Cycling UK Forum

661-Pete wrote:On a more serious note, this is what a brex**iteer has just spouted forth:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-comments
323 men, almost all Argentinian conscripts, were killed on the Belgrano. Not something to pass lightly over!

And this is an elected MEP of the Brex**it party speaking. Not some **** in a pub holding forth after too many pints...

From the linked article:-

......Robert Rowland, a hedge fund manager......

Why am I not surprised,he'd probably sell his own mother into slavery to make a few quid.Scum is a word too good to use as a description of such animals

Pastychomper wrote:

georgew wrote:... the number of appearances of UKIP members and of Farage on flagship programmes such as Question Time is a disgrace.
...

Maybe that's why both sides think the BBC is biased against them: remainers see Farage as a supporter of brexit, leavers see him as an embarrassment.

I don't see Farage as an embarrassment. He is a great man and a very effective politician. He is the reason we had our people's vote in 2016 and the reason why the Tory government is gritting its teeth and pushing through Brexit despite not really wanting to. Also, he is the ideal person to head our biggest group of MEPs as we end our EU membership.

andrec wrote:

Pastychomper wrote:

georgew wrote:... the number of appearances of UKIP members and of Farage on flagship programmes such as Question Time is a disgrace.
...

Maybe that's why both sides think the BBC is biased against them: remainers see Farage as a supporter of brexit, leavers see him as an embarrassment.

I don't see Farage as an embarrassment. He is a great man and a very effective politician. He is the reason we had our people's vote in 2016 and the reason why the Tory government is gritting its teeth and pushing through Brexit despite not really wanting to. Also, he is the ideal person to head our biggest group of MEPs as we end our EU membership.

shouldnt that post really be here?
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=62806

mercalia wrote:

andrec wrote:I don't see Farage as an embarrassment. He is a great man and a very effective politician. He is the reason we had our people's vote in 2016 and the reason why the Tory government is gritting its teeth and pushing through Brexit despite not really wanting to. Also, he is the ideal person to head our biggest group of MEPs as we end our EU membership.

shouldnt that post really be here?
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=62806

To be fair he did a sterling job representing our fisheries in Brussels...

He's your classic opinionated bar room bore - or possibly taxi driver.
Ask him what he thinks about cyclists.

andrec wrote:I don't see Farage as an embarrassment.

He is a great man

It gets worse

and a very effective politician

If you equate "effective politician" with being an effective liar you're right!

Also, he is the ideal person to head our biggest group of MEPs as we end our EU membership.

Oh please do stop it

I have to laugh if I didn't I'd probably cry,the man is a liability to this country,his only interest is in himself.
He's an alround git of the lowest order!

YVMV mine won't

To be clear, I am not a fan of Farage and have never come even close to voting for either of his parties. But I do think his numerous appearances on Question Time are completely justified by the fact that his end of the political spectrum has a lot of support but very few faces to put forward. Whereas Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have a much wider range of faces that come over well on TV. Not having Farage on the show so often would work out as shutting his party out of the debate, which isn't a wise thing to do. And add to that the fact that if he and his views aren't up to scratch, his weaknesses are exposed on TV for all to see.

The single biggest economic shock immediately after the referendum has been an unprecedented drop in the value of the pound. On referendum night, the pound fell from a high of $1.50 to $1.33. This is the single biggest drop in the daily exchange rate since the 1970s among the four major currencies of the world. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/ ... ted-pound/

'Firstly, the UK’s GDP growth has slowed down'

'Sterling has depreciated and increased costs'

'The rise in the price of imports, as a result of the sterling depreciation, has raised the costs of intermediate inputs, which are needed by businesses'

'Purchasing power has gone down. On average, real wages have been flat since the referendum'

'Both inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) have dropped since the referendum'

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/ ... ted-pound/



'After opening last week at the level of 1.2528, GBP/USD slipped lower and even touched on a 2-year-low of 1.2445 near the middle of the week...…….... ' https://www.currencynews.co.uk/forecast ... nties.html

A weak pound has significant effects on us all

stu1102 wrote:T This is the single biggest drop in the daily exchange rate since the 1970s among the four major currencies of the world.

No it isn't. There was a far bigger pound/dollar drop in 2008. I've not looked at other currencies.

pwa wrote:To be clear, I am not a fan of Farage and have never come even close to voting for either of his parties. But I do think his numerous appearances on Question Time are completely justified by the fact that his end of the political spectrum has a lot of support but very few faces to put forward. Whereas Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have a much wider range of faces that come over well on TV. Not having Farage on the show so often would work out as shutting his party out of the debate, which isn't a wise thing to do. And add to that the fact that if he and his views aren't up to scratch, his weaknesses are exposed on TV for all to see.

Just out of interest what is "his end"?

Seems to me Farage skirts the "what is acceptable" and emboldened he'd show himself to be your standard racist, homophobic, sexist bar propping drunk.
IME I find if you scratch the surface an awful lot of people are just like him - as evidenced by some of the interviews after the referendum and subsequent rises in such behaviour.

But should we really give such people a voice? Just because a view is popular doesn't mean it should have a voice, having a voice normalises such things and after all it's one thing we whine about continually on here the "normalisation" of anti-cycling views.
Perhaps it's best if we don't let such views become normalised in the first place?

If you want to give brexit a voice I'm sure there were better, more sensible people out there with realist viewpoints instead of the barrage of utter nonsense Farage was allowed to both spout and get away with.

andrec wrote:

Pastychomper wrote:

georgew wrote:... the number of appearances of UKIP members and of Farage on flagship programmes such as Question Time is a disgrace.
...

Maybe that's why both sides think the BBC is biased against them: remainers see Farage as a supporter of brexit, leavers see him as an embarrassment.

I don't see Farage as an embarrassment. He is a great man and a very effective politician. He is the reason we had our people's vote in 2016 and the reason why the Tory government is gritting its teeth and pushing through Brexit despite not really wanting to. Also, he is the ideal person to head our biggest group of MEPs as we end our EU membership.

REally, let's look at his credentials?

1. He fiddles his expenses
2. He is under investigation at present for further financial irregularity
3. He is being "kept" by a financial sponsor that he refuses to name
4. He totally failed the fishing community with his performance onthe Fisheries Committee
5. He has the lowest attendance rate of any MEP (except one)
6. He has the worst voting record of any MEP
7. He refuses to register the Brexit "party" as a political entity to avoid financial scrutiny something else causing concern with the Electoral Commission)
8. He refuses to publish a manifesto for his "party" all we actually know is that he wants a "no deal Brexit" and an insurance-based NHS (see item 2)


I am afraid that I have a completely different opinion of what makes an "effective politician" or "great man" (Although I must admit when it comes to corruption and filling yo of the worst kindur own pockets at the taxpayer's expense, he is up there with the "greatest")

He is a rabble-rouser who is in this for his own self-interest and financial gain.

Yes agreed BUT what we can say the pound is now trading at its lowest level since 1994, historically, the British Pound reached an all time high of 2.86 in December of 1957 and a record low of 1.05 in February of 1985 and since the referendum has fallen from its value 1.50 on the night of the referendum to its current trading level of 1.25

pwa wrote:To be clear, I am not a fan of Farage and have never come even close to voting for either of his parties. But I do think his numerous appearances on Question Time are completely justified by the fact that his end of the political spectrum has a lot of support but very few faces to put forward. Whereas Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have a much wider range of faces that come over well on TV. Not having Farage on the show so often would work out as shutting his party out of the debate, which isn't a wise thing to do. And add to that the fact that if he and his views aren't up to scratch, his weaknesses are exposed on TV for all to see.

Which they have been everytime I watch him on QT,no figures no sound argumentands that stand up to scrutiny,all bluster and loud mouth talking or even shouting over anyone who makes the opposing POV.The last time he was on he was a disgrace trying to bully and shout down Anna Soubry.
The man is an utter disgrace!

kwackers wrote:

pwa wrote:To be clear, I am not a fan of Farage and have never come even close to voting for either of his parties. But I do think his numerous appearances on Question Time are completely justified by the fact that his end of the political spectrum has a lot of support but very few faces to put forward. Whereas Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have a much wider range of faces that come over well on TV. Not having Farage on the show so often would work out as shutting his party out of the debate, which isn't a wise thing to do. And add to that the fact that if he and his views aren't up to scratch, his weaknesses are exposed on TV for all to see.

Just out of interest what is "his end"?

Seems to me Farage skirts the "what is acceptable" and emboldened he'd show himself to be your standard racist, homophobic, sexist bar propping drunk.
IME I find if you scratch the surface an awful lot of people are just like him - as evidenced by some of the interviews after the referendum and subsequent rises in such behaviour.

But should we really give such people a voice? Just because a view is popular doesn't mean it should have a voice, having a voice normalises such things and after all it's one thing we whine about continually on here the "normalisation" of anti-cycling views.
Perhaps it's best if we don't let such views become normalised in the first place?

If you want to give brexit a voice I'm sure there were better, more sensible people out there with realist viewpoints instead of the barrage of utter nonsense Farage was allowed to both spout and get away with.

Your suspicions about what Farage may be like beneath the skin could be correct, but as long as he plays by the rules and doesn't give voice to overt racism etc he must be allowed to present his views. The alternative is a shut down society where only a narrow range of opinion is allowed to be expressed and anything outside that is suppressed. I'd not want to live in that sort of society.

reohn2 wrote:Which they have been everytime I watch him on QT,no figures no sound argumentands that stand up to scrutiny,all bluster and loud mouth talking or even shouting over anyone who makes the opposing POV.The last time he was on he was a disgrace trying to bully and shout down Anna Soubry.
The man is an utter disgrace!

Which shows that putting him on QT, alongside people with other strands of opinion, allows viewers to make up their own minds. As it should be.

The Green Party at least have one MP and they don't get anything like the coverage of Ukip and Farage.

Farage's message is so consistently negative.

I do so wish he could paint a picture of his "sunlit uplands" in a bit more detail so we could all have a decent shot at offering critique.

His attendance in the EU parliament is shamful.
If you hate something them you don't draw its considerable salary and benefits?
It is a point of moral principle.

Nor do you attend and turn your backs and then state you have been "enslaved" (Widdecombe), such unfounded rubbish.

What we all stand to lose as EU citizens is never mentioned.