After the barbarous assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Saturday, Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage flew out to this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to show his support for his longstanding friend and ally. Hardly the strangest thing, one might have thought, for a leading British political figure to pay court to the man who in all likelihood will be the next President of the United States, days after he dodged death by mere inches. (Both Liz Truss and Boris Johnson have also been pressing the flesh at the RNC this week, with the latter meeting Trump in person.) Yet Farage’s decision to head Stateside after the King’s Speech on Wednesday has occasioned a chorus of outrage from the great and the good that the newly elected MP for Clacton-on-Sea would dare to spend a few days away from his constituents.
There has been the inevitable Guardian column. Reporters have been sent to Clacton to see what locals made of it. The sensibles have been up in arms on X (the alleged comedian Jonathan Pie, anxious to find a new target for his centrist-dad ire now that we’ve entered the era of Starmer, has tweeted about it four times and counting). And at the convention itself, Farage has been pressed about it by reporters from both Sky News and Channel 4.
The signal moment, however, came on the News Agents podcast. On arriving in Milwaukee on Wednesday he was cornered by Emily Maitlis, and the excruciating interview that resulted has since gone viral on X. “Nigel Farage, what are you doing here?” begins Maitlis, in obvious faux-surprise. Maitlis proceeds to sneer and condescend her way through the two-minute clip. Is he in the U.S. “Because this feels more exciting?” she asks. “Given the circumstances it was right that I came,” Farage says. Maitlis titters: “Right for who?”
What's the new MP for Clacton doing out here in Milwaukee?
— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) July 18, 2024@maitlis asks @Nigel_Farage… @GlobalPlayer pic.twitter.com/bpcDNwanfo
Insufferable as it is, Farage continues undeterred. One of his strengths as a media performer is that he rarely allows himself to be provoked in the face of hostile questioning, instead playing them with a straight bat. When your friends are “having a tough time” he explains calmly, “it’s right to go and support them”. This is what prompted the extraordinarily tone-deaf question that made the clip go viral. “Is that the sense you’ve got,” Maitlis asks, as if the thought has only just occurred to her, “that [Trump’s] having a tough time right now?” (Presumably, this is what the News Agents mean when they claim to be “Lifting the curtain on the biggest stories in the U.K., U.S. and beyond”). Farage simply answers with the obvious: “He nearly died.” After a long pause she then asks the inane question again and receives the same answer.
Is there a person in the country who believes what’s motivating this haranguing of Farage is concern for the people of Clacton? Remainer liberals’ view of that Brexity town, home to the poorest neighbourhood in the country, has long been known. As Matthew Parris put it ahead of its 2014 by-election (won by UKIP): while people should not be careless of their needs, “We should be careless of their opinions”. For Maitlis, voters of Clacton are easily-led idiots, and Farage the “celebrity snake oil salesman” who has swindled them repeatedly. Nor can we put this down to a principled concern about MPs’ constituency duties. Have the News Agents ever puffed themselves up in outrage that Keir Starmer, in his role as Labour leader, is failing adequately to serve the voters of Holborn and St. Pancras?
For Farage’s haters, any argument will serve to have a pop at him, no matter how contrived. He’s trying to “boost his profile”, complains the Guardian’s John Crace. A politician, trying to boost his profile – Heaven forbid! Maitlis and others have poured scorn on Farage’s relationship with Trump, even suggesting that he invited himself to Milwaukee. In reality, Farage clearly enjoys significant influence with the Trump team – just ask David Lammy. As the New Statesman reported in May, the now Foreign Secretary, who has previously called Trump a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser”, was able to secure a meeting with Trump’s top team during his trip to the States in May only at Farage’s nod. Indeed, despite two former PMs attending the RNC this week, Politico reports that Farage “remains Trump’s go-to guy for U.K. issues”. A less churlish media would recognise that the fact that a U.K. politician can bend the (bandaged) ear of the man who could soon be the leader of the free world is no trivial matter.
There is also something so dismally parochial about this round of Farage-bashing. It has been one of the most dramatic weeks in U.S. politics we have seen in years, which is saying a lot. The Presidential front-runner came within inches of being killed, and his opponent, the sitting President, may soon drop out of the race. In J.D. Vance, Trump has named a firebrand running mate, just 39 years old, who will cement Trumpism in the GOP for years to come. All huge stories. Yet our liberal-Left media are so obsessive and petty that they insist on harrying Farage around the convention with this feeble gotcha.
Politics should be about more than potholes. And whatever the Maitlises of the world imagine, the voters of Clacton know this – they are not stupid. They understand that Farage is not just (as the News Agents snidely captioned him) the MP for Clacton – he is the leader of Reform U.K. and, like him or loathe him, an influential political figure. Campaigning for the Essex seat last month, Farage pledged to “put Clacton on the map”. Can anyone seriously deny that he is doing that?
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The establishment correctly recognise Farage as a threat to them, just like AfD in Germany, RN in France and Trump in the US. Sadly of the four only Trump stands a chance of succeeding as we Europeans are far too sophisticated to allow horrid fascists to get into government.
Some consider Georgia Meloni a fascist. It doesn’t matter if any candidate is a fascist, it only matters if they are the ‘right’ kind. Take Jeremy Corbyn as an example: a socialist, just not the right kind of socialist.
Yes. Really it’s establishment vs non establishment.
Anyone who strays gets tarred with some label. Far right, far left, anti semite, racist.
I’m not aware Meloni has removed basic freedoms or forced people to take experimental drugs, unlike her predecessor in Italy.
You are probably correct in what you say about the “right” kind of socialist in Corbyn’s case.
She wasn’t able to rise above this.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/19/europe/italian-journalist-giorgia-meloni-tweet-mocking-height-intl-scli/
An own goal
Very amusing.
The tried and tested tactic is always accuse your opponents of being what you are and what you are doing.
I think many people use the word without knowing its meaning.
It may be fun to challenge those who say this to define fascism and describe how this relates to the situation they’re having the vapours about.
The term’s been overused and lost its meaning anyway it was Mussolini who was the Fascist, not Mr H.
I suspect the meaning is secondary to the effect, and many of those who use it know exactly the effect they are wanting to have
But the more they do it……
DId you mean facism of sophisticated. The original meaning of sophisticated was adulterated, as a CEO of a company where I worked informed the advertisers when they described on of the products as sophisticated.
A memo to that effect was circulated to the entire work force banning the use of the word in respect of company products.
I don’t follow your meaning.
We already have Fascists in Government – Fascism is collectivist and technocratic rule by the State – everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State, what the masses want is irrelevant, so anyone (populist) who takes the side of the masses is against the State and must be eliminated.
These days, Fascism is called __________ *Democracy (*insert cover word of choice, liberal, social, etc) to mislead.
We don’t have Fascist Government? the CoVid fake pandemic, mandated jabs, Net Zero, mass immigration, imposing warped morality and debauching our values, regulation of every aspect of our private lives to meet to meet the interests of the State as decided by those in charge and their cronies – describe what system of Government this is.
100% but only a few have noticed orbits actually what they want
In a nutshell.
Farage is a useful smokescreen to hide the left wing environmental proposals and other areas of concern announced this week.
Just say Farage or Trump and the blob giggle like schoolchildren. Farage uses this to increase his profile as he is the shrewdest operator on the block.
As for Clacton, there will be a team of people behind him, just like other Constituencies.
These Liberal Progressive twits would rather drool over Beadie Eyes Starmer and The Cretinous Eco Parasite Miliband that will treble all our energy bills with all the “Free Wind and Sun”. ——-To the twits, controlling a border is not something we should do. They prefer a Free for All. To the twits, the Climate Fraud is all about Science, but not science as we have come to know it in the days of Newton or Einstein, or Marie Curie or Michael Faraday. No, it is the Post Normal Science where everything is decided by a show of hands from government funded data adjusters in some phony consensus. To the twits, men in your daughters toilet or changing room is just “moving with the times”. ——-Yes Liberal Progressive Land is where all of Polite Society live and anyone outside of that bubble is illegitimate and must be criminalised as “Far Right Extremists”.
What a repellent person Maitlis is. A truly nasty piece of work.
Agreed. She’s been doing that job for donkey’s years but still manages to come across like some spiteful, cretinous amateur. Channel 4 aren’t any better. This woman manages to effectively max out the cringeometer. Maybe it was ‘Bring Your Mam To Work Day’, or something and she’s an imposter standing in for an actual seasoned pro;
”Channel4 News’ @siobhankennedy4
tries some very limp, factuous questions on Nigel Farage
& Liz Truss.
.
“Are you meeting Donald Trump, are you a big Trump fan?”
Can’t see too many prizes for journalism here.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1814339380875571426
Absolutely junk journalism. Dreadful and embarrassing.
“Are you going to meet Liz Truss”, “Do you want to meet her”….
I will say hello if I meet her, I’m a friendly chap LOL.
Maitlis is a horrific creature. A perfectly drawn caricature of the far-left (the only left that exists) – patronising, overly confident, smug, bursting with fake virtue, ignorant, myopic, dumb. The thing looks like a bloke in drag that’s forever looking for the next act of virtuous sneering. Ugly through and through. These creatures are so blinded by their leftist mission they’re genuinely unaware of what it is they actually represent, which is a particularly stupid sort of evil.
Of course she was the protagonist of this infamous encounter, which she didn’t emerge from with any credit: Jordan Peterson Clashes with Leftist Journalist on Gender Pay Gap (youtube.com)
This interview is actually with Cathy Newman. And yes, she comes out of it looking like a complete fool.
So that makes 2 of them.
Farage could have asked Maitlis how often she has been shot in the head…. I loved the bit about her (not) having any friends, Nigel really is a smart operator and Clacton is lucky to have him. Great article: says it all, thanks.
The phrase ” the leader of the free world” makes me puke.
I find it very hard to respect anyone that uses the phrase. It betrays a lack of thought.
Aren’t you hypnotized by the theatrics of politicians jetting around to football matches and to see other politicians putting on their show?
Some years ago, shortly after Jeremy Paxman ‘retired’ from Newsnight my impression at the time was that Maitlis, clearly overshadowed by his abilities, saw an opportunity to ‘fill the gap’. Clearly not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate his subtleties she missed the point entirely and simply went for the I’m an aggressive interviewer persona. Doesn’t even realise she looks ridiculous!
Good point. Though of course she now gets plaudits from her boneheaded Remainiac cheerleaders for doing just that so she thinks it makes her God’s gift to journalism.
I used to enjoy Paxman and his combative style.
But I now see it was all theatrics.
It was the appearance of scrutiny.
In reality all we witnessed was the scrutiny of the debates WITHIN the establishment.
The questioning of the establishment was indulged from time to time because it was considered unthreatening and so it gave the impression of open mindedness.
The moment the establishment has felt more threatened, it has gone for its critics viciously.
It’s not a difference in style of the presenters. It’s thay the game has changed.
Let’s put it this way. Paxman wouldn’t have questioned the lockdowns, or the masks or the jabs either.
Isn’t it quite usual for MPs to have breaks and take holidays?
Gotta say that Nigel shows remarkable sang-froid, not to say class, in the face of the repeated hostility from the awful Maitlis, C4 etc.
“I’ve got lots of friends here, have you?” he said.
As Michael Deacon points out (satirically) in “The Daily Telegraph”, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras also hasn’t been spending much time in his constituency recently……..
Despise Mate-less.
I clicked the link to read the so called ‘comedian’ Jonathan Pie’s (who is a creation) Twitter feed. Nasty stuff …and they call the Right the haters…… I remember JP ranting during lockdown about the need for children to be kept from school….. His fanatical pop at Farage on this occasion just shows him up to be an illinformed idiot.
In a very friendly – almost worshipful – Newsnight interview with Blair, Maitlis called the peacemaker ‘a man of God’. As though Blair was some prophet just come down from the holy mountain bearing new tablets of the Third Way.
Only Hitchens got exercised about Cameron lobbying in Washington as if he were the foreign secretary of Ukraine instead of the UK. Perhaps Maitlis ought to be more ‘investigative’ about any possibility that Washington might really be prepared to exchange Atlantic City for Clacton-on-Sea.
Someone’s ear isn’t located inches from his head. Trump came within a quarter of an inch of being killed, not inches.
Farage showed Maitless up for the heartless nasty piece of work she is. And all he had to do was behave decently himself in order to do it.
He’s a Class Act.
I though Nigel handled her well. I especially like his query as to whether she had friends.
Maitlis, Maitlis, who the f**k is Maitlis?