Question Time (Brand -v- Farage)

[threegee]

If you didn't catch it this particular one is probably worth the 59 minutes and 34 seconds of your life.  You've probably worked out already that the QT audience isn't at all representative of the general population.  That's because a fair proportion is "invited" by the liberal leftie elitists at the Beeb, and doesn't go through the normal ticketing process. This "invited" section - all in the interests of political balance and making the program more interesting - is seated separately from the plebs in order to distribute them around the hall.  The master plan then involves producers carefully noting where these interesting people are and cluing-up Dimbelby before the start of the recording.  He's thus able to pick contributors with "random" opinions quite "randomly".

 

Normally this device produces the approximately desired result for the opinion formers at the Beeb. On the Brand program last night this broke down badly.  Brand's hand-picked supporters went way over the top, and the good people of Kent didn't just sit there and take it.  One extra-vocal Brandite (who coincidentally was seen spouting right next to Brand in Downing Street on a C4 report last week) was dressed-down by a truly random member of the audience, and in no uncertain terms.  Brand himself became uncharacteristically quiet after being faced with the logical consequences of what he was saying, and being offered the possibility by Farage of putting his views up to public scrutiny at an election.  By contrast Farage didn't indulge in personal attacks and restricted his remarks to both the logical absurdity of Brand's statements, and those of the regular party hacks. Apart from that the only person to shed any light on any of the questions was Camilla Cavendish of the Sunday Times - she was certainly worth her fee.

 

Another own goal for the superficial Brand, and a few thousand more recruits to "the people's army" seems to be the general impression.

[Tonyp]

Threegee!!! You do mean dads army don't you,I'll not say banker as that may upset you if the commodity broker &his right wing Tories

Get in that wouldn't happen anyway he might try & get the migrants out but he would defiantly destroy the health service I no it's in a pretty bad state now but it wouldn't exist if they got in so I hope you've still got your skills at making bogeys from old pram wheels

Cos they'd be your next ambulance service lol

[threegee]

Tony, what made Dad's Army so endearing is that - however feeble their efforts - they really BELIEVED in their country, and in its civilised values and general compassion. They didn't need a state apparatchik to tell them about caring for their fellow citizens.  You also knew that if things came to the crunch, however feeble and comedic their individual efforts, as a combined force they'd be formidable opposition for any dictator.  They wouldn't cave in like our continental cousins did.

 

How do you square your belief that "he would defiantly destroy the health service" with the reality of Ukip policy?  You clearly weren't listening to QT or you'd know that Ukip is the least interventionist of the parties in letting the doctors get on with running the service without the political baggage.  Miliband has told supporters that he wants to "weaponise the health service", by which he means he wants to use it for his narrow self-serving political purposes.  The party that has it withering under £300BN+ of Private Finance Initiative debt, for Gordon's short-term political gain, wants us to believe that we should fear a tiny percentage of the service continuing to be being farmed out to whoever can provide the best service for the available cash.  That £300BN PFI produced only around £50BN of new hospital building!  The £250BN difference is what Labour mismanagement robbed the NHS of!  Put that into the context of the £2BN that Labour proposes to steal from many asset rich but cash poor old people - those who happen to be living in the wrong place - in order to inject much needed cash into the NHS.  Yes, the so-called "Mansion Tax" is a joke at the expense of the vulnerable; the stolen cash will disappear into the black hole that is ongoing mismanagement of a vital national resource!

 

Labour's "Privatise the Health Service" is just another of those sound-bite labels that has absolutely no meaning, but is intended to frighten vulnerable people into voting for a manipulative liberal elite who believe they have a divine right to rule!  Labour used private companies extensively to plug Health Service deficiencies when it was in power, and will continue to do the same if re-elected.  Other parties will do just the same (when faced with reality in those many areas where the NHS simply can't cope).  All the rest is just political BS of the worst kind; the kind intended to frighten vulnerable people into voting against their own best interests!

 

In my book a party that blatantly lies and manipulates in order to gain power, and whose management record of our country is utterly appalling (every one of Labour's administrations ends in economic disaster - ultimately wished on the most vulnerable) is worse than one which unpretentiously advocates trickle-down economics through the class system.  However, a plague on all their houses; we need fundamental change in this country, and just at this moment only Ukip can deliver that!  If you are not an "I'm all right Jack, pull the ladder up, socialist" you should be supporting the millions of decent people who now see that we need to reject the whole of the LibLabCon alliance, and restore some true democracy to our country.  Stopping here, before I get back to Dad's Army!

[tomtom]

I applaud you Threegee for your knowledge and eloquence - a few more like you around would make society a nicer place in which to live - and incidentally, with a vested interest, God help us all if Milliband ever gets the 'top job' and God help the NHS.

[doglover]

I thought Farage held his own. he didn't lower himself to the barrage he encountered he kept on with his opinion which I agreed with. Which is called having your own opinion which in this country is becoming not allowed.

[mercuryg]

I have one small part of your comment that I vehemently disagree with, Threegee, and it's this:

 

"If you didn't catch it this particular one is probably worth the 59 minutes and 34 seconds of your life."

 

No, it's not. Not even probably. It was a complete waste of what used to be an excellent programme.

[Tonyp]

I applaud you Threegee for your knowledge and eloquence - a few more like you around would make society a nicer place in which to live - and incidentally, with a vested interest, God help us all if Milliband ever gets the 'top job' and God help the NHS.

You sure he's just writing & saying what he's heard through the grapevine

[mercuryg]

Some enjoyable stuff from 3G here, well written and clearly put, but some issues:

 

"If you are not an "I'm all right Jack, pull the ladder up, socialist" you should be supporting the millions of decent people who now see that we need to reject the whole of the LibLabCon alliance, and restore some true democracy to our country."

 

Quite frankly, and with respect, that's not for you - or me - to say. Because Tony, for example, has differing views to you and I does not mean we have the right to tell him he's wrong. The above is precisely the sort of bandwagon electioneering, the shout above everyone else type favoured by Mr Brand et al, that is not conducive to anything productive. Democracy, after all, is not about everyone having the same ideas; 'you can't please all of the people, all of the time' applies to democracy in no small fashion. People do not like to be told that someone knows better than them, which is how the above comment comes across. It jarred with me instantly, and I'm sure with some others. I couldn't agree more that something is very wrong in the UK political balance of power at the moment, but it takes more than an 'I know better than you' assertion to get the  ball rolling.

 

Further:

 

"...we need fundamental change in this country, and just at this moment only Ukip can deliver that!"

 

I remain far from convinced. In fact, not even close to beginning to be convinced. From what I can see, having read, listened to and digested the UKIP approach, they have created what they believe to be a 'people's manifesto'; by that, I mean they've read the Daily Mail opinion page and concentrated upon 'what the people want'. I hear it said often that they are 'saying what the people want to say'; you could apply that to the BNP if you took the right cross section. Their policies concentrate far too much on the likes of immigration, which is far from the biggest problem the country faces at the moment. Yet, there it is, at the top of the policies list, 'controlling our borders' etc. I could go on, but my point is that this is a party, from my point of view, that is concocting a campaign based on offering people something that they cannot actually provide. I remain unconvinced that they would perform any better than the current bag of....

[threegee]

I have one small part of your comment that I vehemently disagree with, Threegee, and it's this:

 

"If you didn't catch it this particular one is probably worth the 59 minutes and 34 seconds of your life."

 

No, it's not. Not even probably. It was a complete waste of what used to be an excellent programme.

 

Ah, you spotted the probably!

 

Did you spot the "I'm coming for you Farage..." threat from the invited Socialist Worker's Party activist when Brand was faltering under direct audience questioning?  The Beeb did, so they'll be inviting her back quite soon.

[threegee]

...

Quite frankly, and with respect, that's not for you - or me - to say. Because Tony, for example, has differing views to you and I does not mean we have the right to tell him he's wrong. The above is precisely the sort of bandwagon electioneering, the shout above everyone else type favoured by Mr Brand et al, that is not conducive to anything productive. Democracy, after all, is not about everyone having the same ideas; 'you can't please all of the people, all of the time' applies to democracy in no small fashion. People do not like to be told that someone knows better than them, which is how the above comment comes across. It jarred with me instantly, and I'm sure with some others. I couldn't agree more that something is very wrong in the UK political balance of power at the moment, but it takes more than an 'I know better than you' assertion to get the  ball rolling. ...

Actually, at core I don't think Tony has views that vastly differ from me. He believes in solidarity, and well.. class war, for want of a better term. I'm simply appealing to him to broaden his solidarity a little, and to see the class war in the modern context, and not the context of fifty or one hundred years ago.

Tribal support of the present-day Labour Party is entirely illogical for trade union members. The Labour Party we all knew was dead set against the EEC. In their book the "Common Market" was a device of the bosses to force wages down. Now that these traditional Labour beliefs have some meat on the bone we see a modern Labour party standing on its head, and being more Tory than the Tories could ever have imagined. Miliband & Co go out of their way to avoid discussing the matter. They draw on a stock of carefully rehearsed tactics to avoid EU related questions. I really want to hear how Tony and other trades unionists think about this.

 

Further:

 

"...we need fundamental change in this country, and just at this moment only Ukip can deliver that!"

 

I remain far from convinced. In fact, not even close to beginning to be convinced. From what I can see, having read, listened to and digested the UKIP approach, they have created what they believe to be a 'people's manifesto'; by that, I mean they've read the Daily Mail opinion page and concentrated upon 'what the people want'. I hear it said often that they are 'saying what the people want to say'; you could apply that to the BNP if you took the right cross section. Their policies concentrate far too much on the likes of immigration, which is far from the biggest problem the country faces at the moment. Yet, there it is, at the top of the policies list, 'controlling our borders' etc. I could go on, but my point is that this is a party, from my point of view, that is concocting a campaign based on offering people something that they cannot actually provide. I remain unconvinced that they would perform any better than the current bag of....

You mean you aren't convinced that Ukip is the way to a solution to "something is very wrong in the UK political balance of power at the moment"?  Well spotted - Ukip does represent the majority view of its members (many of whom also contribute to the popular press).  Pretty revolutionary having a party where the grass roots members discuss and decide on policy, and hand it off to their representatives to put before the electorate. Let's call this entirely new process representative democracy.

Joking aside I'd love to hear from you why these populist policies "cannot actually" be provided? The EU is a huge hidden drag on the possible. If you proceed from the hide-bound position of the establishment parties that's surely true - even debate about the possibilities is rapidly shut down. Sure, there will be mistakes and even mass delusion at times, but those mistakes will (once again) be owned by the voters. They won't be the mistakes of a manipulative elite who's sole intent is staying in power, and padding out their pensions with euro non-jobs.  The blame game won't be eliminated, but it will become a lot more acceptable to a re-empowered electorate.

 

Farage is keen on saying that there are two types of politicians: ones who take up politics to be something, and those (rarer ones) who become politicians to do something. The ones I see in Ukip at the moment are (almost) exclusively the rarer kind.  At this stage of desperation and dis-empowerment that alone is worth a vote!

[Orloff]

Hear Hear 3G

[mercuryg]

"The ones I see in Ukip at the moment are (almost) exclusively the rarer kind."

 

This is where I become wary (and why I am wary of UKIP). It will take a lot of convincing, for me, to truly believe ANY politician at that level is in it for anything other than personal gain. As for why the policies can't be brought to bear: the problem I have is that UKIP is promising a number of attractive and enticing moves (attractive and enticing to those who believe the popular press which is keen on bandwagons that sell papers - 'they're coming here, taking our jobs' etc) which, in turn, produces votes. Great, but how do you follow through on leaving the EU, for example? Do people actually believe it's that simple? I'm sure you don't, as you display more than a touch of intelligence. Major changes, such as those promised, take time: people these days simply do not understand the concept of waiting a long time for something to happen.

[Tonyp]

The thing is with Farages cronies the undercurrents are a stirring,but now there blaming them on strong painkillers & that modern word for cop out STRESS !!!!!!!!!!!! LOL it's amazing what you can get away with using that word I think it's the new IF.....