Clegg vs Farage, the victor is stupidity

Recently, there was a debate about the EU from such pinnacles of wisdom of Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage. Afterwards, the general consensus is that Farage had done better. I would put forward an alternate view:

That the entire thing was utterly, moronically stupid.

I hate you both so much, for very different reasons.

I mean, fucking seriously - Nick Clegg, what the hell where you thinking? Did you just plain forget going in that the only reason you have that cushy job serving Davy boy tea whenever he pleases is that you wrangled your way onto the tv debate with him and Gordon Brown? In doing so putting your little party on equal terms with theirs? Great. That's why Labour and the Conservatives didn't bother showing: they didn't want UKIP to look like they have equal footing. You are a bloody fool, Traitor King.

Which is my second point. Nick Clegg. You reprobate. You do understand that no one trusts a single word you say, right? We, the voting electorate, learned that the hard way, thank you very much. I wouldn't trust you with a weather report. Fuck it, I could be walking down an ice-slick road at night, feel a great light and squealing of tires behind me, and if you were there screaming 'For God's sake get out the road you're going to be hit' I'd still continue on my way merrily. That's how much trust you've garnered. Just turning up doomed your side. 

I mean, I still have difficultly with the notion you are a Liberal Democrat. I honestly think there's some merit in the notion of you being some sort of Tory undercover operative. Let's face facts: You've dissuaded the youth from ever voting again, you've torpedoed electorate reform for the next fifty years, you've assisted in the buggering of the NHS , increased VAT and dropped tax increases and mansion taxes for millionaires. Now he's shooting supporting the EU in the kneecaps. If the Traitor King is still a real fecking Lib Dem he's creating a lot of confusion for future politics students trying to suss out Lid Dem ideology.

And then we get to the important bit: a debate is inherently pointless if one side has absolutely no intention of sticking to the facts. 

So Nigel Farage. This bit is mostly about you.

Nigel Farage is a piece of work alright. I'm trying to work out what he is - a liar or an idiot - though in fairness, those two options aren't mutually exclusive. So let's look at some of what he tried to peddle.

For starters his leaflet talked about we're under threat from 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians from turning up on our doorstep. This would be impressive, as there aren't actually that many Bulgarians and Romanians currently in existence. Then he claimed that 75% of all our laws are dictated to us from the EU. Ah. No. Figures are admittedly hard to estimate, but I've heard estimates more akin from 7%-15%, with some healthy wiggle room in how you determine law. Which, as you, my cleaver and handsome audience can tell me, is significantly different to 75%. He claimed that the EU costs us £55 million a day... which is sort of true. That's the gross amount, not including our rebate, VAT receipts, and beneficial trade, so bonus points for less of an outright falsehood and more of a true political doublespeak. Then is was onto how we're vulnerable to 485 million Europeans turning up on our doorstep and really. Fucking really. Wow. You cretin. You rabble-rousing cretin. That is never, ever, going to happen and he knows that. Oh, and he finished off by saying that in the EU, we can't govern ourselves.

In which I'd say Davy boy is doing a fine job fucking up our country all by himself. Remember a while ago I talked about us attempting to leap up USA's arse and bomb Syria? We didn't ask the EU diddily squat in that conversation, we'd of done it if we had to political will.

I'll pass on the whole 'EU has blood on it's hand over Ukraine' bit because quite frankly my head already hurt due to blatant stupidity.

I reckon that the Traitor King slipped in some information as a point of fairness, but seriously - he wasn't keeping up with Farage. Hmm. I better start working on a pithy nickname for him is he intends to keep cropping up in the news. I'll get back to you people with that.

And after all this - at best, misinformation - I'm not surprised snap polls suggested Farage did better. Lies are sexier than facts. That's the simple truth. He blustered and yelled, and that's great for looking cool. Even if he did look like a terribly boring man to be stuck in an elevator with.

I've started to wonder if there's any way to stop politicians from saying whatever they please regardless of fact. While every party fudges facts, this government has been particularly bad for it - for fuck's sake, we had a successful e-petition over IDS's wilful abuse of statistics, and that's not counting the stupidity of stuff like the unscientific badger cull, the nonsense of austerity, the insanity of the bedroom tax... or whatever bullshit they're peddling this week. I've heard the term 'anti-intellectual' banded around about the Tories, and if that means 'doing something in spite of the opposing facts because your made-up ideology says otherwise' then there might be some truth in that.

Perhaps every time a politician is caught saying something untrue someone should pull down their trousers and paddle their bottoms whilst a klaxon blares 'LIAR LIAR THAT SCUM IS A LIAR.' It'd be highly embarrassing, and thus might work, as long as it isn't Boris Johnson, who thrives on embarrassment.

Ideally the paddlers would be dressed like this, for maximum effect.

Sigh. At this rate, in a few years, we going to lose both Scotland and the EU. Huh.

I should take up alcoholism. It won't help, but I'd hurt less.