Like Frank Davis, I too watched Round 2 of Clegg vs Farage on BBC iplayer, seeing as I don’t pay the TV tax. I mention Frank, because I left a long comment on his blog that I thought I would make into a post here. As he says,
The battle was between two visions. On the one hand there was Farage saying that the British should govern Britain, and on the other hand there was Clegg saying that we had to find “strength in numbers” by being a member of the “world’s largest economy”.
Clegg was almost unbearable and spoke just like the very worst internet trolls type. Always banging on about “turning the clock back”. Progressives assume that conservatives think there was some bygone “Golden Age” to which we can simply go back. There was indeed a golden age for those who profited from the Empire. It gave us full employment (mainly slave labour) and Glasgow, where I come from, was transformed through trading with the Empire into a magnificent city, much of which was still evident when I last visited in 2006, but one-by-one, those fine-looking 19th century – and earlier – buildings are being replaced by monstrous carbuncles: proof that modern isn’t always better. Far from it.
There still is a golden age for the elites, but that has always been the case throughout history. The rest of us have always struggled. There was no golden age for us, but I think that a few decades ago was comparatively golden compared to today. Like Frank says, you could have a drink and a smoke in a pub (especially welcome after a hard day’s work). You didn’t have to fear for what you say. You could employ someone on merit and sack them if they were useless (I speak as a small businessman; we have been hammered by regulations). Education was better. I received a grant to go to college to study for a degree; there were no tuition fees and travelling expenses were also paid to me, despite both parents working. People felt like they had freedom and some sort of say.
And for Clegg to claim people are more compassionate now was just astonishing. The smoking ban Frank cited is a good example of why that is not true as are the shocking failings and some of the deliberate policies of the NHS, but just the fact that decades of divide and rule politics have been in play to make one group despise another on just about every possible subject is proof that he lied. Millions of immigrants have been let in to change the country and ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’ (admitted by Labour, but now rubbing their own voters’ noses in it too through low-paid immigrant workers and schools where English is a minority language). And ridiculous ‘equality’ measures like same-sex ‘marriage’ and the whole sexuality thing, like ex-KGB subversion agent Yuri Bezmenov said, is to weaken us for a takeover.
Once upon a time, the USSR was aiming to take us, now it’s a totally unified EU leading to total global governance and the same KGB mindset has been at work for a long time with the Fabians and branching out into Common Purpose and thousands of other fake charities spreading disinformation and creating fake grassroots support. If you feel like nobody’s listening to you, that is why.
Another of Clegg’s lies was to deny the EU had plans for its own military and tried to make a monkey out of Farage for suggesting it, yet in December, we learned that,
David Cameron has blocked plans for European Union owned military forces and told a summit of Europe’s leaders that Nato is the “bedrock” of defence in Europe.
The Prime Minister has told a Brussels summit that there can be no question of British support for proposals from Baroness Ashton and the European Commission for the EU to run its own military.
I was glad when the hour was finished and left wondering how Clegg has lived so long without being strangled or without needing annual surgery for nose-reductions..
I know many of these top political clowns must be paid off or compromised, but Clegg seems to really believe that the country would grind to a halt were we to become independent again, despite the two main countries in W. Europe outside the EU, Norway and Switzerland, being the two richest countries on earth based on personal wealth and I see also according to the Legatum Prosperity Index, which is.
an annual ranking, developed by the Legatum Institute, of 142 countries. The ranking is based on a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth and quality of life.
The Swiss have so much freedom, they have referenda all the time and gun ownership is big time and it’s a very safe country, whereas we can be in trouble for being found in possession of a penknife, something every schoolboy used to carry when I was growing up.
Maybe by ‘more compassionate’ Clegg meant that the government is more compassionate because all their nannying shows how much they care about us!!
And then there’s his fairly constant insinuations that Farage is a liar, by, for example, claiming that Farage said that 465 million people are going to move here and leave the Continent empty and comparing it to 5 million Scots moving to Orpington or some such town. Someone must feed him this embarrassingly ridiculous stuff in briefings. Surely?
More optimistic than I, Frank wrote,
Afterwards I wondered whether I’d witnessed a debate in which the europhile establishment for once lost decisively, and in which the next big battle was clearly framed to be between the people and the political establishment. These debates have been watched very closely, because they have been frank and open debates between two very different visions for Britain. I think that the pro-European political establishment must now be beginning to panic – and not just in Britain, but everywhere else on the European mainland.
More people have to wake up before it’s too late. Pure idiocy like I witnessed from Clegg can do no harm at all. No wonder Cameron and Miliband are too fearful to debate.