The hypocrisy of Nigel Farage’s supporters

Much heartened by the barrage of criticism I’ve been receiving from both Spectator and Times readers, I’m returning to the subject of Coutts’s customer selection. I’ve learned over the years how to spot the emergence of a herd opinion, not just by the volume of shouts but also by how members of the herd begin copying and repeating – often word for word – each others’ phrases; and what we now call ‘memes’ take shape. My experience is that when public sentiment begins to attract these characteristics, it is almost always wrong. I never forget the advice of my late grandfather, Squadron Leader Leonard Littler: ‘Whenever I hear of a great wave of public indignation, I am filled with a massive calm.’

I’ve especially relished the spectacle of my own journalistic colleagues gathering up their skirts in moral horror at the idea that someone might be so indiscreet as to leak information to a journalist, and the meme that even a lowly bank clerk would be sacked for doing so. Indeed they would. A lowly bank clerk might be sacked for dressing sloppily, persistently arriving late for work, or having alcohol on his breath after lunch. A bank manager would be safe from dismissal on such counts.

Anyone who has spent years attending dinner parties or pub gatherings in a respectable English country town will greet with a smile of recognition the news that local managers in the banking, legal or medical profession have been known to gossip about their clients’ private affairs. But oh how we puff with fury at the outrage that Nigel Farage, that soul of respectfulness in his own utterances, should have been the victim of loose talk! How it pains us that this unfortunate man, a stranger to self-publicity and seeking only the shadows, should have suffered public exposure! Farage, meanwhile, who lives, moves and exists through noise, can doubtless hardly believe his luck.