CAROLINE ffiske nailed it in her TCW report yesterday from the Brexit Party’s Birmingham rally. ‘Guess what,’ she wrote, ‘they didn’t mention the gender pay gap.’
No they didn’t. And thank God. In his speech Nigel Farage stuck to the social conservative, common-sense middle ground that the Conservative Party abandoned years ago in favour of progressive Leftist orthodoxies and the interfering policies that go with them. He promised investment where it mattered as well as re-engaging the young with the skills training that will let them contribute to and play a positive role in society, instead of living the lives of perpetual anxiety or resentment that the social policy analyst David Goodhart comments on today.
Neither the Times nor the Telegraph appear to have cottoned on to how radical Nigel Farage’s groundbreaking policy speech was. In their preoccupation with the Tory leadership battle, they apparently did not think it warranted a comment or opinion piece, though it may be of far more significance. The Guardian, ironically, gave the speech the most comprehensive coverage, reporting Farage’s commitment to fight every Westminster seat at the next election. The BBC’s website item on his ‘student promise’ was no longer available 24 hours later. Diligent searching unearthed a report-cum-blog by its ‘Midlands political editor’.
Yet the speech marked a shifting of tectonic plates of British politics. The Brexit Party is not conforming to the political narrative of the last twenty years and that, in itself, is what the man on the Clapham omnibus wants to hear. Nigel Farage’s speech gave us the glimmering of a different political horizon. Here is it, unabridged, for you to review yourselves:
