outburst to the C4 reporter was bizarre even if he was provoked

I seem to have missed the provocation bit, seemed a perfectly reasonable question to me followed by an entirely unreasonable response.

Rather worryingly – because I know that UKIP are a bunch of nutters and they have no properly costed policies on anything – I actually caught Farages speech in full on the radio and he was talking about getting out of the EU to allow us to:

stop automatic EU immigration rights, but allow in anyone who has specific skills the UK needs

enter into trade agreements that EU membership apparently blocks

use those agreements to help developing countries with trade rather than aid

get rid of the Human Rights Act so we can deport undesirables

Plus some painfully accurate home truths about the useless politicians in the main stream parties, and I was really beginning to see why his party is attracting so much popular support.

*goes off to have a word woth myself*

It’s not a vote for UKIP that will get Britain out of the EU, it’s an out vote in a referendum.

And deporting undesirable aliens is perfectly possible at the present. Yes occasionally there’s a high profile case which isn’t quite as straightforward as some might hope, but it’s certainly not an issue which affects the British people.

Jobs, cost of living, healthcare, transport costs, etc, are real issues which affect the British people. Making it easier to deport in a few untypical cases will not change the lives of the vast majority of ordinary people one iota.

The “issue” just provides shocking headlines for gutter-raking newspapers such as the Daily Mail and rabble rousing opportunities for bigoted right-wing fruitcakes in UKIP and the BNP.

And yes, trade agreements with developing countries instead of aid sounds a lot more reasonable than talking of stopping aid to Bongo Bongo Land, Nigel Farrage has always had far better presentation skills than Godfrey Bloom – it’s one of the reasons why UKIP are doing well in the polls. But the sentiment is exactly the same.

Cutting vital aid to developing countries (with a “it’s for their own good” bollox argument) might well have some appeal to voters who let the Sun and Daily Mail do their thinking for them, but it will put Britain at a disadvantage, specially as the BRICS nations increase their power and influence. China manages to combine both aid and excellent trade deals with developing countries. And it’s not because they are bleeding heart do-gooders.

UKIP? Send them all up here, we love Nigel, we do

My favourite bit is still when Bloom throws away the conference brochure in disgust at how racist it is

Just in case anyone thinks it wasn’t reasonable for Michael Crick to ask (after the UKIP leader had made a speech claiming that the party was “fiercely” opposed to racism and inclusive) why a UKIP pamphlet titled “Changing The Face Of Politics” didn’t include a single black face.

It’s not exactly that there wasn’t the opportunity. Could it reasonably be said to have been an “oversight”?

Actually there are some black faces on that brochure. 5th row from the top (third row below the banner), 3rd and 4th from the right.

Are you winding me up ? I can’t see it ! 🙂

🙂

the ukip party conference has only been going a few hours and already its looking like a circus full of clowns

UKIP going for the ALF/hunt sab vote in having an animal-free circus?

stop automatic EU immigration rights, but allow in anyone who has specific skills the UK needs

enter into trade agreements that EU membership apparently blocks

use those agreements to help developing countries with trade rather than aid

get rid of the Human Rights Act so we can deport undesirables
Okay, in order:

– skilled migration assessment is very slow and expensive. Companies invest in the UK partly because they can hire and locate people from the EU there without too much hassle; telling them they are going to have to wait x months before the punter can work because they need a skills-assessed visa is just going to mean a shift towards “proper” EU markets. Also, it requires a vast bureaucracy to administer it, which matches neither UKIP’s low tax, small state rhetoric nor the Home Office’s capacity at the moment. Query also what happens to those EU punters that are alread here – are they grandfathered in? How do you know who is here already? Also, those EU migration rights are reciprocal – the shit will hit the fan in UKIP land when Ian and Doreen get sent back from the Costa Dorada or are charged eight grand for a visa, or when John Q. Stockbroker is told to piss off out of Stuttgart and go back ‘ome.

– signing trade deals with other blocs without the EU means the UK would be locked out of EU trade. It would provide a lot of entrepôt/smuggling jobs in Ireland, though, so it’s good news for some.

– I almost agree with this third one – but that means ditching subsidies and other benefits for UK farmers. I don’t see UKIP going for that.

– the Human Rights Act doesn’t stop the deportation of foreigners from the UK. The cat stuff is just utter bollocks.

In other words, it’s a lot of specious bollocks that seems initially attractive if you’re not actually involved in cross border business and pretend not to care about it. Which is to say, I’m sure it goes down well with Daily Express readers in the provinces. 😛

I actually caught Farages speech in full on the radio and he was talking about getting out of the EU to allow us to:

get rid of the Human Rights Act so we can deport undesirables

This is a classic piece of tabloid BS. The EU isn’t responsible for the Human Rights Act. That would be the Council of Europe.

Still Johnny Foreigner though I suppose, and we all know they’re all the same.

…and by the way, deportations have increased 150% or 400% (depending on whether you include people who voluntarily bugger off once they’ve been told to leave but don’t tell the Home Office or not) since the passage of the Human Rights Act: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/deportations-removals-and-voluntary-departures-uk

…and double by the way, I think Bloom is a complete bellend and UKIP are a bunch of spankers, but he completely pwned Crick in that clip. Crick also made the total amateur move of switching his mic to his punching hand (assuming he’s not a leftie) immediately before being slapped, thus denying himself the opportunity to get a quick Prescott-style “instinctive” jab in.

I wonder what revelation will come out today?

Yesterday showed why freedom of speech is so important. Idiots have a habit of condemning themselves out of their own mouths and with their own behaviour.

In this age of excess political centralisation, it must drive the party machines mad when the spoilers/mavericks create or attempt to create havoc or in an example below have a book to sell. So Uncle Vince made a pretty poor effort at for the Lib Dems, Bloom does it for UKIP, McBride is doing it for Labour this weekend. Who will be the Tory’s villain next week (Boris is more panto dame than villain)?

That brochure front is a shocker. Whilst in reality I’m assuming they are the men and women (mainly men) who will be standing for them at the next election so they were stuck with the faces they had to use, using that strap line in front of an exclusively white sea of faces surely is a message about what they really stand for. BNP in slightly posher clothing for the middle classes?

skilled migration assessment is very slow and expensive. Companies invest in the UK partly because they can hire and locate people from the EU there without too much hassle; telling them they are going to have to wait x months before the punter can work because they need a skills-assessed visa is just going to mean a shift towards “proper” EU markets. Also, it requires a vast bureaucracy to administer it, which matches neither UKIP’s low tax, small state rhetoric nor the Home Office’s capacity at the moment. Query also what happens to those EU punters that are alread here – are they grandfathered in? How do you know who is here already? Also, those EU migration rights are reciprocal – the shit will hit the fan in UKIP land when Ian and Doreen get sent back from the Costa Dorada or are charged eight grand for a visa, or when John Q. Stockbroker is told to piss off out of Stuttgart and go back ‘ome.

An open door immigration policy might well make sense in a new, underpopulated country, with natural resources waiting to be exploited, but uncontrolled limitless immigration makes no sense at all in an overpopulated country with very limited resources.

And it’s ridiculous to pretend that you have to have an open door policy because the alternative, controlled immigration, is just too complicated to administer.

Yes I’m sure ‘the market’ would prefer a labour market which is easily available and easily deposed of, in the same way as unrestricted and uncontrolled hiring and firing would by far be the preferred choice.

But that is absolutely no reason to go long with an ultra extreme form of neo-liberal economics – it’s not always a case of putting the interests of the market first. Firstly the human consequences have to be taken into consideration.

And secondly, what the market dictates does not necessarily equate to what is best for the economy, as we’ve discovered in recent years to our peril.

Uncontrolled immigration into the UK has contributed to increased economic inequality with all it’s consequences in creating economic instability. It has also significantly contributed for example, to the appalling, unprecedented, levels of youth unemployment we are now experiencing and the huge costs associated with it.

“What is individually rational for one firm is destructive in the aggregate”

Also it is very misleading to claim that “those EU migration rights are reciprocal”. The UK can’t for example say to Poland “OK we’ve got 10,000 Polish nationals now living in the UK, no more until a similar number of UK nationals are living in Poland”.

Controlled immigration instead of a ridiculous open door policy which allows for instance the unemployed of Bulgaria and Rumania to come at will to the UK and resolve their job or low wages issues, makes supreme sense, it shouldn’t be left to the fruit cakes and racists in UKIP to argue.

Today over a third of Londoners were born outside the UK, which is nothing short of staggering. Unless UK born Londoners stop having children this simply isn’t sustainable, some sort of control has got to be put into place. And I say that as a Londoner born outside the UK myself 🙂

Bloom to leave UKIP then.

I’d be worried if I was seen as too extreme to be welcome there.

Well he could always join his fellow MEP, and boz-eyed fascist, in his spiritual home

Personally I love the way the privately educated son of a stockbroker and ex investment banker rails against the establishment.

I’d be worried if I was seen as too extreme to be welcome there.

This is always the problem with fast-growing parties: you get all sorts of randoms joining up, riding a wave of enthusiasm and doing stuff in the party’s name but they don’t necessarily buy into the ideology or values of the party. As soon as people pause for breath and start thinking about what they and other people are saying, the cracks start to appear, the skeletons come out the closer, and there’s a wave of bitter infighting. (One sentence! Four metaphors!)

And that goes doubly for a party that doesn’t actually have an ideology…

8 metaphors then 😉

he has been a UKIP member for 15 years though so hardly a new member though he is pretty random

lol

Okay, true for him – but part of the strain of fast growth is that suddenly people are listening to what a loosely-disciplined bunch of oddballs are saying for the first time, whereas before no-one would have known or cared what he said.

Also seems a bit like Bloom fancied himself as the rock star of the party and Farage made it clear that he was the daddy.

In general you are correct over UKIP
They only seem to have two polices
We dont like foreigners/Europe but lets words that nicely so we dont look like racist – little englanders really

Despite the massive amount of coverage the clearly establishment figure/party get they will maintain everyone is out to get them and they are somehow outside Westminster. Its an appeal to the common man from the posh man basically.

Its certainly a wide umbrella organisation and a dearth if thought out policies- it makes labour look like it has well planned policies