But this sort of scrutiny of the evidence by independent professionals was not at all Farage’s preferred solution, it transpired.
….
Farage, the public school educated son of a stockbroker, Guy Justus Oscar Farage, has often played this card: presentation of himself as a tribune for the little man.
…
Perhaps. Much, though, depends on whether Farage, an undoubtedly skilled communicator, can convince the British public, and not just those in Clacton, that this is not just a cynical ploy.
Just the news, straight news, eh?
Huh Dulwich College
South London comp.
Oi Oi, my brother in law taught him there.
Well, Ok…..
I discovered many years ago, that if one met an old Emmanuelian ( Wandsworth public school for non locals ) it was guaranteed to annoy them if you asked if they knew Michael Aspel.
Hmmm.. So it’s perfectly OK to trigger a by-election, including the whole shebang media circus, in a “safe” seat to do a switcheroo to backstab the current PM when you’re Labour.
But not when anyone else uses the same trick, incidentally *not* using up one of the few “thankyou parking spots” for MP’s “retiring” for this purpose, because the MP stands himself..
“Why exactly should the voters of Clacton have the moral authority to decide that Nigel Farage is fit to be a potential leader of the country?” – asks the idiotic Janet Daley in the DT.
That’s democracy, love.
The voters of Makersfield have just done the same with someone also allegedly involved with dubious money. Not a peep about that.
Translating Janet Daley: The Little People are not competent to make important decisions and should not be allowed – I mean just look at what happened when they were “allowed” to decide in or out of the EU, that’s proof it should be left to the self-appointed intellectuals and elite, like me, to make decisions. The Little People should just shut up and do as their betters tell them.
The people of Clacton-on-sea have every right to vote for Nigel to represent them. It’s the King who makes him Prime minister if Reform should ever get to that stage. And it’s the elected members of the Reform party who decide he commands a majority.
Janet Daley used to be a good read but has gone down the pan in the last few years. She can piss off back to the States.
No they do not have any authority to decide that.
They *are* allowed to decide who they elect as their MP.
They do, because any MP might become PM. PM is simply the MP who the Monarch thinks can command a majority. Burnham is the only senior Labour member who, if an MP, could command a majority, which is why we had the by-election farrago to make him one. In voting for Burnham the Makersfield electorate was electing the next PM, and knew it.
There’s only one Makerfield.
The MP or member of the HoL
Not just the Guardian but all the MSM are down on Farage’s by-election stratagem. They seem to think that Farage’s irritation at investigations into his personal finances mean he’s objecting to press freedom, when he’s actually objecting to the bias of the investigations, not the investigations as such. And, having watched Farage’s video statement twice, I see no evidence of petulance or anger that would make him unsuitable to be PM, as the MSM suggests…
“Not just those in Clacton”.
Summarily dismissing a whole constituency of voters as unrepresentative of “the British public”, because they live in [superior, pitying smile] Clacton..
People who’ve never been to Clacton, probably couldn’t find it on a map and are too ignorant to call it by its full name.
(I lived there in the sixties. Teenage me didn’t find it a dump. Jaywick though…)
And then there are the voters in Clacton who don’t support Reform. What if they aspire to getting a Labour, Tory or Green MP? They don’t get that option because of the reprehensible behaviour of those parties.
“… independent professionals…”
Where do we find members of this species these days in any area from science to politics?
Among the ranks of the retired.
I too was going to comment.
I think ‘independent professionals’ is anyone who agrees with them. An appeal to authority without identifying said authority. A variation of argumentum ad verecundiam.
See also: “experts.”
So, is Farage ending up in a runoff with Count Binface an indicator of his leadership and strategy skills?
Could Count Binface win? Should he?
What is The Stig doing these days?
The Clacton seat? Time to turn it over to our tame economics professor. Some say he invented quantum economics all by himself and that he can easily manage your money as soon as he can grab it. All we know is he’s called the Spud.