School document discussing Farage, and his behaviour, published

[Saint-Armstrong]

 

 

 

 

Blimey, odd reading this now.

 

Mind you, I know plenty of guys who said some pretty stupid **** when I was at school too.

Edited 6 April, 2015 by Saint-Armstrong

[Jonnyboy]

Nasty piece of work, young Farage.

[Batman]

not far off the bizarre youth/adulthood of someone like ken Livingston

[simo]

Well looks like they did a good job of educating him and sorting him out!

[Wes Tender]

It does seem to be that Channel 4 has an agenda against Farage, judging by the spite and bile that they have levelled against him, making up fictitious dramas about what the repercussions would be if there were to be a UKIP government. Now we have this stuff dredged up about him as a 17 year old boy at school.

 

Perhaps if they were an organisation that would like to be seen to be more impartial and serious in their reporting, they would have done a little research and found this from a contemporary of the young Farage:-

 

http://endofcivilisation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/farage-dulwich-and-hitler-youth-songs.html

 

But then again, having an anti-Farage agenda has nothing to do with fairness or impartiality, but everything to do with flinging mud in the hope that some sections of the electorate who can't think for themselves will accept it all as gospel. It just goes to prove how afraid the established parties must be if they have to resort to this outdated scaremongering.

 

And then the editors/producers/programme commissioners at Channel Four ought to think back to when they were 17, when they were probably out in the High Street at weekends peddling the Socialist Worker or Marxism Today.

[sadoldgit]

Where do you draw the line with fairness and impartiality though? Would we give Hitler an easy ride now? There is something very nasty about Ukip. Farage is trying to put a gloss over it all but at the end of the day we all know what Ukip is all about. People need to know what they are voting for if they vote for Ukip.

[pap]

Where do you draw the line with fairness and impartiality though? Would we give Hitler an easy ride now? There is something very nasty about Ukip. Farage is trying to put a gloss over it all but at the end of the day we all know what Ukip is all about. People need to know what they are voting for if they vote for Ukip.

 

I'm not a UKIP voter, but this shít is grasping.

 

Are you comfortable with your record as a seventeen year old? I certainly wouldn't want to be judged on mine.

[Ludwig]

I'm not a UKIP voter, but this shít is grasping.

 

Are you comfortable with your record as a seventeen year old? I certainly wouldn't want to be judged on mine.

 

Yes, but you were proper nawty when you were a youngster on the flowers estate. Now you are an upstanding member of the community. Things have changed.

 

This is not about being judged on the things Farage did or said as a kid. The letter indicates racist tendencies. Today, the man leads a party with racist tendencies, as proven by the endless "gaffs" they make. So it is fair to make a link between the young Farage and today's Farage.

 

What is more odd is that this letter was first released in 2013 and was news then. Saint Armstrong has dug it up from somewhere because its not in the headlines now as far as i can see.

[Badger]

not far off the bizarre youth/adulthood of someone like ken Livingston

 

But of course you're allowed to hold extreme leftie views in your younger days and they're passed off as 'folly of youth', so 'Cuddly Ken', and Denis Healy can become almost national treasures without recrimination of their past. And lets not mention 'Red Ed's' marxist father and any influence it may have had.

[pap]

Yes, but you were proper nawty when you were a youngster on the flowers estate. Now you are an upstanding member of the community. Things have changed.

 

More about attitudes really. I've never really had the luxury of being a racist, but you'd definitely have heard a load of homophobic terms being bunged about in our 17 year old set. Wouldn't want to be judged today on things I'd said then.

 

This is not about being judged on the things Farage did or said as a kid. The letter indicates racist tendencies. Today, the man leads a party with racist tendencies, as proven by the endless "gaffs" they make. So it is fair to make a link between the young Farage and today's Farage.

 

It kind of is. Prosecute the slimy bugger on anything he's done as an adult, especially those awkward moments when he's been filmed privately countenancing things he'd never say in public. There's plenty of it.

 

I just find the idea of people going that far back distasteful, irrelevant and gratuitous. He's technically a minor at that point. What next? Baby Nige once smeared his own shít in something that resembled a swastika? The bastard!

 

What is more odd is that this letter was first released in 2013 and was news then. Saint Armstrong has dug it up from somewhere because its not in the headlines now as far as i can see.

 

Uncredited and unsourced, as usual

[Jonnyboy]

OK he was only 17 but you can't really get a worse school report/character reference short of being expelled or charged with a crime.

[Hockey_saint]

I'm not defending him but are they 100% this letter isn't fake? I mean some of the English is a bit dodgy and it just seems a little TOO close to the truth.

[Patrick Bateman]

I'm not defending him but are they 100% this letter isn't fake? I mean some of the English is a bit dodgy and it just seems a little TOO close to the truth.

 

Likewise. I think UKIP is full of utter helmets, but this does seem rather convenient to say the least - the language, the way it's constructed, all a bit too perfect.

[Wes Tender]

OK he was only 17 but you can't really get a worse school report/character reference short of being expelled or charged with a crime.

 

You don't seem to have grasped all of the story. The author of the letter states in her first sentence that she is not acquainted with the young Farage and raises her objections to him being made a prefect on the basis of hearsay, (much as you are doing).

 

And being proposed to be made a prefect hardly suggests that that he was totally without merit. And why do you suggest that this missive written by this teacher was suggestive of a bad character reference for somebody charged with a crime? You wouldn't make a good magistrate making no allowance for youthful exuberence.

 

To top it all, the teacher in question apparently doesn't even recall writing it.

[Wes Tender]

True, and if it were someone public with no reason to doubt, then some dodgy stuff about their teenage years came out I'd ignore it. But when it's stuff that clearly relates to the man he is now, it's more concerning. plenty of people make mistakes and talk crap when young, but plenty also keep it up for good. there doesn't seem to be any doubt about who he is and what he represents. they won't get him, he'll fade away but it's a fcking depressing situation where someone like that has even managed to get a voice. not exactly a triumph for the country's education and tolerance.

 

Just because you don't agree with his politics doesn't mean that rather bizarrely you have to criticise the Country's education system or our tolerance, by which presumably you mean our right to free speech. Do you insinuate that he is poorly educated? Who is to set the agenda of where in the spectrum politically the pupils of your ideal education system will be? And where are the Country's boundaries on tolerance to be set in your ideal World when the leader of a political party should be denied a voice in a democracy, according to you?

 

You're usually quite sensible in your posts, but your opinion here is as I say quite bizarre.

[View From The Top]

Likewise. I think UKIP is full of utter helmets, but this does seem rather convenient to say the least - the language, the way it's constructed, all a bit too perfect.

 

 

Written 30 odd years ago by a teacher at Dulwich College. I'd say the language is just about spot on.

[View From The Top]

I'm not a UKIP voter, but this shít is grasping.

 

Are you comfortable with your record as a seventeen year old? I certainly wouldn't want to be judged on mine.

 

I agree to a certain extent, however, is it really so different from people using the Bullington club photos of Cameron or banging on about Milliband's dad being a Marxist?

 

As soon as they stood for public office, rightly or wrongly, everything became fair game.

[CB Saint]

A pretty strong letter from someone who "was not acquainted" with Farage.

 

Like people have said, it is an 30+ year old letter about a 17 year old boy. At that age and especially from private schools kids think they know it all and accordingly hold very strong opinions, rightly or wrongly. To hold that letter against the Fararge of today, is clutching at straws however much you hate Fararge or UKIP.

[pap]

I agree to a certain extent, however, is it really so different from people using the Bullington club photos of Cameron or banging on about Milliband's dad being a Marxist?

 

As soon as they stood for public office, rightly or wrongly, everything became fair game.

 

It really isn't that different, but the other things you mention are still seen in their proper context. As much as I'd love to say that the Bullingdon club photos are a big factor in who Cameron is now, I'm in my forties now and recognise that people change hugely. There are people from my own life that wouldn't have got or given me the time of day at that age.

 

The Miliband saga was just f**king grubby, and to an extent, it all is.

 

The typical cut-off point is simply "life before politics". We've seen it done, but pre-politics witch-hunts aren't something we do that much, or care about. No-one really gives a toss about Gideon's allegedly drug and hooker replete life, but people do give a shít if their Chancellor looks off his tits in the Commons.

[Patrick Bateman]

The typical cut-off point is simply "life before politics". We've seen it done, but pre-politics witch-hunts aren't something we do that much, or care about. No-one really gives a toss about Gideon's allegedly drug and hooker replete life, but people do give a shít if their Chancellor looks off his tits in the Commons.

 

People do change and people do use their experiences differently. I bet most of us on this thread, if we went into politics would have something dug up about us from when we were teens/20-something - anything the press can use to attempt to beat you with.

 

And Pap, I totally agree with your last point. If it was news about how our country's leaders are acting NOW, then it is a totally different story.

[scotty]

Well, this thread is going rather differently to the witch-hunt I expected. Quite refreshing.

 

I'm no friend of ukip or Farage, and I personally think Ed Miliband was a disastrous choice of leader for labour. I also have a hearty dislike of Cameron, so not sure where that leaves me. But as Pap and others have pointed out above, this mudslinging against them from their schooldays is, at best, distasteful. I suppose the press are just doing what sells papers or reinforces their own political agendas, but it does the reptiles no favours at all. I'd also like to hear the full story about the letters author who claims not to recall it; that just sounds plain odd to me as they must have spent a great deal of thought and time composing it.

[shurlock]

Unless we're reducing political views to lifestyle choices, of course, they're relevant. Especially as they're not a million miles from the perception and some of the positions held by the man today.

[buctootim]

You've got to question the brains behind this programme when their attempts at anonymity for the writer extend to blanking out the signature but leaving "From Chloe Deakin" in the top left.

[Wes Tender]

You've got to question the brains behind this programme when their attempts at anonymity for the writer extend to blanking out the signature but leaving "From Chloe Deakin" in the top left.

 

Well, she says that she has no recollection of writing it, so the journo who faked it realised that by deleting her signature there would be less chance of her disputing that it was she who had signed it.

[pap]

Quite apart from anything else, what exactly does this kind of retroactive juvenile witch-hunt say to our own scions?

 

I've got a kid reading history at the moment. She is also nineteen, and I have every expectation that in between getting her qualifications, she'll find the opportunity to have the time of her life. And so she should. Everyone deserves the folly of being young, inexperienced and stupid without the prospect that they'll be pulled up on it years later.

 

Does anyone, for example, believe that Prince Harry actually harbours Nazi sympathies, or was his costume choice that night the provocative choice of a young man who wanted to push boundaries yet lacked the emotional maturity to respect the scale of offence he may cause? I think we've all put it down to the folly of youth, haven't we? It'll never be entirely forgotten, but it's always going to be seen in the context.

[Batman]

it is stuff like this is part of the reason we have utterly bland politicians.

I remember that woman from labour getting loads of schit for admitting to smoking weed at uni.

 

so what?

[Jonnyboy]

Quite apart from anything else, what exactly does this kind of retroactive juvenile witch-hunt say to our own scions?

 

I've got a kid reading history at the moment. She is also nineteen, and I have every expectation that in between getting her qualifications, she'll find the opportunity to have the time of her life. And so she should. Everyone deserves the folly of being young, inexperienced and stupid without the prospect that they'll be pulled up on it years later.

 

Does anyone, for example, believe that Prince Harry actually harbours Nazi sympathies, or was his costume choice that night the provocative choice of a young man who wanted to push boundaries yet lacked the emotional maturity to respect the scale of offence he may cause? I think we've all put it down to the folly of youth, haven't we? It'll never be entirely forgotten, but it's always going to be seen in the context.

 

Prince Harry hasn't gone on to form a powerful political party based on xenophobia.