A Screech at the Radio
Christ alone knows what the neighbours are thinking. For about the tenth time, I scream at the radio. The venom and the message are the same: “You don’t speak for me, you fucking moron.” It’s not nuanced, not balanced, but that’s what you get from Nigel Farage. Well, not him per se, but yet another of his jubilant fans, crowing like the local elections are a rerun of Brexit. And apparently, we just have to get over it.
The Harmless Eccentric: A Nostalgic View
Now, there was a time when I regarded Mr Farage as nothing more than a harmless eccentric. His pint-waving, effervescent antics at photocalls were a press photographer’s gift. Just a jolly old buffoon with ideas that no one could ever take seriously—could they? A bit like some chap called Boris Johnson.
Just a useful idiot who could always be relied on to deliver humor at a tedious photocall. As a picture editor, that was gold. You could almost hear the silence as Fleet Street held its breath when, in 2010, a snap on the wires announced that a light aircraft with a pro-UKIP banner attached had crashed with him onboard. Even hard-nosed pundits willed him back to health. The irony: almost hoist by his own petard.
Farage, the Undying Opportunist
Even now, I recall the genuine waves of worry and sympathy that rippled through the press and out to the proles. I even expressed such concerns, fearful that we would lose this cheery, over-the-top chappy. After all, what had we to fear from such a comical character? If such an accident happened today, I’m not sure it would elicit the same sympathetic response from the press.
Farage survived and, indeed, grew stronger in so many ways—displaying almost Trumpian superpowers when it comes to self-publicity. That day in Clacton, when he got covered in banana milkshake again—an act that more or less guaranteed acres of newsprint, endless loops of the hilarious stunt on TV, and probably a zillion shares, likes, and reposts on social media. It couldn’t have been more successful if it had been scripted.
A Catalyst for Chaos
Farage is a disastrous disrupter and artful opportunist, so even as he got elected as an MP, that act of dairy intolerance upped his profile in a way that no party political broadcast ever could. Granted, it’s not Triumph of the Will, but it’s just as effective for today’s 30-second attention-span audience. Like Hitler, scripted by Chaplin.
So, love or loathe him; history has shown that you underestimate this man at your peril. He is a political Pied Piper. The platinum of politics—a catalyst for change, but never in a good way. And unlike any catalytic converter, where I am concerned, his emissions will always remain toxic.
The Inevitable Future
But I knew he would win long before that milkshake hit the mark.
I also think he’s going to be our next PM. My God, I hope and pray I’m wrong. I hate being right. I was right about Brexit, even when they called me mad. I was right about Trump (first and second term). And, heaven forbid, I’m going to be right about Farage. For Christ’s sake, what is it about the right?
I’m putting this down in writing while I still have the chance. I, for one, do not welcome my comedy overlord. So that when the time comes, and the secret police are banging at my door, at least I’ll have fired a warning shot before they drag me off into the night. If you think that sounds like paranoia, take a look over the pond at Farge’s hero, Trump; how long before he’s putting those in media who challenge his view of the world in prison?
“I also think he’s going to be our next PM”
The Lurching Political Landscape
Left right. Right Left. Like a drunken politician wobbling down the road looking for a fight, the parties seem to lurch one way or another. When Ed Miliband’s Labour Party lost the 2015 General Election and Jeremy Corbyn took the helm, the party lurched to the left.
Regardless of how you felt about Corbyn, you could not argue with the direction of travel. The party had moved to the left. And the electorate found that unelectable. Fast-forward to today, and look at the trail of destruction that the turn of the tiller caused.
The Rightward Shift
I fear that now the Tories have been annihilated, Farage swoops in like some angry Asian hornet and devours the whole party. And history will repeat itself—only with a shift to the right. But that’s how democracy works, and that’s the baked-in problem with our cyclical system: it penalises long-term vision.
Instead of living in the moment, delivering sound bites or manufacturing photo opportunities, a stable future needs the soil of stability and continuity in which to root and flourish. Instead, it’s a barren nightmare landscape with a lurch to the left, and then a lurch to the right. Soon, instead of stability, we will have had more Lurches than the Addams Family.
The Wisdom of Old Men
You see, there is an ancient Greek proverb that states: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Now, I may be letting my imagination run riot. Still, sometimes it feels that while some politicians simply lack the skill, vision and bravery to nourish and plant such saplings, others are happy to sit in the shade that more visionary leaders planted for them. And some just want to take a chainsaw to the whole forest.
The Creep of Nationalism
Even worse, perhaps we can’t see the wood for the trees. It’s hard not to see the parallels with another time—the slow creep of nationalism, the scapegoating, the erosion of democratic norms, and the way people shrug off warning signs as exaggeration until it’s too late. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly, but the rhythms feel familiar.
A Grim Future
The question is: if history is repeating, where does that leave us now?
Still in the early verses, or are we already deep into the chorus? With Farage as the cheerleader.
Eighty years ago today, the bells rang out in celebration of VE day, a joyous sound celebrating victory against the far right.
Yet in 1930s Germany, plenty of people saw what was happening and tried to sound the alarm, but the majority either didn’t take it seriously, felt powerless to stop it, or even welcomed the change. That’s the truly terrifying part—how easily people rationalise or normalise things that should set off every alarm bell. And right now, my bells are tolling.
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