Friday 18 January 2013

Farage does well on QT. Crowther bombs on AQ

I have just finished listening to Any Questions on Radio 4 with Olly Letwin, Ben Bradshaw, Bronwen Maddox and EUKIP's chairman Steve Crowther. I thought Crowther started of quite well on the subject of the Algeria hostages. It was a lets all agree subject so it was a bit off a pushover as was the horse meat discussion. However when the subject of homosexual marriage came up the wheels came off.

Dimblebore then helpfully threw in the contradictory comments of Olly Neville on the matter. Olly was the chairman of Young Independence until he was sacked by Crowther for espousing non Farage approved libertarian views. Nigel always gets one of his placemen to do his dirty work. Crowther was thereafter well and truly dissected by Dimblebore. He dissembled, waffled, uhmd and erred and eventually had to confess he had sacked Olly. Poor Mr Crowther, he just wants to be an MEP and receive the EUs bounty like Nigel has these many years.

I have an inate sense of fair play that extends even to NF and Griffin. On Any Questions the previous evening the BBC had set Farage up outnumbered four to one by ardent slimy Europhiles. Just like they set up Griffin with a hostile audience of North London Jews in AQ some years. I did not think it was fair on either but even so I thought Farage did very well in putting the leave the EU case. His last point on did we want to be a sovereign nation or a Brussels province was the right one to make and transcended all the silly quasi economic arguments.

These two shows encapsulates Farage's EUKIP cult. He cannot have anyone of talent or independent views at the top of EUKIP less they surpass him. So he appoints placemen of little ability which works until they are exposed in public. This will happen more and more now EUKIP are doing so well in the polls.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally correct, Dr. Edmond. The problem with UKIP is that it is, and will remain for the time being, a personality cult for Nigel Farage alone. Fine for opinion polls but no good when you need decent candidates and activists on the ground. Someone recently asked him what he would do if he was PM. He said he didn't want the job!! And here lies the conundrum- either UKIP is a serious political party in which case it has to diversify away from NF's kitchen cabinet and become a genuine democratic party, or it is a single issue pressure group. In that case it could have spent it's time, effort and money far more effectively as a movement with a good spokesman without all the nonsense of a central party in the EU superstructure. He is an excellent orator. If only he left the day to day executive management and policy to a "rule of law" system instead of personal fiat, the party would thrive. Unfortunately if you stare in to the EU abyss too long, it stares back into you...

Eric Edmond said...

Anon, you put it very well. I do not think Farage is a great orator in the classic sense, Churchill, Kennedy, Martin Luther King etc. His set piece speeches are repetititive and dull. He is an excellent debater and sound bite man like Tony Blair which is politics today.

Yes he should let the party be run by its rules and let that build a team that can get us out of the EU.

Steve Harness said...

A tad unfair Eric. Nigel Farage has been exposed to the media for many years. Not so in the case of Steve Crowther and he may improve, or he will sink as is the way of it.
Yes UKIP do require more frontline spokesmen/women. Paul Nuttal has done well on QT and it would be good to see others given the chance. Hopefully not at the expense of being a party of professional, never worked, politicians from public schools.
NF may not be Churchill but compared to Cameron, Clegg and Milliband he is an outstanding speaker.

Eric Edmond said...

Steve,

Yes indeed Farage has hogged all the media slots for many years. When I was briefly on the NEC it was clear the BBC were only given Farage's mobile so all the appearance invites went to him. Not fair and not smart. Del Young would have been great for UKIP to put on.

I doubt if Nuttall would have done any better than Crowther on the Olly Neville question. The wheels would still have come off.

I remember listening Cameron's and Milliband's party conference speeches and they were miles better than the two or three conference speeches I have heard from Farage.

But modern politics is about sound bites and TV studio debate and Farage is very good at that, much better than Dave Or Ed.

I am acquainted with both Nuttall and Crowther and I don't think they are good enough , for grillings by Andrew Neil, Paxo, Humphries etc. I have watched them turn my old BoE oppo Matthew Hancock now a Business Dept minister inside out and Hancock is a smart boy.

EUKIP may be forced to turn to Neil Hamilton or even Mrs H for Farage back up!

Eric

Eric Edmond said...

Steve, Further to the above I thought I better look at Tony Butcher's forum and see what the sycophants are saying. These people are trolls hiding behind fake names. One is called SDP and the other C Leah Farquar. Pretending Crowther was very good as these trolls do is counter productive. You have to be objective and see and hear people for what they are. Anything else is delusional.

Eric

Anonymous said...

There are two big elephants in the British room and they are called Racism and Xenophobia. One can paint them in vivid colours or make them wear hats and pants, but they are still elephants.