[dofm]

Goodness, if Tuberville is average then the USA is in much worse shape than it realises.

Mullin, like MTG, has some political instincts and some facility with the parliamentary process, as it turns out, and I almost feel bad about putting him in the same category as Tuberville, but he is not a smart guy.

Don’t get me wrong, we have many mediocre politicians in the UK, but few like these guys at the parliamentary level.

The difference is this whole flirting with anti-intellectualism thing. Pretending to be less educated or intellectual than you are has just not been a big part of our wider culture.

[Twey]

But we are importing this model now in Boris Johnson and Farage. As far as I can see Farage is doing exactly (a British spin on) the GWB strategy: despite having a pretty classical private-school upbringing he's created a ‘bloke from the pub’ character that is much more relatable to the lower classes, and it seems to be working pretty well.

It was really interesting to me to see BoJo's take on it, which was similar but with aristocratic mannerisms (and stereotypes!) mixed in. I guess it was aimed at the middle class, for whom upper-class dogwhistles have typically landed well.

[dofm]

I don't know if Boris ever faked being unintelligent or faked being a man of the people. Or being a bloke from the pub, actually.

He did fake being a buffoon, of course, but he was doing that long, long, long before Trump. He is terrifically intelligent and obviously absurdly well-educated, he's just a liar and a sociopath.

Indeed his chosen buffoonish, winging-it character hints at that, because buffoon is the easiest comic role to play if you have very little empathy. It blunts all the qualities that would make him unbearable. His buffoon routine was helped by him being very authentically clumsy across all domains both physical and intellectual, and it helped him manage that too. The upper-class twit aspect couldn't be avoided so he doubled down on it from early on.

(He has his brother and sister to thank for humanising him, and his father to blame for his worst impulses)

Farage is definitely playing at Trumpism, and he has the cruelty aspect nailed down, but he lacks the ability to clown, doesn't he? He's fundamentally sour-faced and nasty.

[pjc50]

The remarkable one is Kemi Badenoch, who would be in more trouble if anyone was actually paying attention to the unhinged things she's saying as leader of the Conservative party.

If Farage survives the crypto donation scandal (and is therefore free to take more dodgy money), there's a real risk that the default rightwing party becomes Reform and the Conservatives become irrelevant, which would be a bizarre act of self-destruction.

[dofm]

She apparently can say whatever she likes now! I have noticed recently a considerable shift in the press to asking Ed Davey what he thinks.

Whatever happens re: Farage, the rules around donations will change, I think. We need to keep money out of our politics and make large donations seem intrinsically shady (because they always are)

[rjsw]

That happened in Canada [1] and Farage has been quite open on picking the same party name to hopefully follow the same path.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_Canada

[glaucon]

| terrifically intelligent and obviously absurdly well-educated, he's just a liar and a sociopath.

No idea how intelligent he is, I wouldn't say I've seen any obvious signs of outstanding cerebral capabilities.

As to his education, he got a 2.1, quite respectable but given the resources employed (Eton and Oxford) in his education anything less would have been shameful.