4 May 2013

The politics of fear



'I've known Nigel Farage for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Nigel devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Nigel's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Nigel's problem is that he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Nigel Farage is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and British values and British character. You scream about patriotism and you tell them, who's to blame for their lot in life, and you go on television and blame the immigrants, the welfare dependents and the scroungers. You blame them for all the ills of the world and that is how you get elected. And then you carry on just as Cameron and Clegg have done for the past 3 years and Brown and Blair before them and Major before them and right back to Thatcher who got us into this appalling mess.'

This is an updated version of 'President Shepherd's' speech from the 1995 movie 'An American President' - with apologies to Aaron Sorkin