Nigel Farage | the brilliantly leaping gazelle

December 6, 2025

33:64 presents “Terry Wogan.”

In news that has generated far more coverage than it warranted, four countries have pulled out of next years Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Something to do with Israel’s continued participation in it, because of course!

A few things leap to mind.

Who seriously thinks that the ESC has any deeper cultural meaning other to than to remind us why we voted to leave Europe in the first place. The only reason I used to watch it was for Terry Wogan’s brilliant commentary. He took it as seriously as it demanded – which was not at all – and thoroughly took the piss.

It also reminds us why Europe has never churned out many musical megastars. Possibly it has to with language, because nothing indicates a desire for global success more than singing in a way that most people can’t understand. But even if they did, there’s a more fundamental problem that explains why there aren’t, indeed have never been and probably never ever will be any Greek, Norwegian or Polish international musical behemoths.

European pop music is shit. All of it is. Always has and always will be. ABBA? ABBA is the exception that proves the rule. Yes, ‘Waterloo’ was undeniably pure pop. But that was back in 1974. And they sang in English. And the world is unquestionably a much better place because of them. But aside from them? Celine Dion? In what universe is she anything other than a better than average karaoke singer who got lucky? Can anyone who isn’t a fan of hers name more than one that isn’t the ‘Titanic’ caterwauling abomination?

Because no matter how much Europe wishes it were otherwise, English is the language of pop. ‘Classical’ music proves this. It had no lyrics and therefore was thought of as good. By the very tiny minority of the rich who were able to judge these things, on account of them and living the sort of lives the rich have always lived.

And the movie ‘Spy’ provides more evidence to back this up. Aside from it being one of Jason Stathams greatest cinematic triumphs – his parody of himself is excellent – it also proved that to those not in on a joke, that the joke can be unintentionally hilarious.

There’s a bit in it where Verka Serduchka is doing something that the charitable might call singing, while looking like a homemade Christmas decoration made out of tin foil. When I saw it I thought the film had nailed it, had perfectly captured the same trite cheesy music, the same knowingly overblown campness and same the sheer awfulness of the kind of thing only ever seen at the ESC.

Only later did I realise the truth. That he had in fact came 2nd in the 2007 ESC, performing the same song, and in an even more laughably absurd way, that I had assumed was a grotesque invention by the filmmakers. (I had tried to embed the YouTube clip of it here so you could experience it for yourselves, but YouTube spared you that.)

There’s also the irony. Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia – the four to pull out so far – have all issued grand pronouncements each saying different versions of the same thing. Israel, war, genocide…the usual nonsense that gives politicians an excuse to engage in the kind of international virtue signalling grand-standing of the kind that focusing on more important domestic political concerns, like lowering taxes, improving public services or cutting unemployment simply doesn’t do.

More serious is the fact that the country they are so opposed to, which doesn’t share the values that they deem to be crucially important, is is the only country in the the Middle East where the ESC could take place. Technically it could take place, but in a largely empty area. The ESC has a very loyal LGBT+ following and pretty much anywhere other than Israel, would face either imprisonment or death. So why would anyone risk that?

In what can only be described as a performative hissy fit dressed up as a principled stand, these four countries have perfectly illustrated everything wrong with the ESC. A deluded sense of self-importance – disturbingly myopic, totally obsessed with its own image and wanting everyone to know just how important it it is – and thus implacably opposed to anything that contradicts its invented reality.

Which is its a song contest. Nothing more. And not even a very good one.

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In my last post I predicted that the fixation with smearing Farrago, as spearheaded by ‘The Guardian’ and enthusiastically supported by most of the ‘print’ and broadcast the media, would continue unabated until polling day in 2029.

‘The Guardian’ managed to cobble together four articles out of one comment by Reforms Deputy Leader on Thursday, one of which had a link to an earlier story. Plus a cartoon and a video podcast. Yesterday’s top story detailed another pupils memories of nearly 50 years ago. They stretched that one out into two articles, an ‘exclusive’ and an opinion piece, which were still there today, just as prominent and just as embarrassingly pathetic.

It seems that proper investigative journalism, the tenacious and expensive unearthing of a scandal, the kind that the press were eager to convince the Leveson Inquiry they were tirelessly committed to, doesn’t actually exist and hasn’t for at least two, possibly three decades. Exposes concerning members of House of Inbreds, footballers sexual misconduct or other ‘celebrity’ nonsense, aren’t journalism.

Do we have the press we deserve because we don’t demand more or do do we have the press we deserve because we demand so little? Whatever the causes may be, they’re probably contested, likely contradictory, and no doubt better discussed by those more qualified to do so.

Back then to Farrago. His travails perfectly illustrate what I mean when I bemoan journalistic standards. Rumour, allegations and conjecture that pretend to be news while hearsay, gossip and innuendo masquerade as evidence.

How it is possible for grown-ups – let alone responsible journalists – to take seriously a story predicated upon what boys of 13 allege another boy of 13 said nearly 50 years ago. Unless they all allege that he said ABBA deserved to win the ESC and that he really fancied the blonde woman.

Now that I’d believe!

May 20, 2025

34:63 presents “Judas Iscariot.”

Much as it pains me to write this, I suspect that Farrago might be only honest politician in Britain. This bold assertion comes with add a few important caveats. The foremost one of these is that the usual standard of honesty as most people understand it, does’t seem to apply to to the world of politics. Boris’s Johnson’s entire political career bears this out. As his former Home Secretary Amber Rudd once put it “Boris well he’s the life and soul of the party, but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.”

But at least Boris tried to implement the will of the British people after they voted for Brexit. This was despite the entire cultural and media elite being fervently opposed any expression of democracy that didn’t advance their interests, the judicial and parliamentary attempts to thwart it, and the relentless besmirching of those who’d dared to do make the elites nightmare a reality. The deal he got wasn’t perhaps the best deal he could’ve got, but it wasn’t as if the EU were minded to offer him one. They wanted to signal to other EU member states – the ones who had a high degree of Euro-scepticism among their electorate and were closely looking at how Britain fared – France, Italy Austria, and The Netherlands – exactly how steep the price for leaving would be.

Fast forward two elections and five PM’s to yesterday and Plonkers so called ‘reset’ deal with the EU. I’m not going to discuss it in any great detail and not just because I’m holiday as I write this, looking out at the sea and luxuriating in the good weather, but more importantly because it was’t a surprise, him never exactly being a massive supporter of Brexit.

After all, he campaigned for a second referendum, happy to ignore the democratic wishes of the majority of UK citizens when it suited him and his increasingly metropolitan outlook. By that I mean an outlook that wasn’t predicated upon prioritising the needs of the many, but instead the minority of people unhappy about the whole Brexit enterprise, people who thought of themselves as Europeans and not British.The ‘Youth Mobility Scheme’ bit of the deal amply demonstrates this.

Ostensibly a scheme to allow UK youth to work and study in Europe, in reality it serves as an encapsulation of his betrayal of Brexit. Firstly, it is because only those children that have not just the necessary skills and qualifications needed to make that even a possibility, but also parents rich enough to make that possibility a reality. Parents who not only have encouraged their children learn a European language, but have inculcated in them a sense that this is but the restoration of an entitlement. So not the kind of parents who work in care homes, as mechanics or teaching assistants.

Secondly, we have a population of around 60 millions, as compared to Europes total of nearer 450 millions. Can anyone see the problem here? In Britain we have a welfare system, one that’s struggling cope as it is, without even more demands placed upon it from EU citizens with a legal rights to it.

All this at a time when net migration is at historic highs, when the public is palpably crying out for control, when Reform UK gave Plonker fair warning as to the levels of discontent brewing in the country at the recent mayoral and council elections and he responded by seeming to take heed of their concerns, when in reality all he has done is make it worse.

Thats why, much as I am am loathe to, I think that Farrago might be the most honest politician in Britain today. Don’t be thinking I’m in any way a fan of Farrago. I think he’s nothing more than a snake oil salesman, all smarm and the kind of bluster that most people mistake as plain speaking. But if you were to ask any British voter at anytime within the last 15 years or so what two things sprang to mind when they thought of him, those two things would be the EU and immigration (although to be fair, that’s because they were the only things he ever seemed to talk about.) So he hasn’t shifted so much as the electorate have moved closer to him, in part because the other political parties have have moved further away from them.

So with that in mind, I’m going to rename Plonker ‘Stymied’ because that’s what he’s done to Brexit and as always, when I write about Brexit, I feel the need that to point out that I voted to remain

April 18, 2015

If Nigel Farage is ‘a pound shop Enoch Powell’, then Russell Brand is either David St. Hubbins from ‘Spinal Tap’ or Reg from the People’s Front of Judea…

Appearing on BBC1’s ‘Question Time’ recently with a panel that included Nigel Farage, Russell Brand, in one of his many populist rhetorical flourishes, called Nigel Farage ‘a pound shop Enoch Powell.’ Cue much applause from the audience, who didn’t know how or why this was an insult, but that nonetheless it was. To be likened to Enoch Powell. And with initials like N.F?

Of course Farage isn’t ‘a pound shop Enoch Powell.’ He isn’t anything like him at all. Most people, if they know anything at all about Powell, might come up with ‘rivers of blood’. Except of course, that he actually never said ‘rivers of blood.’ Not for the first time, popular myth became truth. What he actually said was ‘As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.

You might think I’m nitpicking. If so you can read an excerpt of his speech here. And you’ll also discover he was awarded a rare double starred first in Latin and Greek. So him referencing an obscure Greek poem – The Aeneid – that very few of his detractors would’ve heard of is no surprise. Even less that he referenced him at all, given how he was a professor of Greek at the age of 25.

My point is that anyone can make a rather facile comparison that someone is like Enoch Powell, safe in the knowledge that they won’t have to defend or justify that comparison. It does rather prove the point that the only brand Russell Brand is ultimately interested in is himself. To anyone disenchanted with politics, alienated by a language that politicians use, but which doesn’t make sense to them, most of what he says might seem like straight-forward common sense. But to anyone else with an I.Q. larger than the radius of their kneecap, he might resemble David St.Hubbins from Spinal Tap.

David said this, “Before I met Jeanine, my life was cosmically in shambles, it was ah…I was using bits and pieces of whatever Eastern philosophies happened to drift through my transom and she sort of sorted it out for me, straightened it out for me.”

And Russell said this, ”This attitude of churlish indifference seems like nerdish deference contrasted with the belligerent antipathy of the indigenous farm folk, who regard the hippie-dippie interlopers, the denizens of the shimmering tit temples, as one fey step away from transvestites.” The words, individually make sense, but put together the way he has, it is like a cook taking the finest of ingredients but the way they combine them results in an inedible mess.

(And by the way, it’s not just me who thinks he’s less of a gifted orator than he clearly does. The Plain English Campaign awarded him their ‘Goobledygoop’ prize for that idiosyncratic use of English)

If Brand is a sort of spokesperson for a lost generation, then that lost generation’s bike wheels are punctured. And when his thoughts do make a kind of sense, you kind of wish they didn’t. Here he is on BBC2’s ‘Newsnight’ advocating not voting;
“Yeah, they shouldn’t vote, they should – that’s one thing they should do, don’t bother voting. Because when it reaches – there’s a point – see these little valves, these sort of like little cozy little valves of recycling and Prius and like you know turn up somewhere, it stops us reaching the point where you think, “I see, this is enough now.” Stop voting. Stop pretending. Wake up. Be in reality now. Time to be in reality now. Why vote? We know it’s not going to make any difference. We know that already.”
Basically what he says appears radical and edgy, but ultimately only perpetuates the status quo – the politics of the what is and not of the what could.

The stark facts are these. At the 2010 election 45.6 million people were registered to vote of whom 29.7 million actually bothered to so. Meaning that 65.1% did and 34.9% didn’t. The Conservatives got 36% of votes cast. So when Brand exhorts non-participation, David, Ed and Nick must be secretly grateful. Because politicians know that the older you are, the more likely to vote you are. Hence their reluctance to cut any benefits to a group likely to kick them in the ballots. Conversely, the younger a voter is the less likely they are to vote, and so cuts to their benefits have little electoral risk.

Hang on! If Russell Brand might bear some resemblance to David St.Hubbins, then by spouting such trumpery moonshine, he is channeling the spirit of Reg from the People’s Front of Judea in ’The Life of Brian’. In the same way that Reg is grudgingly forced to concede that yes, the Romans did a lot that benefitted Judea, so anyone who allows reason to intrude upon their thought process must agree, that yes democracy can make a difference. Ask yourself, where would you rather live, England or Eritrea?

Farage does the same trick, albeit to a different demographic and with a different outcome. By appealing to older voters disaffected with what they see as everyone else doing better whilst they do not, he channels their sense of alienation. ‘Yes’, he says, ‘Traditional politics have helped create a feeling of disillusionment, of repeated betrayal; I can understand why you feel that way. I understand the resentment you feel towards politicians who promise all manner of things when they want your vote, but once they’ve got it break them. But not all politicians are the same. I’m new. Different. An outsider. Vote for me.’

Anyone else remember the politician who presented themselves to the electorate in 2010 as a break from the past. And that voting for them would send out a clear message that the old way of doing things was over?

Look how he turned out!

I believe in politics. And if you don’t, then ask yourself why not? Because apathy changes nothing. Voting does. Participation does.
Politics does.

In 2010 65.1% of the eligible electorate voted.

The Conservatives got 36% of votes cast.

The Liberal Democrats go 23%t of votes cast.

Which means 34.9% of eligible voters didn’t vote.

And voting doesn’t make a difference. FFS!

Next time…how politics is to me what sport is to some men…..

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