The Farage Farrago

If you want to know what a farrago is, try these synonyms: hotchpotch, mishmash, ragbag, pot-pourri, jumble, mess, confusion, patchwork, melange, hash, random collection, motley collection, chaos, assortment, miscellany, mixture, conglomeration, medley. I think this is a perfect description of Nigel Farage. This is a man who has sat as an MEP for 20 years but has apparently done nothing for his constituents in south-east England in that time. He's on the EU fisheries commission but has only attended 3 meetings out of 32. He wants the UK out of the EU but has taken care to ensure his children have German passports (their mother is German) before we go. It seems the electorate don't mind, however, since they keep on sending him back to Brussels. Or are they just trying to get rid of him? Has Farage ever turned down his salary on the grounds that he doesn't believe in the organisation? Not once. He's one of the few politicians who can provoke the normally polite and sophisticated politicians of Brussels to anger. (The other one who does that is the oafish David Coburn who - to my enduring embarrassment - represents Scotland). Farage goes on lying about the EU. All these stories about 'unelected bureaucrats' need to come from somewhere. And this is where. Oh, I hear people say, he's not complaining about MEPs. He knows they're elected. It's the Commission he's complaining about. But members of the EU Commission are nominated by elected politicians: MEPs and national government. If they turn out to be rubbish at the job, the fault doesn't rest with the EU. Farage is just the kind of blow-hard I would pay good money to avoid sitting next to on a train or a plane. He has changed parties more often than the rest of us have changed our pants. He seems to have no self-knowledge at all. Probably someone missed the chance to tell him when he was about 12: shut up and listen. Now it's too late. He's found an audience: a mixture of media personnel looking for a sound-bite; English emigrants now resident in Spain but with a vote still in their 'home' constituency; and right-wing manipulators (some of them American) who recognise a willing dupe when they see one. If you are in any way tempted to vote for Farage (or Coburn) in the EU elections, please think again. These people are not interested in you and me. They have their own agenda and it's got to do with the rise of neo-liberalism right across Europe and the USA. Unless, of course, you're happy for capitalism to reduce the lot of us to beggary.