break it to him: they don’t go to live on a farm. | “I still think we’re going to win,” he declared on Today, sounding distinctly like someone whose certainties in this regard have a half-life slightly shorter than some of the more violently unstable radioisotopes. Even homophones have it in for him. As he insisted on LBC: “Nothing I said has been inciteful.” Nigel increasingly seems out-strategised by his own metaphors. Asked again to paint a picture of post-Brexit politics, he said of Ukip: “We effectively will be like the canaries in the mineshaft.” Does Nigel know what happens to canaries in this line of work? Perhaps someone needs to break it to him: they don’t go to live on a farm. |
| Among Nigel’s bugbears on Monday was the defection to remain of Sayeeda Warsi. Lady Warsi is just the latest of what you should think of as The Manchurian Remainers. These are the people implanted by the forces of remain, to be activated at opportune moments of their controller’s choosing. In The Manchurian Candidate movie, you may recall, the trigger for activation was a Queen of Diamonds playing card. In the referendum campaign, it seems to be wilful lies sprayed on to the side of buses in two-feet high letters, or openly racist posters. When the MP and doctor Sarah Wollaston crossed over to the remain campaign, Farage’s former aide explained: “Was always gonna happen. No 10 planted a few Remainers in Brexit in order to get these defection headlines.” | Among Nigel’s bugbears on Monday was the defection to remain of Sayeeda Warsi. Lady Warsi is just the latest of what you should think of as The Manchurian Remainers. These are the people implanted by the forces of remain, to be activated at opportune moments of their controller’s choosing. In The Manchurian Candidate movie, you may recall, the trigger for activation was a Queen of Diamonds playing card. In the referendum campaign, it seems to be wilful lies sprayed on to the side of buses in two-feet high letters, or openly racist posters. When the MP and doctor Sarah Wollaston crossed over to the remain campaign, Farage’s former aide explained: “Was always gonna happen. No 10 planted a few Remainers in Brexit in order to get these defection headlines.” |
| Today was the turn of Nigel to don the tinfoil: “This is the biggest put-up job I have ever seen,” he reasoned mildly of Warsi’s announcement, adding elsewhere that her change of sides was “a typical No 10 put-up job.” Mm, cos they love Sayeeda Warsi in No 10. | Today was the turn of Nigel to don the tinfoil: “This is the biggest put-up job I have ever seen,” he reasoned mildly of Warsi’s announcement, adding elsewhere that her change of sides was “a typical No 10 put-up job.” Mm, cos they love Sayeeda Warsi in No 10. |
| On LBC, one phone-in caller even declined to acknowledge the malarial majesty of his flotilla last week, confronting Farage instead with a detailed attack on his poor record on standing up for the interests of British fishermen in the European parliament. Now irrevocably a post-fact politician, Farage countered with a lengthy digression based on his being a “keen angler”. “What I tried to do [with the flotilla],” he eventually explained, “along with a guy called Bob Spink, is give these people a voice”. And as a veteran of the flotilla battle, I can confirm that a banner reading “Honest people for an honest living” was indeed being held by Bob Spink, who once mistakenly claimed on a job application to have been a government minister. | |
| Staying with employment prospects, it does appear to be weighing on Nigel’s mind that he may be on the point of experiencing what Spinal Tap’s David St Hubbins once euphemised as “a great freeing up of time”. What will he do if he loses? “I don’t know,” he mused uncomfortably on LBC. “I’ve spent so much of my life building up to this moment. Perhaps I’ll go and get a proper job. I think I’m a bit more qualified for that than most people in this campaign.” | Staying with employment prospects, it does appear to be weighing on Nigel’s mind that he may be on the point of experiencing what Spinal Tap’s David St Hubbins once euphemised as “a great freeing up of time”. What will he do if he loses? “I don’t know,” he mused uncomfortably on LBC. “I’ve spent so much of my life building up to this moment. Perhaps I’ll go and get a proper job. I think I’m a bit more qualified for that than most people in this campaign.” |
| All being well, of course, the CV will not need to be dusted down. Asked for details on Britain in the event of a Brexit vote on Thursday, Farage appeared for all the world to be channelling Ron Manager: “We’ll all feel half an inch taller, and just a bit prouder of ourselves.” | All being well, of course, the CV will not need to be dusted down. Asked for details on Britain in the event of a Brexit vote on Thursday, Farage appeared for all the world to be channelling Ron Manager: “We’ll all feel half an inch taller, and just a bit prouder of ourselves.” |
| Half-an-inches and just-a-bits – the irrational metrics of the leave campaign. The paradox of Take Back Control is that it requires a surrender. Last week, the Sun’s dreamy splash headline asked voters to “beLEAVE”. Brexit’s emotional; it’s a movement; it’s a state of mind; it’s listening to your heart. Brexit’s a sober two looking like a drunk nine. Rhetorically speaking, I can only refer you to the words of the bartender in the world cinema classic Coyote Ugly: “Did you ever wake up sober after a one-night stand, and the person you’re next to is layin’ on your arm, and they’re so ugly, you’d rather chew off your arm than risk waking them? That’s coyote ugly.” If leave wins, Britain will wake up to find the Brex appeal of Nigel Farage farting expectantly under its duvet. | Half-an-inches and just-a-bits – the irrational metrics of the leave campaign. The paradox of Take Back Control is that it requires a surrender. Last week, the Sun’s dreamy splash headline asked voters to “beLEAVE”. Brexit’s emotional; it’s a movement; it’s a state of mind; it’s listening to your heart. Brexit’s a sober two looking like a drunk nine. Rhetorically speaking, I can only refer you to the words of the bartender in the world cinema classic Coyote Ugly: “Did you ever wake up sober after a one-night stand, and the person you’re next to is layin’ on your arm, and they’re so ugly, you’d rather chew off your arm than risk waking them? That’s coyote ugly.” If leave wins, Britain will wake up to find the Brex appeal of Nigel Farage farting expectantly under its duvet. |