I’m sensing, for the first time, an outraged @RCArmitage. I sorta like it, even if I don’t always get what he means. Someone will have to explain the first tweet to me. ( I know about Farage and the EU meeting — just not what @RCArmitage means.)
I’m sensing, for the first time, an outraged @RCArmitage. I sorta like it, even if I don’t always get what he means. Someone will have to explain the first tweet to me. ( I know about Farage and the EU meeting — just not what @RCArmitage means.)
Armitage Agonistes 
Nigel Farage has been a forerunner of the ‘Leave the EU’ movement & today he appeared in the European Parliament as a British Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He made a very gloating speech to a lot of booing from other MEPs. I’m guessing this is what RA means by ‘Dignity and diplomacy in defeat and also in Victory. Farrage is not an appropriate statesman for the UK’
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Yes, I see now, it is what he means. I was a little confused by the “victory part,” but now I get it.
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I took it that he is referring to the Brexiters victory in general, thus Farage and his party. Anyone who represents the people (anyone who holds a political office anywhere) is expected to exhibit dignity and diplomacy by us all, and most especially when things go wrong. Farage couldn’t even do that in what would have been his finest hour.
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I think his comment that he is not an appropriate statesman makes it more specific.
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I don’t know much about him, but my guess is that he was intentionally antagonistic. Did you see the expression on his puss when he sat down? What struck me most the applause (albeit very light) that some of statements generated. This should have been a “let’s work it out together” message. It wasn’t.
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Yes, exactly. A huge missed opportunity. And for someone who has spent half a lifetime in politics you would think that he’d be acutely sensitive to just how much this very moment for him was important. A horrible embarrassment to the people of the UK, but lucky for them that he’s showed his true colors. End of career cock up I think.
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Farage, who has led the charge for Britain to leave the EU for years, is a MEP and so was in the EU Parliament today making various statements and taking on the rest of Europe. He claimed before the event that he would be ‘statesmanlike’ but his behaviour was appalling and left most of us, on both sides of the In/Out divide, embarrassed and open-mouthed. Perhaps those used to listening to Trump would find nothing unusual in his remarks, but he insulted and gloated over those with whom the UK is hoping to make a sensible exit deal. He totally put his own desires for oneupmanship before the needs and the dignity of the country and I’m not surprised that RA is appalled.
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Perry, sorry I made a comment on this that I didn’t finish! plus I didn’t see your comment Jaydee – you put it so much more eloquently than I was trying to do …
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Nothing to be sorry about. Nice to see you back again.
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I think we both said it together, Essex Girl: Farage is an idiot who doesn’t understand the concept of graciousness in victory.
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Take it from me, and every single person I know – we all find Trump’s statements “unusual.” – Just not unusual for Trump. We have never had a serious candidate for political office, who got this far, who said such outrageous, baseless, factually incorrect, and personally cruel things on the National stage. The best I can say for Farage, is that what he said probably sounded better with a British accent than if Trump said the same thing. As Trump would say ” very, very bad – terrible – the worst – very terrible, everyone says it’s very bad. But thanks for putting the tweet in context.
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Perry, Thank you for the huge laugh. Yes, British accent sounds refined compared to Trump’s NYC accent.
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LOL. I have a New York accent of sorts, but I am capable of using words of more than three syllables, and I know more than 5 modifiers. Americans believe that British accents, including some dialects, are more refined than any American regional accent, whether NYC or elsewhere. ( and sexy – but not as sexy as a French or Italian accent) And please don’t remind me that Trump is from NY – It’s a huge cross to bear. I wasn’t thrilled that Bernie Sanders was from Brooklyn, either, but at least he can speak like he’s had some education ( even if he sounds exactly like Larry David)
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i can assure you that eejit does not sound refined 🙂 especially because he always seems to shout as he speaks… I really hope we’ll start seeing less of him on our screens soon, he irritates my eyes and ears
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Hillary’s voice grates on me, especially when she yells.
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I love the UK/Irish/Welsh accents and find them very sexy. I lived in NYC as a kid and every once in a while certain words come out with my accent.
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Accent or no Farage still sounded very unprofessional to me. He made his contempt clear and his insults were child-like.
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Agree, now that I’ve listened.
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ditto, i think RA and me had both just been watching the BBC news at 10 and just saw that eejit’s performance today in the EU parliament… not how any diplomat with 2 neurons would behave towards current and future political and economic partners, whatever the form of that partnership. Appalling.
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Maybe the good news is that even his own peope will try and dump him. He has no chance for a major role in Brexit, does he?
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I hope not, Perry. He is the leader of UKIP (UK Independence Party) whose sole purpose was to persuade the UK to leave the EU. As an MP for the EU (MEP) he has just done himself out of a job. He failed to win a seat in the British parliament in the last election and, in fact, UKIP has only one MP because we are not a country who leans heavily towards the far right. UKIP is about as extremist as we get in our political lives – we tend to vote for the more conventional slightly right or slightly left of centre and UKIP and Farage have been a bit of a laughing-stock for years. But, of course, he stepped forward when it came to the referendum although other leaders of the Leave campaign like Johnson disassociated themselves from him.
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I have question for you that I can’t seem to find a clear answer for, if you can help. I understand that this was Farage first time addressing the EU. Why was Farage there now specifically speaking as a representative at the EU parliament? Did the passing of the referendum give him some new authority or chance to speak? If Farage has been leader of the UKIP since 2010 (and is/was an MEP how long??) why only now was he speaking in that capacity?
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he’s been an MP in the EU Parliament for some years now, not with much activity of note than a few similar incidents of insulting colleagues or the EU institutions. He’s supposedly on a fishery commission, a cause he professed much attachment to during the campaign, but he’s only actually attended it once in all his time there. Sadly he’s part of the EU parliamentary group and until UK exits the EU formally he will be entitled to attend the sessions and make a nuisance of himself there. Here’s hoping this was his last outing…
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All signs seemed to point to him not speaking again, if one MEP’s response (and several articles) are anything to go by. I think it is interesting (read: unfortunate) that after all this time he chose such an approach in his very first time up.
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Not officially i would hope… his party has about 10-13% it will depend if there will be elections Him being so prominent everywhere is enough of an embarrassment
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About half an hour after Farage addressed the EU, someone tweeted me the video. For those of us used to Trump’s rhetoric and the mindless attacks and insults he spews at others, what came out of Farage’s mouth was certainly not unfamiliar in type and tone to that of Trump. It was was not full on Trump ugly, but it was still appalling. You could hear the gasps and open sounds of disgust in response throughout. I heard myself do it. Immediately I thought to myself that the UK may never be able to go back after the damage that has been done by this man in this moment. (Whether that is ever going to happen or is even possible remains to be seen, but it’s not looking good despite over 4 million signing a petition for another referendum.) After a week of Vocal Richard, his response did not surprise me. But it has been really great to see him be so.
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Agree about Richard. I think his passion and frustration, his willingness to really share opinions without deleting, is refreshing and admirable. Finally.
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i think it was always there, just didn’t hit the right circumstances in time and access to online resource to out 🙂 He’s here and it seems with a bit of time to spare and like everyone stuck on watching the news and reacting to it.
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Perry, I also like that Richard is being outspoken and forthright about something that is clearly very important to him. He doesn’t seem to care if anyone disagrees with him or if he is turning off fans. And as someone with international fans, he is in a position to educate people outside the UK. We non-Brits are learning a lot from Richard’s UK fans!
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Very true. And I like, too, even if sometimes I think the emotional tweets are less compelling than the factual ones.
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That’s our professional bias 😉 i bet for many followers the emotional ones are more relateable. I’ve gone to be being a newspaper junkie but i wonder how many fans have the patience to read through the various articles in detail… As for me i feel very much on the same wave length and it feel almost like a dialogue 🙂 Subject matter aside, it is nice 🙂
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LOL – I can’t subscribe to every periodical for obvious reasons – so I’ve been rotating among what I consider the best news sources. Frustrating to see an article on Twitter that I want to read and then being told that I have exhausted my articles for the month – or forever.
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i know the FT is a pain like that but i get enough from Guardian and the odd Indie and Telegraph here which are biased anyway 😉 and the NYT and WP are lucky free as far as i could tell, i defer to BBC for anything else, no more time LOL Been watching way too much, i am feeling saturation approaching esp since things locally have not progressed significantly, lots of chatter but no real news.
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The NYT gives you 10 free articles a month. With all that’s happening, I can go through that in a week &that means picking and choosing. I’ll probably break down and subscribe to the NY Times, finally. The days of having it delivered to my door daily are gone. Audible.com now has daily articles from it I can listen to – but not all the ones I want. Also, this is a time when I want to be reading British newspapers.
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The Signle Market remark is interesting. Doesn’t go well with the whole “let’s take back control of our country” attitude the Leave voters seem to be having, does it? There are thousands of rules and regulations the UK needs to abide by in order to have access to European Economic Area, including freedom of movement. It’s like the Leave camp wasn’t even listening when everyone and their mothers were telling them it’s not possible to “take back control” and have “close economic relations” with the EU at the same time.
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Right – It appears that each model they might adopt doesn’t change the real issues the Brexits thought they were addressing. (Those who thought of it at all.) Apparently some believe that UK is so special and important, that they will be able to negotiate around the regulations they don’t like – but all signs from the EU as of now, debunk that theory.
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exactly… i had the impulse more than once to tell some people ‘you’re not in the 1700s’… sadly we’ll all realise that soon enough. But for some Perry, and that is the true sadness, it is the case that they are already, as a lady put it the other day: so poor that there is no way it could get any worse… What people don’t realise of course is that dragging the rest of the economy down and damaging the financial systems will diminish the chances of trying to do something about the poorest as well 😦
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In the US, there are some circumstances n which the very poor do a little better ( get more benefit opportunities) than the not very, but still poor. It’s been a conundrum. Some families or individual earn just a little too much to benefit from some entitlement programs, while still being unable to have access to basic needs. So many studies have been done to show that in some cases, it actually doesn’t pay for a person to be employed – when one measures the low wages, taxes and salary deductions against the basic welfare, food benefits and health care benefits and housing assistance.
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same here, especially since Cameron’s ‘brilliantly’ thought out austerity measures :-S But it’s hit hard home now that something needs to be done round here if we want to move forward as a society, it is a real shame it had to come to this …. And having a shambles of a Labour party in too many years now is not helping 😦
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I should modify my comment, because I don’t believe that every state in the U.S. has as many benefit programs, or at the same financial level, as New York and some other progressive states. New York, for example, has a larger tax base and biggeer investment portfolio than poorer states, and a more liberal bent, so they are able to and willing to do , more.
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No, I don’t think we’re living in the past, Hariclea. The truth is, we are the fifth biggest economy in the world and the second biggest in the EU after Germany. Unlike tiny countries like Norway, we can negotiate from a position of strength. They were chatting on TV to the bosses of a couple of German businesses today who, like many others, sell a lot of their goods to the UK and who are keen that the EU does not raise tariffs because it will damage them badly. I think we shall have to wait and see. But, personally, I wish people would cheer up a bit. Too many enjoy end of the world scenarios or even just a little gleeful schadenfreude. I don’t believe that it’s melt down for the UK by a long, long shot: given time, it will all work through to at least a reasonable conclusion – we’ll get a decent PM voted in, the dust will settle and the markets will steady. Am I the only one who thinks this?
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We’re not voting for a PM, the Tories will do so in their due time. Unless parliament decides for general elections which may not be wise either way as could only increase turmoil. I don’t feel myself in any way represented so far by either side and as yet to hear anyone talk practical sense and plans that give me
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Sorry early finger slip. Meant to say have not yet heard anything to assure me that they have a plan and know the direction at least they want to go in never mind understand the detail. So far the only trustworthy institution has proven to be the Bank of England who was both prepared and duly acted accordingly to counteract short term volatility. Medium and long term consequences are yet to be known. Until negotiations start and while they will be ongoing there is an unavoidable level of uncertainty which slows down economic activity. There are no buts about it, simply because people act prudently. How much business we loose due to uncertainty will depend on how quickly we get our shit together and start acting professionally and also communicate openly about plans. At the moment a slew of my friends see their jobs under threat due to the possibility of business moving. I’m probably more sceptical than average but i believe facts and experts rather than politicians and the latter only when they talk detailed plans and act clearly. Until then i remain anxious. Britain is big but it is so in service areas and creative industries and these are volatile and very dependent on international cooperation.
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