Let’s talk narratives…
Big day for this guy: Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. UKIP picked up 23% of the vote in local elections across England. Yes, that is a Very Big Deal.
UKIP is a lot like the Libertarian Party in the States: their policies make great good sense, but they’re seen as a party of nuts and no-hopers.
Some of that is fair enough — there does seem to be a higher than usual proportion of whackadoodles in both parties. On the other hand, an awful lot of that is our old arch enemy The Narrative.
Try this experiment: do a Google Images search of Nigel Farage. Notice how often he’s shown making a goofy face. In almost all of them.
Okay, so maybe he just looks goofy, right? Well, you know who else looks goofy? One-eyed rubbery-faced paranoid nutcase with anger management issues Gordon Brown. Note there are one or two candid and unflattering shots on that first page, but not many.
You look how they want you to look, and UKIP has been declared the clown party by our lords and masters.
But let’s look at The Narrative, International Governance Conspiracy Edition. The BBC did a vox pop this morning featuring several hacked off Tories who voted UKIP. More than one made the same comment: we’ve got a gravely sick economy, a war on, scary times in the Middle East, tense times in the Far East, a general feeling that everything is turning to shit, and what is David Cameron obsessed with? Legalizing gay marriage.
So, riddle me this: why? Why is gay marriage suddenly the big fucking deal in Britain…and the US, and France? Why now, when everything is in crisis, and why all of these countries at the same time? It almost makes one suspect the existence of an international political Journolist.
Anyway, the Clown Party just kicked David Cameron’s ass. Have a good weekend. I know I will!
Posted: May 3rd, 2013 under britain, personal, politics.
Comments: 28
Comments
Comment from Redd
Time: May 3, 2013, 9:54 pm
Yes, I read hurryupharry and they love to use the word “clown” to describe ukip. They’ve also been spinning like crazy. 🙂
Comment from mojo
Time: May 3, 2013, 9:55 pm
Next time, UKIP majority government?
“How ya like me NOW, huh?”
Comment from stina
Time: May 3, 2013, 10:20 pm
SuhWEET! More power to ya, ya crazy UKIPpers. Got any candidates you’d care to export in a westerly direction?
Thanks for posting this, Stoaty; you made my weekend!
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: May 3, 2013, 10:49 pm
OK – pending a result in the Dead Pool, here’s a game for the waiting period: guess which party Uncle Badger voted for?
(evil grin)
Comment from Redd
Time: May 3, 2013, 11:19 pm
RESPECT?
Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: May 3, 2013, 11:58 pm
Even when it’s explained to me, I still can’t follow it.
Comment from AltBBrown
Time: May 4, 2013, 12:41 am
Gay marriage, gay bb players, guns, speculations on the motivation of an Islamic terrorist, drunken starlets, on and on. ANYTHING but the worsening national problems. The media’s more than happy to run with anything they don’t have to investigate and doesn’t cause dissension among their government handlers.
Bill Clinton, rapist, bon vivant and visiting lector.
http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2013/05/03/bill-clinton-delivers-first-of-lecture-series-at-georgetown/
Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: May 4, 2013, 1:44 am
Maybe the muzzies & the homos will get into an all out war & solve 2, maybe 3 problems for me.
Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: May 4, 2013, 2:41 am
Any coalition the UKIP forms for majority should require that Nigel be the Prime Minister…
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: May 4, 2013, 2:43 am
OK, Uncle B, I’ll take a guess.
Monster Raving Loony Party? (-:
Comment from kilroy182
Time: May 4, 2013, 4:26 am
Every night I pray that the entire world be struck by a virulent pandemic of sanity and commonsense. Looks like the infection may be taking hold over there across the pond.
Comment from AndStatistics
Time: May 4, 2013, 4:27 am
so, in those google images, the 3rd and 4th (at least in my results)… What happened to his face? did he get in a slap-fight with Wolverine, or something?
Comment from dissent555
Time: May 4, 2013, 4:59 am
y’know what has me chucklin’ lately is all the lefty hyperventilating over the prospect of the Koch brothers buying up the LA Times. OMG, you’d think that civilization was about to be turned on it’s head and the Age of Sauron was nigh.
Liberals are the guardians of liberty – pfffttttt! So much for diversity, I guess.
Comment from Chicken Farmer
Time: May 4, 2013, 8:58 am
@ AndStatistics
The pictures of Farage with his face cut and bleeding were taken as he was rescued from a light aircraft crash.
Comment from Oceania
Time: May 4, 2013, 9:08 am
You haven’t heard a peep from Pussy Riot or Femen have you?
Those game playersare gone. Putin is a genius!
Now society thinks it is fine that men whom fuck men can marry? Adopt kids, and sodomise them?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 4, 2013, 10:14 am
What Chicken Farmer said. On election day in 2010, Farage was in a plane towing a banner. The banner fouled the tail of the plane and down it went. In a separate incident, the pilot of that plane was convicted of threatening to kill Farage. So, hmmmm.
Anyway, it’s a bit insult-to-injury to show a picture of a man crawling out of a plane crash with a broken sternum and ribs and a collapsed lung, and pick the picture with the goofy look on his face.
Comment from CoyoteKhan
Time: May 4, 2013, 3:50 pm
I’m really glad to see Mister Farage did so well in the local elections. I doubt the libertarian party here in the states will ever do very well. First because of how our very system is set up(works better for two parties). Second, Libertarian Party has never had a Farage, a solid party leader who understands how to court votes…and honestly, I don’t think it’ll ever have it.
Comment from AndStatistics
Time: May 4, 2013, 4:27 pm
eesh. Glad he’s ok – that sounds like it could have had a much worse ending.
As for our Libertarians – they *could* force the GOP to go the way of the whigs someday, I suppose, but my personal opinion is that their time would be better spent taking over the GOP from the ground up. As it stands now, the better they do, the more the not-left vote is split. Seems a bit counter-productive.
Comment from Deborah
Time: May 4, 2013, 5:08 pm
Ayn Rand (or why I should not write comments at night, and/or after the second glass of wine).
Re: Nigel Farage—he has a bit of movie star goodlooks, huh (when he’s not bleeding). The hat makes him look older. How is his voice? BBC or rural?
Comment from AliceH
Time: May 4, 2013, 5:39 pm
Deborah – there are dozens or maybe hundreds of youtube videos featuring Nigel Farage blasting away in the EU parliament. Here’s the first one I think I ever watched: “Who are you Mr President” (asked of EU President Van Rompuy). Enjoy!
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: May 4, 2013, 11:23 pm
Well if things keep getting worse and the government stupider, England has a real chance of watching British National Party take over; they should be hoping the UKIP can get the edge if that get s more likely.
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Time: May 5, 2013, 12:04 am
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Comment from mojo
Time: May 5, 2013, 3:24 am
@Deborah: Upper middle class, definitely a BBC voice
“The son of a stockbroker who went to Dulwich College, he did indeed work in the City and only left the Conservative Party when John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty.”
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: May 5, 2013, 5:17 am
Having listened to a few of his talks, Mr Farage does seem to suffer a bit from bitterness and frustration that tips him over into just meanness and insult. I can’t say as I blame him, given the quality and type of people he’s addressing and dealing with, but its not very constructive or helpful and it makes him seem like an angry crank to the “low information” type.
Comment from Ghost
Time: May 5, 2013, 6:51 pm
I think it was last year, the government was trying to remove a couple’s children from their care because they were UKIP voters. I don’t remember specifics or outcome, though. Anyway, it’s good to sanity grabbing a foothold somewhere in the world.
Comment from Oceania
Time: May 6, 2013, 2:12 am
Nigel looks a bit like Dmitry Medvedev!
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: May 6, 2013, 10:20 am
CT – actually he’s playing to the gallery when he does that. The mood here in the Olde Countrie may not have been reported very accurately (can’t think why). People are angry and have been silenced, most notably on the question of immigration.
The previous government calculatedly threw open the doors, resulting in a quite astonishing transformation in some of our towns and cities. A level of change that might have happened in 50 years happened in a decade and many of those immigrants (the ‘M’ word) not only haven’t assimilated – they do not want to.
No debate, no argument, no consultation, a complete media lockdown on discussion (there is no recognisable talk radio here) and the liberal use of the word ‘racist’ (liberal in both senses) has left people angry and disenfranchised.
Add to that the experience of being ruled by an unelected foreign ‘elite’ that decrees convicted terrorists, rapists and murderers may not deported and that all manner of changes must be enforced whether Britons like them or not and… well, I believe Americans might well have revolted by now.
So, yes, Farage is sometimes close to the bone but he is reflecting a mood of genuine anger and resentment. Many people in the UK actively want to hear it said that way to a usurping political class that has staged a silent coup.
Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: May 6, 2013, 12:41 pm
That fedora Nigel’s wearing looks like a vintage model — high, squarish crown and moderate raw-edged brim. It’s bashed (shaped) beautifully, too.
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