Nigel Farage is the new Sarah Palin

Nigel Farage is the new Sarah Palin, rambling on crazily about Russia
By Dan Hodges World Last updated: April 4th, 2014
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Nigel Farage as Sarah Palin looks remarkably like Mike Myers as Wayne
Nigel Farage has just completed a fascinating phone-in with Telegraph readers. The discussion was wide-ranging, and the Ukip leader engaged with it in his usual avuncular style.
That is until the conversation turned to his professed admiration for Vladimir Putin. At which point, not to be put too fine a point on it, he fell apart.
It was like watching a rerun of Sarah Palin’s career-defining – and ending – interview with Katie Couric. Asked about her take on foreign affairs, the Republican vice-presidential candidate famously started rambling on about how she could see Russia from her home state of Alaska.
Farage began rambling on about how Britain was an island. Russia, we had to understand, wasn’t an island. So Putin’s aggression in Ukraine was understandable.
In fact, he’d been provoked. Not just by the EU. But by William Hague. The mobilisation of the 76th Russian Airborne Division, the 31st Airborne Brigade and 18th Mechanised Brigade were all because our hitherto inoffensive-seeming Foreign Secretary had been “very provocative” towards Vladimir Putin and his people.
Though the EU was obviously responsible as well. It had asked the Ukrainian people if they wanted to be part of the EU. Which Farage seemed to imply was almost a declaration of war in itself. Especially when nobody in the Ukraine wanted to join the EU anyway.
At this point the moderator, Tim Stanley, finally felt the need to step in and question the assertion that nobody in Ukraine supported EU membership. “Well,” the great tribune of the people responded, “maybe a substantial minority do want it. But we shouldn’t have offered it to them.”
And so it went on. Asked about Barack Obama’s statement that he wanted Britain to remain a part of the European Union, Nigel Farage responded “Everything the Americans have asked us to do since 1945 is wrong.”
Everything. Since 1945. Like when they asked us not to invade Suez. Or when they asked us to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in the fight against communism. Or when they asked us to help expel Saddam from Kuwait.
If it was left to Ukip, Britain would fight fewer wars, he said. And get the public finances under control. Although yes, Ukip did have a policy of increasing spending on the Armed Forces by 40 per cent. Because although we wouldn’t be fighting any wars, the world was a much more dangerous place. And so we had to have lots more troops. To not fight those wars.
Except maybe in the Falklands. What would we do if Argentina invaded? Although they probably wouldn’t because now the Falklands were well defended. Any attack by the Argentines would “cost them heavily”. Even though our Armed Forces had been effectively neutered. But what if they did successfully invade? What would we do then?
What indeed. Sarah Palin was once a new and refreshing political voice. She was “taking on” the establishment. She spoke directly to “the ordinary folks at home”.
Remind me. Whatever happened to her?