Farage: Starmer is Blair without the Flair

Nigel Farage, he’s never far away from me as you know Nigel Farage says Starmer is Blair without the flair. I laughed this morning when I read that because I thought it’s a great headline.

Well, I would agree entirely, I don’t think it’s that relevant though, I mean it’s the substance that matters and not the presentation. So, although I agree, I think presentation does matter, no I actually think when it comes to politics it really is the substance.

I’d much rather have somebody who gets things right who’s very dull and somebody who’s got lots of flair who gets most things wrong, I mean I hear you, but I also disagree because I think we’re so used to prime minister’s questions being an absolute snoozefest except when it’s Angela Rayner and Oliver Dowden and then it’s just exciting people like oh, actually there was some barbed exchanges and similarly when it was Prescott and William Hague there’s an excitement and an energy brought to our politics.

I think it’s; I agree we do need to focus a lot more on the substance and the issues but you can do it in a presentational entertaining way rather than a snoozefest which a lot of it is.

Yeah, but Starmer doesn’t do that so he is Blair without the flair because Blair was a good, I mean it’s a great line from Farage, is very good at putting those kinds of lines and I would argue that actually Farage is an amazing orator and obviously I’ve been on stage with him many times and he has the audience in the palm of his hand. It’s an extraordinary gift that he has and if you have detail as well and I think you’re right but it’s also because we’re now in this 24-hour media cycle where you expect people to perform and people also level the accusation at Rishi Sunak, he’s just not very good when it comes to performing in front of cameras.

Politicians Need to be able to Connect with Voters

I think that’s true, I think that there’s very few politicians who I can think off the top of my head who had that kind of touch of being able to connect with the audience and be able to just tune in when you’re watching and think okay wow they’ve got this.

I think Blair is definitely one of them Bill Clinton I think also Boris Johnson probably engaged quite a lot of people yeah, less so I think Donald Trump even interesting one there Rees Mogg you see he’s a character and that’s the difference, he’s a character isn’t he? He is a character but I would say he’s very good at making speeches along with Dan Hannah now they’re not populist speeches, they’re not going to be clipped for YouTube but if you watch their eight minutes, they’re very good at speaking along with Desmond Swain.

You see that’s very interesting about being a character, Margaret Thatcher was a character yeah, and she obviously enjoyed great popularity, Boris Johnson was a character as well yeah, I think you know Nigel’s definitely a character as well I think Nichola Sturgeon as well, like her, she was a character and she was someone people listened to, what she had to say, even if it was to disagree with a lot of what she had to say, but just I mean it’s just interesting Keir Starmer talking about changed Labour.

Tony Blair spoke about New Labour, this is Farage saying that actually if you look it’s a carbon copy, the shirt, the rolled-up shirt is absolutely identical.

Very quickly Theresa May believes her election win and we remember them very vividly so there is hope for Sunak to defy the polls, yes this is the former prime minister, she says that all is not lost at the moment and Rishi Sunak can turn this around.

Polls will Tighten

Can he? No, right, by her own logic doesn’t that mean getting rid of him and installing a more popular leader I.E Boris when they got rid of her when she led the party to single digits well, she also goes on to say that the view on the doorstep here is very different from 1997, so reiterating the view here from Nigel Farage saying that actually I think this is right.

Whilst Labour is miles head I looked at the latest polling yesterday conservatives on 20% up two, Labour down one but still on 47%, Reform UK third at 11% down two so I still don’t believe Labour has this in the bag, I think you speak to any person in Labour and no one is complacent, no one thinks that going into the election they’re going to have this kind of poll lead, everyone thinks there’s going to be a squeeze at some point but also the Conservatives aren’t really deliver anything and they’re not really putting up much of a fight. 

You’re seeing these record numbers of Conservative MPs just quitting before the next election because they don’t fancy the fight, the numbers are extraordinary we’re still not at the record levels but we’re not far off it. What are you hearing in terms of the Conservative is it sort of packed up and headed for the hills, its end of term.

Well, I think so, I don’t really have much to say about that because I don’t really speak to Conservatives on a regular basis but the student ones that I do are not too pleased with the Conservative party. None of them like the direction and they don’t think that the leadership is doing a particularly good job Richi looks just so wooden along with Keir Starmer, he might even be more wooden I mean you’re right in fact watching those two it’s like watching paint dry probably rather watch paint dry and I’d rather watch paint dry.