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| Nigel Farage named Briton of the year by the Times | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 27 2014, 03:42 PM (2,920 Views) | |
| AndyK | Dec 27 2014, 03:42 PM Post #1 |
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http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/548896/Nigel-Farage-Ukip-UK-Independence-Party-Briton-of-the-Year-2014-The-Times Edited by AndyK, Dec 27 2014, 03:43 PM.
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| Alberich | Dec 27 2014, 03:51 PM Post #2 |
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Alberich
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Certainly "politician of the year"......not that he had much competition! But he is much more in tune with majority opinion on a whole range of subjects; and isn't that what politicians are supposed to take into account? I still can't see UKIP as government, but he has certainly made the others at least START to consider the views of those who vote them into office. |
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| jaguar | Dec 27 2014, 06:12 PM Post #3 |
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Farage has become the fly in the ointment, with the possibility of the SNP taking Labour seats in Scotland, and many disillusioned labour supporters up North voting UKIP..................... One thing that modern British electoral history conclusively shows is that we never elect Labour weirdos e.g.Foot, or lightweights e.g. Kinnock, Labour now have Miliband. Whatever the outcome (and my bet is on another Tory-led coalition of some kind), my prediction is that this is the most open election in years and nobody has the faintest idea what the result will be. |
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| Steve K | Dec 27 2014, 07:40 PM Post #4 |
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Once and future cynic
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The rules say I cannot post the link but the Times certainly did name him as Briton of the year - and who could argue with that? But it's a double edged sword article with the key part being it is of this year and the important year is next year Here's the last two paragraphs of their article which to me sum it all up
Edited by Steve K, Dec 27 2014, 08:18 PM.
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| Affa | Dec 27 2014, 08:03 PM Post #5 |
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Last Year the Briton of the year was one George Osborne. Honoured for 'setting the terms of the political debate'. They had no choice this time, NF has done much much than 'set the terms for political debate'. |
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| Tigger | Dec 27 2014, 08:24 PM Post #6 |
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I don't know whether to laugh or cry, what I will say thought is that if Farage, a bloke who consistently has trouble with facts and figures, is considered to be the man of the year it just demonstrates how low England has sunk.........
Edited by Tigger, Dec 27 2014, 08:24 PM.
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| Steve K | Dec 27 2014, 11:16 PM Post #7 |
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Once and future cynic
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Well yes if was down to honesty, altruism or some other positive characteristic then someone like the guy who went to fight Ebola, got it, survived and went back again would get it and Nigel would be a long way distant. But he has caught the imagination of so many of the British public shallow and selfish as it so often is and while he may have the maths of the village idiot and a first line team of misfits and nutjobs he has at times been brave. Farage is for now that thing so rare and transient in politics, a leader. |
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| Tigger | Dec 28 2014, 12:36 AM Post #8 |
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Or that brave young lad with terminal cancer who instead of feeling sorry for himself or just hiding in a corner and waiting for the inevitable raised five million quid for research into the condition that would eventually kill him. I believe his mum recently collected an OBE that was awarded to him posthumously. |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 06:03 AM Post #9 |
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IMO, Farage is not the game changer the meltdown along with the actual incompetence of the coalition is. |
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| johnofgwent | Dec 28 2014, 07:39 AM Post #10 |
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It .. It is GREEN !!
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We never used to elect tory wierdos (Hague, IDS and that man whose name escapes me who had "something of the night" about him ... Then Cameron outshone Davis in the leadership platform and suddenly "airbrushed dave" got the upper hand as form and fashion overtook substance. With each "main" party's occupant and wannabe occupant of No 10 and No 11 in a race to a policy vacuum, I think Nigel will do very well for himself this coming year. |
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| Pro Veritas | Dec 28 2014, 09:03 AM Post #11 |
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Upstanding Member
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I can see some of the reasons The Times awarded him BotY. However, I must point out that The Times is pandering to a very narrow sector of society - perhaps even narrower than that which Farage panders to - because last year they awarded BotY to one George Osborne, a man who they claimed had brought growth back to the British economy but who has in reality done more to damage the British economy than even Gordon Brown. Our "growth" is based on private, corporate and state borrowing (debt) of unsustainable levels, and the economy has only "grown" for the 10-20% of the people who were never really damaged by the downturn anyway. That The Times could laud GO for that shows just how myopic they are in awarding this BotY accolade. All The Best |
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| Happy Hornet | Dec 28 2014, 09:27 AM Post #12 |
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I think it shows what a god awful state British politics is in, when a man like Farrage, ex public schoolboy, city trader, tory and stooge of Rupert Murdoch is seen as a breath of fresh air. I mean seriously, am I really the only one who can see it? |
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| Lewis | Dec 28 2014, 09:59 AM Post #13 |
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Well the young people of the UK aren't fooled by Farage at least according to this poll in the Observer: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/27/young-voters-shun-ukip-farage-clegg-lib-dems-general-election?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20main-1%20Main%20trailblock:Editable%20trailblock%20-%20news:Position3 |
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| krugerman | Dec 28 2014, 10:45 AM Post #14 |
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So a newspaper which has a readership close to 0.5% of the UK population decides that Nigel Farage is the politician of the year, thats very meaningful. I note that Mr Farage was out with a Boxing Day hunt, no doubt this will reinforce his credentials as "one of the lads", just a normal working class bloke. Or is he just another Tory Toff ? |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 10:52 AM Post #15 |
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I would agree that M.Foot was not PM material, nor IMO was Brown. But the Tories do Edited by C-too, Dec 28 2014, 10:53 AM.
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| Happy Hornet | Dec 28 2014, 10:55 AM Post #16 |
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I also note that Farrage partially blamed the latest gaffe by one of his party members that got said member banned on the fact that he was from a council estate and that's how lots of people from council estates talk. How the hell would he know? I grew up on a council estate and if any of us had spoken to someone like that our mum would have beaten us black and blue. Frankly Farrage ' s comments sound like the sort of sneering, patronising, out of touch views of the metropolitan elite that he claims to oppose. |
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| papasmurf | Dec 28 2014, 10:56 AM Post #17 |
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Farage Briton of the year? They are having a laugh. |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 12:04 PM Post #18 |
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a common misconception about non government debt and one I too was suckered into believing The truth is something rather duller, the brake has been put on such debts and state annual borrowing reduced. ![]() ![]() Gordon's false boom economy was being sustained by ~£150B of non state and state borrowing every year, that's been cut to ~£120B |
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| jaguar | Dec 28 2014, 12:13 PM Post #19 |
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Couldn't agree more. Well said. |
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| krugerman | Dec 28 2014, 12:23 PM Post #20 |
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This post is missleading To quote Steve K "£150B of non state and state borrowing every year" Well firstly, Gordon Brown did not borrow £150B every year, he borrowed £150B in the financial year 2009 / 2010, and the graphs which you provide, clearly show that borrowing shot up after 2007, which in case you had not noticed, was when the world financial crisis and recession hit. The Conservatives alternative plan to support banks, people and the economy by borrowing, is something we never ever discovered, because to this day they have never come forward with an alternative to what Brown and Darling did. It is also worth noting that borrowing at the time of the financial meltdown was lower than the mid 1990s when Mr Lamont was in charge. |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 12:29 PM Post #21 |
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Please read it again properly before you go throwing insults around It was ~£50B of state + ~£100B of private borrowing each year = ~£150B Gordon's false boom was debt fuelled |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 01:39 PM Post #22 |
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I'm not too sure that personal debt is such a bad thing or at what level it should be controlled providing people are making repayments, which I believe they have continued to do. Obviously the different economic conditions that now exist call for a differen approach (Apart from my mortgauge, borrowing isn't something I have indulged in). 1991 is a misleading starting place for a Graph as there was some sort of very mini boom at that point. I haven't checked it out but I have wondered if it had anything to do with an election. From your second Graph the government debt took off as a result of the meltdown. There was no "false boom" There was a thriving economy based upon the Deregulation/Financial Services/Free Market Economy introduced in the 1980s. An economic base that was not seen as a boom but was considered, before the meltdown, to be working well. |
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| Marconi | Dec 28 2014, 02:01 PM Post #23 |
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Who is at number 2 ... Max Clifford? |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 02:12 PM Post #24 |
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Don't think they do a #2 but safe to say Alex Salmond was not it |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 02:52 PM Post #25 |
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It's a huge problem if it's not sustainable and the levels of bankruptcies and the so called 'voluntary arrangements' show that it wasn't But it's worse than that, when so many jobs depended on the working population taking on another £3,000 each on average per calendar year it was in itself unsustainable and it was when the idiot lending stopped that triggered the loss of jobs and bankruptcies. The government had all the data to see this happening and Gordon was specifically warned but he wanted that 2005 election victory and a run in to a 2009 election giving 5 more years for him. He so nearly got away with it with that idea of a 2007 rush election "No more boom and bust" what an empty promise that was. |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 03:18 PM Post #26 |
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1. Are you referring to debts by businesses or by the average householder. I have assumed this debt was was about household/personal debt, which to my knowledge was continuing to be repaid. Majority of mortgages were and still are being repaid. 2. The meltdown triggered the loss of jobs and bankruptcies. 3. Neither the government or anyone else had any pre data on the meltdown that hit the Western economies. The rest of that comment is pure speculation, the sort I would expect to get from Tory HQ. 4. I have always had some respect for your usually well thought out posts, for you to apply 'no more boom and bust' to an international financial meltdown situation is less than I would expect from you. |
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| Lewis | Dec 28 2014, 03:35 PM Post #27 |
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A bit like that more empty statement by one on your Tory leaders in stating "We are all in this together". What an empty and untrue statement that lie was! |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 04:26 PM Post #28 |
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Once and future cynic
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1. It very much was household debt this was the link And you are plain wrong on ability to pay those household debts. In advance of the "meltdown" in 2007 there was trouble - big trouble. Did you know house repossessions rose dramatically the year before? Well you do now:
2. Yes the meltdown triggered the loss of jobs, you have to think through what triggered the meltdown. It was the inability of people to pay their debts and take on even more debt that caused the bonds banks had issued based on those debts to become devalued 3. As you full well know Vince Cable warned Brown on the record (it's in Hansard) in advance that Brown was allowing excessive debt levered on unsustainable house prices 4. Well tough if it disappoints you that I post awkwards truths. Brown didn't only fail to protect us from the international folly of over levered credit (and several countries managed that) he was a world leader in that folly. No one forced him to say "no more boom and bust" over and over again. But he did and he should have made serious efforts to live up to it. But then he wanted his time at number 10, his legacy etc. Just like Osborne (as Lewis points out) should have done a lot more along the lines of "all in it together". Edited by Steve K, Dec 28 2014, 04:27 PM.
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 04:48 PM Post #29 |
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| Montjoie | Dec 28 2014, 05:49 PM Post #30 |
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That's one way to see it. How about the banks which lent the money without any proper checks (they wouldn't do a background check for example to make sure the declared income was credible or not)? Or those other banks which didn't want to check what they were buying, as long as they thought they could sell it for a quick buck to another entity fast enough? The same which distributed large bonuses based on this funny money, until going belly up, forcing painful bailouts world wide? It's like handing your favorite shoes to your dog and solely blaming the poor animal when you find out they were ruined. |
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| krugerman | Dec 28 2014, 05:56 PM Post #31 |
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Well firstly I did not insult anyone, what I did do is accuse your statement of been missleading, which it is. The very word "regulation" is something that Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have always detested, the Conservative way has always been less regulation and leave market forces to find their own level, which they did, and it led the financial mess and to a near depression. From 2004 until 2007 government borrowing was on a gentle slide, and at no time did the last government ever borrow more than £50B in any given year until the onsett of the crisis, To say that the long years of growth under Blair and Brown were fuelled by debt is a falsehood. Of the three times the UK budget has been in the black ( in surplus ) in the last 50 year, two of those times were under a Labour government, and throughout the 18 long years of Thatcher / Major rule, the government borrowed money and ran up a deficit for 16. The idea that Labour spends on borrowed money, and that the Tories always live within our means is a fairy tale. |
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| Steve K | Dec 28 2014, 06:33 PM Post #32 |
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£800B was added to UK household debt, almost trebling it in 10 years while disposable household income to service it didn't even double. Meantime in supposed boom years the government increased the National debt by borrowing more and more No falsehood, debt might not have been the only fuel but it was the biggest part |
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| Tigger | Dec 28 2014, 06:59 PM Post #33 |
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Indeed, I spend a bit of time every now and then working alongside blokes in their twenties, not a single one of them considers the preservation of the England Farage waxes lyrical about worth having, after all they cannot afford housing, have dire pension prospects, have few educational options that are affordable and see little of merit in turning the clock back to some mythical bygone age where everyone knew their place. The only saving grace is Farage's core supporters are literally dying off. |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 07:17 PM Post #34 |
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I don't mean to infer there were no problems before the meltdown, I'm fully aware there were. Even so, in 2008 I had to drop the price of my house when I sold it. The price of the house I bought was also dropped. Within three years the house I bought had recovered its original asking price and that was despite the effects attributed to Brown Plus the meltdown. The meltdown was was not caused by internal debt, if it was it would have been confined to the UK. It was caused by toxic debts arising in the USA, slipped into the international financial markets via Wall Street and bought by Banks across the West. The result of which was that Banks had to write-off huge sums of money and needed to be bailed out. The whole economy changed at that point. Surely you do not believe the economic problems would be as bad as they are across Western economies if there had been no meltdown? Vince Cable was doing his job as a political opponent, he was correct to a minor degree. As the housing problem was over and done with in a few years it is easy to see that there was no reason to believe there was a major problem looming. The meltdown made him look good. "post awkward truths"!! Are you taking the micky? I was being polite, your comment was actually stupid. The boom and bust Brown referred to was the past use by all governments of using interest rates and inflation in order to control the economy. To stretch that into inferring that Brown was claiming to be able to control world recessions --- well just think about. I think people should recognise that part of the problem for Brown was that he was caught up in the eye of the worst economic storm for 60 years, (some claim for 100 years). Things appear so much easier in hindsight. |
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| krugerman | Dec 28 2014, 07:28 PM Post #35 |
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Household debt and government debt have little to do with each other, one is private debt to which the government has little control over, the other is direct government debt. If Barclays Bank or a loan company decides to borrow Joe Bloggs a sum of money, or give him a credit card, then there is little the government can do about it, except have in place certain banking regulations, rules or parameters. The Tories usualy prefer to refer to regulators as "quango s" or unecessary red tape, whilst a favorite phrase would be "the free market". The free market been the true Conservative goal to which all and sundry should aim towards, free and unfettered by regulation, and irrespective of consequence. |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 07:40 PM Post #36 |
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NL made it clear at the time that they were reducing the deficit (From 42% of GDP 1997) in order to be able to finance the needs of the NHS and Schools. So they made no excuses about borrowing to fix the roof while the sun was shining. Can I take it you are aware of the state of the NHS and schools in 1997? The continuing attack on NL which promotes the lies and exaggerations laid at NL's feet are part of what is helping UKip to gain popularity. |
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| C-too | Dec 28 2014, 07:43 PM Post #37 |
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Yes, it is just a case of wonder why some people refuse to see it. |
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| Affa | Dec 28 2014, 07:44 PM Post #38 |
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Do you understand the correct interpretation of what Boom & Bust means? The interpretation that was being referred to when Brown made his statement, and not the false interpretation of those being disingenuous for party political reasons. |
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| Rich | Dec 28 2014, 08:06 PM Post #39 |
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And would you care to recall what irreversible social damage and long term economic damage has been inflicted on this country between 1997 upto 2010, I do not blame anyone for having a go at the present administration, but one must be evenhanded when apportioning blame, one will only have to ask the next generation that will be paying for this to see the truth. |
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| Lewis | Dec 28 2014, 08:24 PM Post #40 |
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There has been no irresversible damage caused between 1997 and 2010, especially compared to that after that date, caused by the incompetents. Of course the right wingers will insinuate otherwise but that is mainly Tory propaganda. |
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