A General Selection!

Farage blows into chamber of windbags – but how long before he breezes out again?

The Reform leader – bitchier than Bette Davis – began by observing that this isn’t even the best parliament he’s sat in

Tim Stanley
23 July 2024 • 8:52pm

“Nigel talks!” A Farage maiden speech in Parliament is as box office as Greta Garbo’s first words in sound. The press brought popcorn; milkshakes were banned.

“I believe it’s customary,” he said, “to pay tribute to your predecessor.” Well, Giles Watling, former MP for Clacton, is “decent” and “honourable… Nothing even vaguely conservative about him, but he’s a jolly nice chap!”

I laughed! But across the Commons, blank faces and crickets. Parliament, alas, is not shaping up to be Nigel’s medium.

It was an auspicious day for an official debut. The Government announced the closure of the Bibby Stockholm, to provide 200 homes for ex-Tory MPs.

I saw one of yesterday’s men smoking a cigarette outside Tesco. I couldn’t recall his name, so Googled “Tory MP with beard” – and got a lot of photos of Conservatives with their wives.


Nigel Farage, with the Reservoir Dogs including Richard Tice to his immediate left Credit: PRU/AFP via GETTY IMAGES

Inside the Commons, Reform arrived together and sat together, as is their style. The hacks call them Reservoir Dogs. I’m reminded of children holding hands on a school trip.

Nigel, who owns the party, and Richard Tice, who for a long time bankrolled it, bobbed up and down to speak in the tedious King’s Speech debate. Their knees and bottoms had to endure three hours of maiden speeches, a mix of travelogue and Tinder profile.

“I like a laff, work hard and I don’t like to be taken for a fool,” said Labour’s Lola McEvoy. The room mentally swiped left.

When he was finally called, Farage – bitchier than Bette Davis – began by observing that this isn’t even the best parliament he’s sat in.

The Commons is “smaller” than Brussels: “There’s no chauffeur-driven Mercedes. No large lump sums of money” (no wonder the Remainers hated Brexit). As for himself, when he first sailed the Channel to protest about the boats, he was derided as a “sad, lonely, desperate figure” – “Hear, hear,” mumbled the Labour benches – “always seeking attention” – “HEAR! HEAR!” But time has proven him right, and you metro-libs ain’t seen nothing yet!


Ribbit! Ribbet!

Job done. The video would be on Twitter shortly. But would he stay for the maiden speech of his close personal friend Mr Tice? Would he ‘eck. Farage observed the two-speech minimum customary after an intervention, then swanned off.

A pity. Had he waited just 10 minutes, he could’ve caught Richard’s rather good speech, which began with the arresting claim to represent “the most fertile constituency in the country”.

Boston and Skegness is “a lattice of ditches and dykes and drainage and rivers”, marred only by an invasion of cheap labour. Jess Phillips barked some objections; one of the Labour prefects told her to hush.

It’s tradition to sit through maiden speeches politely, though not in the frosty silence that greeted Tice and Farage as if they’d spoken a foreign language.

A colleague told me he wrote to Nigel before the election to say: “Be careful, you might win.” He has worked for decades to become an MP. It’s a historic achievement. But our parliamentary system is designed to suffocate populism by giving it a voice – in a chamber of windbags who imagine their fanatical devotion to consensus makes them compelling.

Now Farage must pretend to care about Bills, committees and Chris Bryant’s latest point of order. How long before he’s on a plane to Las Vegas, to open for Trump?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/23/nigel-farage-richard-tice-reform-maiden-speech-parliament/

if you think it is crazy, you will find an invention that is even more crazy.

so it seems it is even the second holiday season, but i can agree that one of the less nice features of camping usually is the wetter. but that is something you learn to deal with, but it seems not all can, ever heard of indoor camping. and no, not the task of getting your stuff dry again to be stored for the winter, no camping but then in the great indoors.

i do have no clue if it is possible to view outside the netherlands, but the video tries at least us into believing there truly is something like the great indoor camping experience. it is dry, so no mud between you toes when the rainstorms have hit, no heatwave difficulties, there is even airco, okay the view is a bit restricted, and the comfort is going by makes and models of the camping arrangement a bit back to the sixties and seventies.

https://nos.nl/video/2531055-ook-met-met-dit-weer-binnencamping-populair-zitten-veilig-voor-de-regen

it has a website and is called retro camping or vintage vacation, so you can always look for a bit of help of an auto translate result by google, so here is the link to the company who offers it; https://www.vintage-vacation.nl/

but is is of course less charming than looking how the family that arrives after you has trying how to fix all the tenths and lean to's, because it is already months after it was last used.
at least there can be a bit of a problem for who has the say in lights out and on again, or how hot or cold it has to be.
and it can be a bit disappointing to tell your holidays have been camping indoors, back home.

and it is not even the only one, in dutch limburg or limbourg you can rent a tent in a glasshouse, and even in belgium there is a possibility. but that looks more of all in the same group.

why would you????

hot on dutch news an internet invasion on a life stream , that sends features from the northern of the netherlands, the little village is pieterburen and it seems after some guy placed a few words, on twitter /x about that live stream it is gone viral.

and what can be seen, not really something the dutch would see different from a bit of wall paper, just young seals who are taken into care to grew up, gets their wounds , if the had some healed and sickness cleared to be later on get a set back in the great outdoors of the dutch sea's.

but at least it is nice the japanese like it so much, they even started to donate, and it seems all because seals have a form and structure equal to a for us unknown symbol for happiness.

so for who wants to donate, look or comment in japanese, it does seems little to make from the chat at all, first have to do a snap course of japanes written language, good luck with that.

but looking is always possible;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXAsMcmtJTc

it is one of at least 3 centers for the care of wild seals in the netherlands. another one is part of ecomare on texel, and another one somewhere on the southern coast.
well, it is just one of our wet surprises.

i do hope they keep it up online mostly, it has not the best route to travel by busses. still even pieterburen is a very small village, it has quite a nice small botanic garden, and you can do paid excursions over the bottom of the sea at low tides. if you are fit enough and the wetter likes you enough. we had 4 tries before it once got the go ahead. it is a great way to get all wet and muddy as an adult. it is called wadlopen in dutch. and there is a chance you can see seals in their natural environment too, but the online experience is a lot easier.