Cringeworthy Comedy At The Guardian

Via Timmy, do go read this hilarious claptrap at the Graun.

Nigel Farage's cigarettes are often depicted as one of the most appealing things about him. To date, his deployment of crafty or, occasionally, cheeky ciggies, while all around him conform to public health advice, has been a remarkably well-received token of his libertarian vision. Of course, his constant smoking is, first and foremost, a little guy demonstration that he is nothing like professional politicians – NB E Milband, D Cameron – who rarely invest in anything more than a lager to advertise their human DNA.

Well, yes. That's perhaps why his party is riding so high in the polls, no?

But this is but a poorly-attempted hatchet job - as remarkably well recognised by the derision from Guardian commenters below the line - so could only result in one denouement.

When Farage argues for zero interference by the nanny state, this inevitably makes him an unhealth campaigner – for lung cancer, for obesity and for an epidemic of diabetes, not forgetting his party's enthusiasm for higher speed limits, thereby adding thousands more to Ukip's morbidity targets.

Course it does, dear, because absurd leaps of logic are no longer for immature spotty teens. As Dan Hannan explains adriotly, they are for idiot adults too.

Without intending to, Bob was using the same line that trolls habitually do: “Unless you explicitly say X, we can all assume Y”. Every blogger, every Tweeter, will recognise the tactic.

Not our pitifully poor arroganza, though, she's obviously not aware of anything of the sort. She just motors down that intellectual cul-de-sac without a care whether she has a reverse gear or not.

Why Farage should be 100% in love with easeful death is anyone's guess, but, for pure, cautionary value, he could still be the best thing to happen to the nanny state since the foundation of the NHS.

Presumably why voters are deserting Ukip in droves; why mainstream politicians are enjoying historic levels of popularity; and the nanny state has never been more respected by the public.

Do go read. Watching the desperate furiously scraping barrels can be very funny sometimes.

UPDATE: Simon Cooke has written about this with more of a broadsheet inspection to my tabloid guffaw. Go visit there and read about the "especially unpleasant piece of ad hominem in The Guardian".