EU View: MEP Farage's 'damp rag' tirade

Clare Spencer | 13:15 UK time, Thursday, 25 February 2010

Nigel Farage Commentators dissect the reasons behind UKIP MEP Nigel Farage's tirade against the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, describing him as having the "charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk".

Michael White in the Guardian says Mr Farage was rude but right about Herman Van Rompuy:

"Europe is becoming feebler, not stronger, by the day and Van Rompuy's appointment - like that of Lady Ashton as foreign minister - was another bag of nails in the coffin lid.
But rudeness in such a stuffy, consensual, gravitas-lite assembly is just boorish, juvenile, Hannan-esque solipsism, for which we should hang our collective head. Nige, how could you?
It is not as if he means it all, not deep down. He hasn't minded taking nearly £2m worth of EU taxpayers' filthy money since 1999 on top of his £64,000 annual salary."

Neil Clark in the First Post calls Mr Farage the rudest man in Europe:

"Farage's attack on the modest and mild-mannered van Rompuy and his equally inoffensive country will only confirm what many in Europe think about the British: that we are a country of arrogant, bullying xenophobes."

In the Watching Europe blog, Julien Frisch isn't impressed:

"I have respect for eurosceptics and europhobics who are willing to make an argumented point, willing to openly criticise what needs to be criticised from their point of view. But you don't even want to be respected, you are not even looking for an argument, which is so low politics that it's hard to get much lower."

George Eaton at the New Statesman says the tirade was a transparent attempt to replicate Daniel Hannan's YouTube success but was also contradictory:

"I think we can all agree that Van Rompuy, to borrow Winston Churchill's description of Clement Attlee, is a modest man with much to be modest about. But here's what I don't understand: surely as an anti-federalist, Farage should be grateful that the EU is led by a political pygmy? Wouldn't the traffic-stopping Tony Blair have been far worse?"

Richard Henley Davis in the blog Economic Voice dismisses the idea that it was solely a publicity stunt:

"This outburst would seem like an opportunistic move by Farage to raise his public profile and that of his party given the upcoming elections if it were not for the fact that he is right. His observations and condemnation of Van Rompuy are far from outlandish and probably reflect the mood of Europe."

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