Farage Versus Brand on Question Time (Thursday night's TV)

Nigel Farage: Me vs Russell Brand on Question Time – he's got the chest hair but where are his ideas?
People were hoping we'd clash, but he just didn't talk enough sense!
By Nigel Farage


I suppose the nation expected fireworks last night, but I’m afraid I thought the BBC’s Question Time was all a little formulaic. Through no fault of the BBC, but actually because the set up was as follows: one Tory MP reluctantly endorsing Conservative Party policy, one Labour MP saying as much as her boss said in his “big speech” today – nothing – and one sometime comedian turned banker-basher.
Everyone fancied that Mr Brand and I might butt heads, but actually, as we entered the studio, and his personal make-up artist straightened his chest hair for him, I kid you not, I realised that perhaps he might be a bit lighter weight than expected.
For all Mr Brand’s posturing, he was really quite limp. Maybe it was the chapstick that his make-up artist applied to his lips at the last moment, but he didn’t seem to utter a word of sense.

Apparently, according to him and Mary Creagh, I’m some big shot, rich, banker, career-politician. You couldn’t make it up. Everything I’ve railed against: corporatism, arrogance, careerism – they’re now levelling these things at me. And the problem for them is it doesn’t stick, because people don’t buy it.

Mr Brand will swan around and tout long-discredited, even conspiratorial theories about the City of London, and “who owns politicians” – but actually he had very little to give tonight.

I was more interested in the audience’s contributions: which included sensible thinking on immigration, grammar schools, and the National Health Service. Though I assure you we weren’t distributing Ukip manifestos at the entrance!

I truly believe, as I said on the panel tonight, that most people would love access to a grammar school for their children. Following the recent Ofsted report that revealed that hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are being let down by a failing education system – it is time for an injection of some sense we learned a long time ago: grammar schools work.

One lady in the audience stated that she was bullied at a grammar school in Kent, because she was from the Midlands, and most people at her school were very middle class. It’s no wonder, given that most of the grammar schools across the country have been closed or converted, and now the only people who can afford to uproot and move nearer to one, in Kent, are middle class people with a little extra cash to spare. If you had a grammar school or two in every town in Britain, you’d actually get a lot more diversity in terms of the socio-economic background of the children who attend.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nigel-farage-me-vs-russell-brand-on-question-time--hes-got-the-chest-hair-but-where-are-his-ideas-9919668.html

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I watched this with open mind and admit I came away thinking Brand was a little bit scrappy whereas Farage held his own.
The comments at the bottom of the article are interesting.
There's also a snippet of the footage.

Hey, anybody flaunting their chest hair's alright in my book -- I have enough to stuff a pillow but have been told by some that it "just seems so 1970s to me!" Like I fucking asked it to grow there ...

But I'm thinking I don't know enough about what a "grammar school" is in the British sense -- in the U.S. it's just a rather old-fashioned term for grades one through five or six.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Hey, anybody flaunting their chest hair's alright in my book -- I have enough to stuff a pillow but have been told by some that it "just seems so 1970s to me!" Like I fucking asked it to grow there ...

But I'm thinking I don't know enough about what a "grammar school" is in the British sense -- in the U.S. it's just a rather old-fashioned term for grades one through five or six.

Grammar schools are only available to pupils of ages 11 - who are leaving primary education to go to secondary (high school) - who pass the 11 plus exam (or those who get way over and above the national average in their SAT's)
These exams aren't available in schools, you have to apply for your child to sit them independently at a different educational setting.

What is happening here, is that the middle classes are sending their children to grammar schools - most of them are in wealthy areas - so that working class children rarely get a look-in.

It's what we are moaning about all the time here Ben; the big  lass divide and the fact that there is definitely a movement in England to keep working classes where the rich want them; last in the queue.

Here is a link to explain:

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/schools/regions

So what, if they don't go into a grammar school, what do they end up in? Sounds barbaric to me ...

But then, I was the victim of attempted "sight reading" education when I was around six -- stupid educators thinking it was easier for kids to learn to read by visually recognizing words rather than the good old "sound it out." Because that's how we adults read, so it must be how children learn, right?

But I showed them, I'm an editor now!

Seriously though, I'd love to learn more about this. To me, inequality of education is the way an unequal society is perpetuated.

Ben_Reilly wrote:So what, if they don't go into a grammar school, what do they end up in? Sounds barbaric to me ...

But then, I was the victim of attempted "sight reading" education when I was around six -- stupid educators thinking it was easier for kids to learn to read by visually recognizing words rather than the good old "sound it out." Because that's how we adults read, so it must be how children learn, right?

But I showed them, I'm an editor now!

Seriously though, I'd love to learn more about this. To me, inequality of education is the way an unequal society is perpetuated.

Well put it this way; people in poor areas and from poor households rarely get their kids in private school and not very often grammar schools.
Poorer areas churn out less well-educated children than the more affluent areas - thereby recusing the amount of children who can attend a grammar school.
Children from grammar schools will have a better chance to get a better job than a non-grammar student - not always, but mostly.
You do the maths!


Here, in a nutshell:

http://leaderinlearning.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/grammar-private-and-state-schools-do-you-know-the-difference/

Again (as I talked about in another thread) I have to go back to basic "eating people is wrong" concepts:

If a nation doesn't offer its children educational equality, it doesn't offer them equal opportunity.

"Equal opportunity" is a Big Idea in U.S. politics, often used by the right to argue that Everybody Can Grow Up to Be a Millionaire (If They're Willing to Work Hard!). A line of bullshit used to justify the historical income inequality we see today, not to mention racism, along with cutting welfare.

For balance, this is what Russel Brand had to say, who to me says some good things at times but other times way over the top and poor to say the least.
Anyway, best if both are able to speak their points:







I've just got home from recording BBC TV's political debate show Question Time and if you saw it and found it anti-climactic, I know how you feel.

Nigel Farage in the flesh, gin blossomed flesh that it is, inspires sympathy more than fear, an end of the pier, end of the road, end of days politician, who like many people who drink too much has a certain sloppy sadness. Camilla Cavendish who I was sat next to, seemed kindly and the two politicians from opposing parties, that flanked Dimbleby melted into an indistinguishable potage of cautious wonk words before I could properly learn which was blue and which was red. For my part I sat politely on my hands, keen to avoid hollering obscenities after a week of hypocrisy accusations and half-arsed, front page controversy.

Only the audience inspire passion or connection. Humanity. The usual preposterous jumble that you see in any of our towns, even if groomed and prepped by Auntie, they comparatively throb with authenticity opposite us, across the shark-eyed bank of cumbersome cameras.



http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/russell-brand/answer-time_b_6313936.html?utm_hp_ref=ukip

Farage is a shrewd operator when it comes to being on camera, but he said nothing he hasn't said a million times before. Being opposite Brand may have actually helped him, since Brand is literally a firebrand who at times as didge says, is right on the money, but at others is a bit over emotional. I thought the idiot in the front (apparently a relative of a UKIP party member) made Brand uncomfortable and certainly the man wasn't about to let him have a chance to respond.

I imagine Farage benefits from these moments, questions are rarely difficult and he can just spout his own venom relatively unchallenged- especially by a slightly marmite figure that Brand is.

Steph and Dom meet Nigel Farage.

Channel 4 Monday 10pm

The wonderful Steph and Dom have some questions for Farage

"could be Farage’s toughest test of the year – if his interrogators don’t slide under the table."

Read more: http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Nigel-Farage-faces-grilling-Googlebox-s-Steph-Dom/story-25232874-detail/story.html#ixzz3LmhYz4V2



Love Steph and Dom!

Nems wrote:Steph and Dom meet Nigel Farage.

Channel 4 Monday 10pm

The wonderful Steph and Dom have some questions for Farage

"could be Farage’s toughest test of the year – if his interrogators don’t slide under the table."

Read more: http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Nigel-Farage-faces-grilling-Googlebox-s-Steph-Dom/story-25232874-detail/story.html#ixzz3LmhYz4V2



Love Steph and Dom!

I shall be watching that nemsical! With a whiskey or two.
Love Steph and Dom, just hope they don't go all nicey-nice.

ONE minor observation of Farage's that I do agree with ~ Russell Brand can be a bit hard to follow at times, and quit often I find it  bit a bit of a stretch to call his stand-up routines genuine comedy..


P.S. IN Australia, the term 'Grammar School' is used for privately run K-12 schools connected to the Anglican Church. While they may have originally been modeled on the British Grammar School system of 19th century Britain, these days they have little to do with "academic excellence" (as both 'selective' public schools and Catholic high schools tend to thrash them in the HSC results every year..) ~ and everything to do with their parents being able to afford their exorbitant annual fees..

As such, they have nothing in common these days with either the British or US meanings and understanding of that name ~ like with the 4 [or forty ?] "Woolworths" corporations around the world they have no connections beyond their common names...