Clegg means well but can't cut it

Well done to nick clegg for taking on the foolish but dangerous farage. Just a shame he wasn't up to it. Where was the passion? The horror some of us would feel at having to surrender our internationally recognised maroon passports for the dreaded old pomp of a vanished empire, whose brittannic majesty's sec iof state demsnds no let or hindrance while at the time being main imposer of said hindrances? The horror of having to apply for a Schengen visa to nip to Paris on Eurostar? Not to mention Clegg's own appalling idea of passport checks on leaving the uk which would serve no purpose and make the lives of us most hindered travellers in Europe infinitely worse!! And the Brits abroad who would be forced to re register asaliens  with their local pice as we had to back in 1970s. But Nick tell us of the glories of our ancient common culture from Renaissance to reformation, to our common history which goes far beyond the sad restricted story of 'two world wars and one works cup'. British politicians in Europe are cowards not heroes, standing up only for what they think will get them re-elected even if that invariably means pandering to the lowest common denominator. Don't fight Farage on his own ground, Nick, redefine yours, ours. Europe is where we live. Don't let the nasty nationalist drag us out of the house and into the cold! 

Faragesky? Or just same old Farago?

Nigel Farage in his radio/tv debate with Nick Clegg accused the EU of having 'blood on its hands' over Ukraine, alleging that we encourage anti-Russian campaigners to provoke Russian retaliation by deposing the elected president Yanukovich. This is an argument - like most of Mr Farage's - wildly out of kilter with the European and British political mainstream, which is not to say there is no truth in it, but it does raise a more interesting point: if EU states can meddle in Russian interests, what about Mr Putin meddling in EU interests, notably by encouraging Farage and co to strike a blow at the EU by encouraging British secession.
Amusingly - up to a point - protesters in the eastern Ukrainian, but largely ethnically Russian - city of Donetsk recently launched a (not wholly serious) campaign for their region to secede from Ukraine and join, not United Russia (Mr Putin's political party) but the United Kingdom, on the rather spurious grounds that their city was founded by a Welshman (coal mining tycoon Thomas Hughes).
Entertaining if hardly serious. But can it be that in Putin, Farage sees a like-minded soul, encouraging a vision of his country's past and future based on nostalgia and populism? In which case, what if Putin sees the same in Farage, a man who promises a UK either semi-detached or completely detached from the rest of Europe, a playground, investment centre, and virtual tax-haven for the Russian rich? What fun he could have! Weakening the EU's clout by removing one important member, and at the same time diminishing that former member's role as a vector of US influence in Europe!! Of course, Putin has described the UK as 'just a small island', but then Crimea was just a small peninsula. Watch those contributions to UKIP coffers closely.