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The Ongoing UKIP PR Disaster thread

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Cloth-Ears said:
Listening to out and out libertarians on the internet can also be amusing entertainment.

It's great to troll with on forums. :) e.g. saying there should be zero welfare ( my fav )
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This strategy only works in the face of righteous indignation (of which there is plenty on pfm). Righteous indignation tends to be illiberal in nature because those practising it tend to get all hot under the collar, offended and want to ban the expression of the offensive viewpoint instead of trying to reason with it.

Your approach doesn't work in the face of reasoned argument. I'll give it a go, if only as some kind of mental exercise:

The main logical argument against scrapping welfare is that crime would soar.

If you and your family face the prospect of slowly starving to death in some cold, damp hell hole under a railway arch having exhausted all possibility of earning your and their subsistence by legitimate means, you'll steal. You may even kill in order to steal.

Now multiply all these potential killer-thieves by the number of people likely to be affected by zero welfare. That's one hell of a crime wave!

Ok, you could bring back the death penalty for thieving but that is hardly an effective deterrent when the alternative is slow death by starvation.

Now deduct the meagre contribution that these folks put back into the economy when they spend their welfare money on food, clothing, heat, light, rent as well as a teeny weeny bit of discretionary spending they may miraculously make.

That's a dip in the economy.

Now deduct much of the discretionary spending by those in work and economically active who will save it instead out of fear that they'll need it all for a rainy day in order not to starve to death.

That's another dip in the economy.

If we get rid of healthcare largely free at the point of use and replace it with private healthcare insurance that wriggles every time it is called on to pay out and has to fund an extra tier of administration that also needs to make a profit (the insurance companies) the contribution to healthcare by ordinary people who happen to be the biggest-spending consumers will rise massively from less than 10% of their income to around 40%.

Another reason for this is contributions will be made according only to potential need not means and this in itself will increase the contributions to the healthcare system (whatever form it takes) by the greatest number of people.

This will be another big hit for consumer spending resulting in more economic shrinkage.

The numbers of people needing welfare will also rise and fall in accordance with economic cycles. If most of them are going to die when there is an economic downturn, where will the extra workforce come from when things pick up?
 
Good on him, UKIP were trying to get him to claim for 15 staff which he said is improper- ie he's not a U.S. Senator.They openly scam the European Parliament and boast about it.
 
Sorry S.T., didn't see your long post before now.

Indeed you make good points about welfare.

I am a believer in socialised medicine b.t.w., as an efficient solution. I find opposition to it in the US sometimes quite bizarre and especially sometimes the quarters it comes from.
 
UKIP appear to be imploding somewhat; Douglas Carswell, Nigel Farage and Patrick O'Flynn all seem to be knocking seven bells out of each other today over expenses, Farage's leadership and the (considerable) role of US Tea Party propaganda consultants in the recent election campaign. The Daily Politics had a fair sized feature on the ongoing situation. Apparently O'Flynn savaged Farage in a Times article today, though I guess that will be behind Murdoch's paywall so I can't link to it.
 
The O'F*** one said Nigel was "too aggressive". I find him quite civil, especially compared with some of his party, like Mr.Blay-

The Mirror reported that he said: "If he is I will personally put a bullet between his eyes. If this lad turns up to be our prime minister I will personally put a bullet in him. That's how strong I feel about it."
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Now any chap would take that as aggressive.
 
Tony L said:
UKIP appear to be imploding somewhat; Douglas Carswell, Nigel Farage and Patrick O'Flynn all seem to be knocking seven bells out of each other today over expenses, Farage's leadership and the (considerable) role of US Tea Party propaganda consultants in the recent election campaign. The Daily Politics had a fair sized feature on the ongoing situation. Apparently O'Flynn savaged Farage in a Times article today, though I guess that will be behind Murdoch's paywall so I can't link to it.
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O'Flynn is a bit upset that his opportunity to stand as leader has been dashed by the rank and file. Bet he wishes he hadn't quit as chief political hack for The Daily Express now.
 
A summary of today's events...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ip-civil-war-raheem-kassam-matthew-richardson

One of the tea party faction - Kassam - has been sacked (though he says he's taking a holiday).

"Kassam responded in a subsequent interview on the same channel, saying O’Flynn “ain’t seen nothing yet” when it comes to aggressive-style politics as he would be returning to a role as a journalist at the right-wing website Breitbart London.

“I will be scrutinising quite heavily what the Red Ukip team are trying to do to the organisation,” he said."

UKIP, the party that keeps on giving.

Farage is on Question Time tonight (again!). Any idea when it's recorded, I could get some popcorn in.
 
Breitbart London. Haven't seen that one since a departed member regularly fly tipped that particular offal on threads here. Must have a peek.
 
I do hope the UKIPs survive this mess as whilst I think they are wrong, fraudulent and idiots I'd hate to see the UK descend back to the old two-party establishment. It's hard to picture them lasting beyond Farage, but I can't imagine he'll want to pull his face out of the EU expenses trough anytime soon so I expect he'll be around to lead as long as there is a party.
 
Farage is blaming one unnamed individual for all the problems. Basically saying this one individual needs to decide if he is UKIP or Tory.

Has to be Carswell.

What's the betting that Farage is hoping for a Carswell resignation/defection, a by-election and then, gee, I wonder who UKIP would choose... I can't think.
 
notaclue said:
Farage is blaming one unnamed individual for all the problems. Basically saying this one individual needs to decide if he is UKIP or Tory.

Has to be Carswell.

What's the betting that Farage is hoping for a Carswell resignation/defection, a by-election and then, gee, I wonder who UKIP would choose... I can't think.
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It would be a bit of a risk I think. Like him or loathe him, Carswell has an enormous personal following in the constituency, and St. Nige can't afford another failed attempt to stand for a Westminster seat.

FWIW, I read yesterday on another site that you can't get better than evens on Carswell remaining within UKIP for the life of this parliament. If the odds aren't shortening by the minute I'd be surprised.
 
I cycled up to Hebden Bridge for my lunch earlier. The radio in the cafe was tuned to some fairly lightweight political/phone-in show that was discussing the ongoing UKIP implosion. They had someone representing the party going into a full-blown mouth-breathing hissy-fit exasperatedly proclaiming the brilliance of Farage, that he was the greatest leader the country had seen in a generation, that his critics were not worthy etc etc. The chap sounded mid-way between tears and an asthma attack. Most uplifting stuff. I recognised the voice, so one of the TV UKIPs, but can't put a name to it. The station might have been 5Live or something like that as I don't recall any adverts. Wasn't R4 as they played a Noel Gallagher track.
 
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