http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/16/nigel-farage-ukip-car-crash-radio-interview-lbc?CMP=twt_gu
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100271810/nigel-farage-has-just-had-his-nick-griffin-moment/
If Farage had had the benefit of my advice he would have gone on the offensive and done it so much better. As it was he was defensive the whole time. Not a good interview.
Here is how I would have dealt with the points raised by O'Brien.
John Lyndon Sullivan is mentioned at 3:06 about a homophobic comment he made on 17 February.
Farage was asked what was going to happen to JLS who said "I wonder what would to other 99 poofters if we shot just one of them? Would the others decide that on balance they weren't poofters after all?" I would have said: "Nothing. He is allowed to speculate about these matters on his Facebook page if he wants. UKIP have no plans to shoot poofters and never will."
As for UKIP's Small Business Spokesman who employed 7 illegal immigrants, Farage should just have said he cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings of which he has no direct knowledge.
Farage then goes on to congratulate himself for barring ex-BNP members from joining. Fat lot of good that has done him. By excluding me, an ex-BNP member who is not racist, antisemitic or Islamophobic, he is depriving UKIP of the communication and propaganda skills of the greatest political talent of all.
O'Brien then mentioned that in 1997 someone called Devin? who wrote about Jews in the media called mind-benders in Spearhead. He was known to use the N word as well as nignog and was known to have suggested BNP and UKIP get into bed together. I would have said: "So what? I know lots of people like that. Do you really think other races don't call white people rude names?"
As for Breivik, I would have said "Just because someone who was against immigration committed acts of terrorism does not mean that campaigning against immigration makes one a terrorist. Supposing I objected to wind farms, and supposing else blew them up. Would that act of terrorism invalidate my objections to wind farms? I would say not."
As for O'Brien badgering about Farage being Company Secretary to a company that owed HMRC tax, Farage could have asked him what exactly he was trying to insinuate.
As regards why Farage found being on a London train where none of the passengers spoke English, he could have said "While I am accustomed to my wife and children speaking German, I am not accustomed to being on a London train without hearing a single a single word of English being spoken. Are you saying I am not entitled to mention this at all? UKIP is an anti-immigration party after all."
"When I was talking about children who spoke English as a second language, I was not referring to Europeans speaking another European language as a first language, but to children who were not from this continent at all. Yes, I will admit to being a practitioner of dog whistle politics. UKIP is after all an anti-immigration party in case you hadn't noticed. Some of our members find non-white immigration more objectionable and alarming than European immigration, especially if they happen to be Muslim. I don't mind admitting that. Anything else?"
"Romanians should not be confused with Roma people. The former speak excellent English and are good workers who come here to do the jobs locals here don't want to do, while the Roma people are disproportionately represented in crime statistics. Anything else?"
People don't really care about being racist, but are just scared of being accused of racism, so even a badly handled interview like that should have no discernible effect on UKIP. Doubtless the liberals will gloat because they think they have scored a goal, but all I am saying is that UKIP should have an ideological strategy that will make them do scarily well in GE 2015, and I am the woman to give it them.
