Fox News Admits IT WAS CONNED

It is a rare thing indeed for the Murdoch goons to admit that they loused up: after all, were they to make a habit of it, they would spend more time ‘fessing up than putting their alleged journalism out there in the first place. So when Bill O’Reilly, top rated host for Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) agreed with criticism of a recent guest pundit, and effectively admitted Fox was conned, people sat up and took notice.

Once again, the subject that undermined the right wing was Sweden. After Combover Crybaby Donald Trump told his followers that there was trouble in Sweden, and that all those “bad people” who just happened not to be white were the cause of it, Fox News booked a pundit called Nils Bildt on The O’Reilly Factor. Bildt described himself as a “Swedish national security advisor”. But there was a problem.

Nobody involved in Swedish Government matters had heard of him. Still, minor point, eh? The press sought to figure out who Nils Bildt really was. The Guardian told “Fox News's 'Swedish defence advisor' unknown to country's military officials … After Donald Trump’s infamous ‘what’s happening in Sweden’ comment, Nils Bildt was billed on The O’Reilly Factor as Swedish national security advisor”.

It was also established that “the Swedish defense ministry and foreign office told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter they knew nothing of Bildt”. And Slate was rather less subtle than the Guardian, asserting “Fox News Interviews Fake Expert on Sweden to Warn About Immigration Threat”. Reminding readers of the Fox Habit of pitching news and comment items to deliberately feed off one another, the article went further.

“Nils Bildt, was part of a segment on the O’Reilly Factor in which two guests debated claims about whether recent immigration had made Sweden more dangerous. This, of course, came mere days after President Donald Trump was inspired by a Fox News segment to make a reference to ‘what’s happening last night in Sweden’ during a Feb. 18 Florida rally”. Trump is fed Fake News, then Fake News reinforced by more Fake News.

And now CNN - not Trump’s favourite news outlet - has revealed “Swedish media outlets have reported that Bildt, who was born Nils Tolling, left Sweden in 1994 and emigrated to the U.S. He later changed his surname to Bildt … On Sunday, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported that Bildt had expressed interest in 2013 in running for office in Sweden with the nationalist right-wing party Sweden Democrats. His bid was not successful”.

The Sweden Democrats are an anti-immigrant party, populist and nationalist. The party had its roots in Swedish fascism and has been part of a white supremacy movement. So it should come as no surprise that someone who took an interest in running for office under their banner might pass the kind of adverse comment on refugees being admitted to his home country which would match the agenda of the Trump gang and Fox News.

In the circumstances, Bill-O had little alternative but to admit “[W]e looked into the situation and the criticism is valid”. Nils Bildt looked too good to be true for those out there on the right wanting to paint Sweden as a modern hell-hole. That was because he was too good to be true. The Murdoch goons got conned, rather than doing the conning themselves.

Swedish Alt-Right Liar EXPOSED

The tsunami of Fake News claiming to come out of Sweden, and by sheer coincidence timed to follow directly from the recent outburst by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, has already featured on Zelo Street, as the contribution of Battersea basement dweller Paul Watson was considered. Watson is not actually on the ground there in Sweden. But he knows a propagandist who says he is: step forward “Peter Sweden”.

A real Swedish source - or maybe not

Peter Sweden, or whatever his real name and location is, makes this claim in his Twitter bio: “Swedish photographer. Reporting on news from Sweden. Political commentator. Your go-to source for news from Sweden that the MSM won't report”. How very convenient for all those Alt-Right ranters - a real Swedish source! Or maybe not: he also claims to be in “Europe - Not the EU”. Sweden is an EU member state. I’ll just leave that one there.

He is also clearly working closely with Watson and the rest of the Muslim misinformation machine, as witness his faux shock at Tim Pool - the journalist paid via Watson to go to Sweden - claiming “a local Muslim in Sweden says he believes 20-30% of Muslims here support ISIS”. He then reinterprets even this: “In the video the guy that is being interviewed says that 80% of the refugees from Syria that has arrived in Sweden support isis”.

Note the lack of any reliable sampling or methodology: that is not the point. The point is to get the misinformation and invention out there for the rest of the Alt-Right shock jocks to feed off. Peter Sweden also Retweets Voice of Europe, a Fake News feed that endorses the likes of neo-Nazi Geert Wilders. But back to his own “product”.

“Suspected handgrenade found near police station in migrant dominated Kista near Stockholm” he proclaimed. Did it look like that one? He doesn’t know. That isn’t the point. Once he’s pulled the deception trick, he’s away: “Once again i cannot state this enough. THIS IS A HANDGRENADE !!! A military grade weapon. Let that sink in”. And then he just makes it up: “A new report says that grenade attacks in Sweden increased with 170% from 2015 to 2016”. Citation? Link? You jest. The Alt-Right doesn’t dwell on such trivia.

Instead, after pausing to give his approval to Voice of Europe spinning for Marine le Pen, Peter Sweden is propagandising about arson: “Summary of arsons / explosions in Sweden Saturday 18/2 to Sunday 19/2. At least 30-35 cars were set on fire”. His source is Avpixlat. Wikipedia describes the site as “a Swedish online magazine with close ties to the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats … The site has been labeled a racist hate-site”.

This does not concern Peter Sweden, who moves swiftly on to endorsing comments like “European rape capital #Sweden has now achieved 100% rape increase in the past 3 years. @realDonaldTrump right again” (not even slightly close to the truth) and appealing to authority with “Regarding Kista. It is a well known multicultural suburb. I've been at Kista shopping centre many times and i can confirm that it is”. But has he?

Peter Sweden claims to be a photographer, but appears not to include any original content. He claims to report from Sweden, but could be posting his garbage from anywhere. All we can say with any reliability is that he is yet another element in the falsehood and misinformation machine intended to cloud reality and prevent reasoned and rational discourse. So he’s just another Fake News troll, then.

UKIP Wants To Have No MPs

If anyone were still in any doubt as to who wields the real power among the motley convocation of saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP, that doubt has been dispelled as what is supposed to be a serious political party descends further into infighting and the slow but certain implosion that follows the removal of its primary purpose.

Squeaky no knighthood finger up the bum time

As I pointed out the other day, the Kippers’ paymaster Arron Banks had told “I am giving Paul Nuttall an ultimatum that either I become chairman and sort out Ukip by bringing in business people and professionals to make the party electable, or I am out of there … The party cannot continue to be run like a jumble sale … If Nuttall doesn't professionalise it and toss out the likes of Douglas Carswell, Suzanne Evans and the rest of the Tory cabal then the party is finished anyway”. Carswell is UKIP’s only MP.

And today, who should have joined the denunciation of Carswell but Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, no longer UKIP Oberscheissenführer, absent from most of the Stoke on Trent Central by-election campaign after taking his bat home, and otherwise devoting his time not to the party he led for so long, but to scoring More And Bigger Self-Publicity Opportunities For Himself Personally Now, and mainly in the USA.

As the Guardian has reported, “Ukip’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, should be thrown out of the party immediately because he is actively trying to damage it, Nigel Farage has said … Farage said … ‘As a party, how can we let a man represent us in the House of Commons who actively and transparently seeks to damage us? I think there is little future for Ukip with him staying inside this party. The time for him to go is now’”.

Carswell - not playing the troughing game

So what’s the problem? “Farage has accused the MP for Clacton, with whom he has a long-running feud, of trying to block attempts to organise a peerage for him”. A peerage? Ah, but: “Former Ukip leader Malcolm Pearson initially attempted to organise a peerage for Farage but then switched to lobby instead for a knighthood when it became apparent he would have had to quit as an MEP in order to take up any seat in the Lords”.

Farage is so dependent on troughing off the EU, the organisation he supposedly despises, that he will not give up his MEP’s salary and, perhaps more importantly, benefits. Carswell, as is well known, does not favour milking the expenses regime quite as blatantly - and shamelessly - as Farage. So it should come as no surprise that he is less than totally enthusiastic about getting Mr Thirsty a knighthood for services to greed.

And when Farage blusters “Since the general election he has brought nothing to the party at all other than constant division, at times I believe deliberately stirred up to cause maximum damage to the party … As a party, how can we let a man represent us in the House of Commons who actively and transparently seeks to damage us? I think there is little future for Ukip with him staying inside this party. The time for him to go is now”, he has only himself to blame. He wanted Carswell in UKIP. Be careful what you wish for.

There’s no clearer evidence that the Kippers have a death wish: they lose yet another attempt to get another MP, then demand that they also lose the one they already have - because the selfish and dishonest gobshite who used to lead the party can’t get a knighthood. UKIP is finished. Carswell might as well return to the Tories.

Dan Hodges - Beyond Desperate

Despite the Mail on Sunday’s resident Ron Hopeful telling readers that he was “Britain’s best political columnist”, the sheer cluelessness alone tells anyone with brain plugged in and a hole in their backside that the not at all celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges is anything but. And to put the lid on his deservedly wobbling reputation, Desperate Dan has had a less than happy weekend to boot.

He's desperate, Dan

The blowback for the pundit who told the world that Mil The Elder would become Labour Party leader in 2010, UKIP would fail to break 6% of the national vote share at the 2015 General Election, Jeremy Corbyn would not become leader of the Labour Party, Britain would not vote to leave the EU, and that Hillary Clinton would become the 45th President of the United States, began when Matthew Black reminded us of his 2016 analysis of Hodges, which included the passing of severely adverse comment.

Ava Vidal - plain speaking

And for the pundit who claimed to be a Labour member, but who embraced Lynton Crosby in celebrating the win of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in the 2012 London Mayoral Election - Bozza’s disastrous eight years pretending to be Mayor of London is only now entering the consciousness of the Pundit Establishment - it swiftly got worse.

Hodges decided to pick an argument on the wrong subject, on the wrong pretext, and with the wrong person. His subject was racism, his pretext that he had experienced it, and the person was comedian Ava Vidal. He could have desisted, but the Hodges iron law of Twitter argument holds that, unless he comes over all righteous, throws a mardy strop and blocks his adversary, battle must be joined until won, or, as in this case, lost.

Had Hodges experienced racism? Ms Vidal had to put him straight: “If we walk down the street together (unlikely) &someone calls me n****r, I personally EXPERIENCED racism & you personally WITNESSED it”. But what about if they, er … “Please get your black friends to explain to you that you being called a ’n****r-lover’ is not racism against you. This is embarrassing”. Not going very well, was it, Dan? And then it got worse.

Hodges signed off a reply to Ashiwaju Bisi Alimi with “thank you Nigel Farage”. He was just not going to get that one past Ms Vidal: “Jesus. He's now calling a black person 'Nigel Farage.' A mainstream columnist gaslighting and being a racist troll. Total disgrace”. But Dan’s got black friends, honestly. Was she convinced by that? “Sure. Amazing that you've been banging on since yesterday using them as props and they've decided not to confirm your story. Says it all”. That would be a No, then.

And just to make sure he got that, she followed up with “What has that got to do with your 'black friends' not confirming your story we all know is bollocks?!” Dan Hodges could have just admitted he was clueless, was talking crap, and then yielded to Ms Vidal. But because he’s a Really Important member of the Pundit Establishment, he won’t.

It used to be rumoured that David Cameron was an enthusiastic reader of Hodges’ missives. Which goes some way to explain why he was the worst Prime Minister in living memory. Meanwhile, Dan Hodges, far from being “Britain’s best political columnist” is in line to succeed Peter McKay - as The World’s Worst Columnist. You’re welcome, Dan.

Toby Young Oscars Racism BUSTED

Last night, the great and the good of the film industry - well, those that the newly paranoid inhabitant of the White House was prepared to let in to the USA - gathered in Hollywood for the 89th Academy Awards. This was an opportunity for the real stars of the silver screen to collect gongs, make speeches, or just be seen at the ceremony and after party. It was also an opportunity for shameless nobodies to piggyback a little attention.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

And there is no-one more shameless among the ranks of nobodies than the loathsome Toby Young, who has inexplicably been gifted the editor’s position at Spectator Life magazine, which still features a regular column from a career racist and anti-Semite. Tobes had clearly decided beforehand to use the Oscars to score More And Bigger Self-Promotion Opportunities For Himself Personally Now.

So it was that Spectator Coffee House readers were subjected to “The most politically correct Oscars ever?” with Tobes telling “this year’s Oscars will be even more politically correct than usual – not so much the 89th Academy Awards, as Hollywood’s First Annual Diversity and Inclusion Awards”. And there was, regrettably, more.

“African-American actors have been nominated in each of the four acting categories. Six black actors have been nominated in total, a whopping 30 per cent. Four of the five nominees in the Best Documentary Feature category are people of colour, while Barry Jenkins, the African-America writer and director of Moonlight, has been nominated in two different categories”. Er, Moonlight did get the Best Picture award. Minor point, eh?

Tobes was too busy sneering to realise that there might be a good reason for the nominations: “In case you don’t get the point, the Academy has nominated the black playwright August Wilson for Best Original Screenplay for Fences, even though he’s been dead for 12 years. I don’t recall William Shakespeare being nominated for Macbeth last year. Perhaps that’s because he’s ‘too white’”. Who let those bleck cheps in hyah?

And don’t forget, good right-leaning Spectator readers, “This year’s four-hour telecast, due to be broadcast tonight, will be a tsunami of virtue signalling. No self-respecting Oscar winner will be able to leave the stage without letting the audience know just how much they really, really dislike Donald Trump”. That’s because Trump is a weapons grade, sexist, misogynist, bullying, sexual molestation practicing, dishonest, intolerant shit.

But enough of the “I’m white and straight and I’m in a minority AND IT’S NOT FAIR” whining. Best Actor and Best Director - that would be two key awards in any Oscars ceremony - went to white males. Make that white STRAIGHT males. This has proved such a humiliation to Tobes that he has deleted his Tweets sneering “And the Oscar goes to … anyone provided they’re not white, heterosexual or male”. But he was too late.

Toby Young’s whining, entitled twattery might gain him some attention from the right-leaning part of the Pundit Establishment. But from out here in the Real World (tm), the only thing his amateurish snivelling merits is ridicule. Away with you, Tobes.

Sun Prisoner Deportation Hypocrisy

The Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun are in full mock horror mode this morning at they announce to the world “Killer Exclusive … American strangler dumped on Britain”. Who he? Well, Dempsey Hawkins, who is 57, has spent 38 years in prison in New York State for murdering his then girlfriend, and has been released on condition that he gets deported. He is British, and so has been deported to the UK.

Here, he has worked to rebuild his life with the help of friends, got himself a job and somewhere to live, and is a generally productive member of the community. But that’s not good enough for the Murdoch mafiosi, who have readers to frighten and papers to sell. “‘HE'LL KILL AGAIN’ … Killer who strangled girl in US now in UK after Brit campaigners fought for his deportation … Murderer Dempsey Hawkins denied parole nine times since being jailed for murder of his 14-year-old girlfriend in 1970s” they howl.

Do go on. “When he was 16 he strangled his 14-year-old girlfriend Susan Jacobson with a shirt and stuffed her body in an oil drum … He then pretended to help searchers look for her while keeping them from finding her … retired NYPD cop Mark Corrao added: ‘This man has been dumped on you people. The family feel powerless. Everyone in the UK should be alerted and know what happened’”. But, er, hang on a minute.

Deporting criminals? Where did I hear that before? Was it … no, surely it couldn’t have been … yes, I think it was … wasn’t it … rings a bell … of course, it was in that well-known paper … what’s it called … y’know, I do believe it’s called … THE SUN!

Deporting criminals is a Sun speciality - so long as it’s the UK deporting them, or as they are saying today, dumping them - somewhere else, preferably somewhere full of brown or black people or, failing that, somewhere they speak foreign. “Moroccan criminal who cannot be deported identified as Abu Hamza’s ‘daughter-in-law’ … Tory MP Philip Davies outed her using parliamentary privilege” was a typical example.

There was more. We’ve been told of “Deport delays for hundreds of European criminals being hosted in UK … Brexit MP says figures show the 'system is broken’”. Then there was “ALMOST 1,800 foreign criminals who should have been deported are still here five years after being freed from jail”. Or how about “NEARLY 6,000 foreign criminals waiting to be kicked out of Britain are freely roaming the streets, official figures reveal”?

Or this variation: “THOUSANDS of foreign offenders could be escaping deportation each year because police officers are failing to check their immigration status”. And don’t forget the Poles: “AT LEAST 130 Polish criminals serving time in UK jails should have been sent home over the past four years – red-faced officials admitted”. Yeah, who do they think they are, getting above their station by doing cheap plumbing for us?

The Sun is fine with deporting criminals - so long as it’s somewhere outside the UK they get dumped. So that’s the usual stinking hypocrisy from the Baby Shard bunker, then.

Lily Allen - Say Sorry, Tabloids

Once again, the malign influence of our free and fearless press has come to bear on one of its favourite hate figures, singer Lily Allen. Except this time papers like the Mail and Sun, which have relentlessly demonised Ms Allen, especially when she committed the heinous crime of showing compassion towards refugees, did not need to set their attack dogs on her: their readership was already conditioned to undertake the assault for them.

Lily Allen

Ms Allen revealed that she had suffered from PTSD after suffering a still birth. And that was when the abuse began: there were suggestions the still birth was caused by drug dependency - most likely because the member of the brains trust making the comments read it in the paper, so it had to be true. That she had also admitted to having issues around post-natal depression and bipolar disorder just fired up the mob even more.

As the BBC has told, “Her Twitter account has now been taken over by a friend to try to stop the abuse … The trolls accused her of being to blame for the death of her baby and suggested she had mental health issues … It started when the 31-year-old singer tried to highlight the prejudice shown towards immigrants … But, when mostly anonymous trolls started abusing her things started to get nasty”. The keyboard warrior massive again.

That's what I bladdy think of some bladdy singer bladdy taking the bladdy piss out of me, youse bastard Pommie drongoes!

The Beeb’s report also mentions “Lily regularly posts about controversial subjects and it's not the first time she's faced abuse on Twitter … She spoke out about the Calais migrant crisis last year, apologising for what she deemed to be a lack of action on the part of the UK government” before the inevitable news that “Lily … has now announced she's taking a break from Twitter”. The misogynist, sexist and even racist abuse was too much.

Where might these anonymous beings of less than total courage have got their inspiration for their attacks on Ms Allen? We do not need to look too far: the Murdoch Sun has used any excuse to attack her, ever since she took the piss out of Rupert Murdoch. Don Rupioni is nothing if not a vindictive SOB, and the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker are all too ready to attack anyone, especially if it will get KRM to throw them a biscuit.

Why can't I f***ing put the boot in to some singer, c***? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

Also guilty as charged are the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail, all keen as mustard to denounce anyone showing compassion for people who are not white. The Vagina Monologue’s hatred of Ms Allen was such that Glenda Cattia Maxima Jan Moir was instructed to pen a hatchet job on her. Anyone not prepared to keep their distance from refugees is not the Daily Mail’s kind of person.

So what are the Mail and Sun saying about this disgraceful attack on Ms Allen? Nothing. Not a sausage. Zero. Zip. Nil. Nada. Bugger all. After a suitable pause to let the bully boys do the hard lifting for them, they will score some cheap column inches by saying “Singer targeted by Vile Trolls”, say it’s all the fault of that Social Media that their readers should not trust, and snigger into their upmarket designer snackettes at a job well done.

This targeting of Lily Allen is a direct result of yet more bad behaviour from at least two tabloid papers who knew full well what they were at when they targeted her, and what the result would be. Say sorry, Tony Gallagher and Paul Dacre. You are utter filth.

Brexit - The Dark Money Reality

Recently, Zelo Street attended a gathering of media people where the subject being discussed by the invited speakers was Brexit, and its potential aftermath. Among the questions asked afterwards was one notable intervention from a well-known writer whose name does not need to be disclosed. His pitch was basically “yes, but what about all the Dark Money?” This was a most prescient question, as we are now discovering.

We now know that both “designated” campaigns, Britain Stronger In Europe and Vote Leave, are being investigated for potential spending irregularities, but this is a mere “Look Over There” item - the Dark Money is beyond conventional investigation. But we do know that the Dark Money has been a part of the referendum campaign.

Why we can say that the presence of Dark Money, most probably emanating from the USA, is rather more than the conspiracy theory some would have us believe, is that the tip of this particular iceberg is now in plain sight. Moreover, the bulk of that iceberg is becoming clearer with each new revelation. We start in Northern Ireland.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) spent just over £58,000 on its 2015 General Election campaign. But somehow, it managed to spend £425,000 on the referendum. What’s more, most of that money was expended on mainland British campaigning. How so? As the Guardian has reported, the DUP “spent £282,000 on a pro-Brexit advert in a newspaper that is not published in Northern Ireland, according to documents released by the Electoral Commission”. They bought a wrap-round in the Metro freesheet.

So who paid? As the Guardian has also told, “Under a provision in funding rules dating to the Troubles, which allows Northern Irish political parties to accept anonymous contributions, the identity of the donors to the DUP campaign had not been made public”. And despite the later claim “the DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson revealed on Friday that the little-known pro-union Constitutional Research Council (CRC) had donated”, that does not tell us where the money originated. Thus the invasion of the Dark Money.

And it gets worse: also in that paper’s sights is the leave.EU campaign fronted by the likes of Arron Banks and Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, and here the sums potentially dwarf the DUP’s Metro advert. Here’s the intro: “Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of a British company, SCL Group, which has 25 years’ experience in military disinformation campaigns and ‘election management’, claims to use cutting-edge technology to build intimate psychometric profiles of voters to find and target their emotional triggers. Trump’s team paid the firm more than $6m (£4.8m) to target swing voters”.

Who owns Cambridge Analytica? Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and the connection to the EU referendum? You’ll love this: “the longstanding friendship between Nigel Farage and the Mercer family led Mercer to offer his help - free - to the Brexit campaign”. This is what is referred to as a “benefit in kind”.

Following the money - and the money you can't see

So what was the game? “The strategy involved harvesting data from people’s Facebook and other social media profiles and then using machine learning to ‘spread’ through their networks … the campaign used this information, combined with artificial intelligence, to decide who to target with highly individualised advertisements and had built a database of more than a million people, based on advice Cambridge Analytica supplied”.

And how did this pan out? “Two weeks ago Arron Banks, Leave.eu’s founder, stated in a series of tweets that Gerry Gunster (Leave.eu’s pollster) and Cambridge Analytica with ‘world class’ AI had helped them gain ‘unprecedented levels of engagement’. ‘AI won it for Leave,’ he said”. But what was that about benefits in kind?

Well, any benefit in kind worth more than £7,500 must be reported to the Electoral Commission. They have no such item from Mercer, or leave.EU, filed as yet. How much might Cambridge Analytica’s services have been worth? If the Trump campaign shelled out the thick end of £5 million, what leave.EU got is probably going to be well into seven figures. And thus a further, more subtle, invasion of the Dark Money.

On top of all that is the possibility that opinion formers - newspaper pundits, solo and group blogs, and other social media warriors - have been suckling at this particular teat as well. More Dark Money, and more probably untraceable Dark Money, at that.

Who might those beneficiaries be? Well, Mercer has now been revealed as one of the owners of the Breitbart News Network, that convocation of the irredeemably batshit that has turned the proliferation of Fake News into its own particular speciality.

But the money is only one aspect of this invasion: as the description of the Cambridge Analytica methods shows, the potential is also there for wholesale misuse of personal data, an area where the Information Commissioner may want to get involved.

One should not dismiss the Information Commissioner’s powers too readily: this is, after all, the body that brought an end to the (mainly) illegal information gathering operation of Steve Whittamore back in 2006. Another Operation Motorman could well be in the offing.

The elephant in the room is, of course, that the referendum has been held and the damage done. But who drugged the beast and paid the bills are still to be uncovered. More later.

UKIP On Brink Of Breakup

The excuses for UKIP’s failure to win the Stoke on Trent Central by-election have been coming thick and fast, and there was no thicker or faster presence than the party’s deputy leader Peter Whittle (who?) fetching up on The Andy Marr Show (tm) and claiming that there was no problem, Paul Nuttall was going to remain leader, and that his being absent elsewhere was nothing to do with his taking his bat home after losing, no sirree.

Farage and Banks - taking their bats home

Whittle was in that corridor of delusion that so many in UKIP seem to inhabit so enthusiastically, claiming that Nuttall’s going off on “a trip” was usual in the aftermath of a by-election, that the electorate did not know him well enough (baloney), whined about the personal attacks on Nuttall (which he richly deserved for his dishonesty), and seemed to actually believe that the party is “more united than ever”.

Just how delusional this is can be seen from the antics of former Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pal, Kipper paymaster Arron Banks. Farage took his bat home from the Stoke campaign when he discovered Lisa Duffy, who passed severely adverse comment on him, was running the show - so much for unity. Mr Thirsty has been giving more attention to his media career - over in the USA.

Nuttall - a useless joke figure

Banks, after helping to derail Nuttall’s election effort by insulting the families of the Hillsborough victims, has now returned refreshed from his reassuringly expensive skiing holiday in non-EU Switzerland and decided to enact the modern-day equivalent of the Munich Beer-Hall Putsch. This will result either in UKIP becoming the party of Himself Personally Now, or not getting any more of his dosh.

This is what Banks told the joke paper that is the Sunday Express: “I am giving Paul Nuttall an ultimatum that either I become chairman and sort out Ukip by bringing in business people and professionals to make the party electable, or I am out of there … The party cannot continue to be run like a jumble sale … If Nuttall doesn't professionalise it and toss out the likes of Douglas Carswell, Suzanne Evans and the rest of the Tory cabal then the party is finished anyway”. Yes, that’s UKIP unity for you. And there was more.

Carswell - only UKIP MP now out of favour

“These dullards aren't bringing in Tory votes, Stoke proved that, so what are they for? The party now needs to bring in serious people to fix its ramshackle administration, stay relevant, and stay radical or it will die … From what I hear far from winning elections, Carswell's main concern is sabotaging Nigel's knighthood, which is why he must leave the party”. UKIP isn’t “radical”. It’s a rag-bag of opportunist bigots.

Back in that corridor of delusion, Peter Whittle responded to the prospect of Banks flouncing off by claiming that other backers would come forward. But who? Ms Duffy’s presence in Stoke - she’s supposed to be employed as an EU civil servant, which prohibits her working on non-EU related stuff - has been reported to the EU’s OLAF fraud unit. Nuttall could yet face criminal charges over his nomination papers. And it gets worse.

UKIP is rumoured to be in debt, with creditors becoming restless. Who would volunteer to take on all of that, just to have to put up with all the infighting? Farage is only concerned with self-promotion, Banks is a damaging loose cannon, Nuttall is a figure of fun, and the only thing they can all agree on is lying to the electorate. The UKIP party is almost over.

Top Six - February 26

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Laura Perrins Double Hypocrisy The new star of the right wing has promoted herself as a stay at home Mum, and someone proud to use her married name. So that’s a double helping of hypocrisy, then.

5 Paul Nuttall’s Chairman RESIGNS The chairmen of UKIP’s Liverpool and Merseyside branches threw in the towel in response to the “Bad Bootle Meff” lying about losing close friends in the Hillsborough stadium disaster.

4 Farage Sweden Rape Lies BUSTED The former UKIP leader claimed that Malmo was now the “rape capital of Europe, if not the world”. He was, as with so many other claims, lying through his teeth.

3 Don’t Menshn Paedophile Milo After Milo Yiannopoulos was caught on camera advocating for paedophilia, (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch realised that he was not her best choice of friends.

2 Paul Watson - Alt-Right Nobody The far-right shill dropped himself in deep legal shit after offering to fund anyone wanting to report on the alleged violence in Malmo.

1 Simon Danczuk’s Friends VOTED OUT The Rochdale CLP’s AGM featured every one of Spanker Si’s apologists who had someone standing against them getting voted off.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Don’t Menshn Russia Paranoia

If only to prove that a stopped clock is right twice a day, (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch finally managed to latch on to something plausible about the connections between the new administration in the White House and the increasingly unelected dictatorship of Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin. But, sadly, it was then a case of two steps forward and three steps back, as she lost it totally on Russian influence in the USA.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

The Guardian - not previously Ms Mensch’s favourite paper - has reported “In the journalistic race to get to the bottom of one of the most closely guarded secrets in Washington - the investigation into the Trump team’s contacts with Moscow - one of the biggest scoops came from an unexpected source: the British former MP and novelist Louise Mensch”. And what, pray, was her scoop?

“On the eve of the November election, Mensch published a sensational story reporting that a special intelligence court in Washington had granted a warrant to allow the FBI to conduct surveillance of ‘US persons’ in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump organisation”. She has since alleged that aircraft movements show a possible Russian “handler” meeting with Trump in Florida.

But then it all went wrong as she ranted “I absolutely believe that Andrew Breitbart was murdered by Putin, just as the founder of RT was murdered by Putin … under his successor, Breitbart has agitated for Russia's strategic objectives in US and UK. Including Texas separatism even”. Wibble, wibble, she’s a hatstand.

One hates to pass adverse comment on Ms Mensch’s pearls of wisdom, but this is weapons grade bullshit. Andrew Breitbart died from a sudden and massive heart attack - which was not his first - in February 2012, or to put it in the US political context, some months before Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term. Is Ms Mensch suggesting that the Russians were planning their interventions so long ago?

Moreover, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole admitted that Breitbart enjoyed “a voraciously Type A lifestyle - drinking, smoking and burger-scoffing like there was no tomorrow” (yes, Del Boy now works for the Breitbart empire, but when he made those comments, that appointment, and the creation of the Breitbart London outpost, were around two years in the future). And there is more.

Not long before he died, Breitbart, clearly fired up, was caught on camera ranting and raving at Occupy protesters outside the 2012 CPAC venue. That would not have helped his condition one bit. The Los Angeles County coroner’s report into his death stated “No prescription or illicit drugs were detected. The blood alcohol was .04%. No significant trauma was present and foul play is not suspected”.

Andrew Breitbart had his warning some months before the heart attack that killed him. As the CPAC protest video shows, he took little notice of it. And soon after that video was recorded, he was dead. That is all there is to it.

Louise Mensch is once again adding two and two, only to get a result well in excess of four. And remember, they allowed her to become an MP.

Trump Bans BBC? NO STATE VISIT

The deeply paranoid state of the new administration in the White House was once again highlighted this week by the continuing use of the Third Reich playbook to attack media outlets whose reporting incurs the displeasure of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump. Where the Nazis attacked the “Lugenpresse”, any outlet Trump dislikes is now attacked as “Fake News”, and more recently “Enemies of the American people”.

So far, so disquieting, especially given the presence of those like Steve Bannon, formerly of the convocation of the irredeemably batshit otherwise known as Breitbart and believed to be the real power behind The Donald, but now the real censorship has started, with media organisations incurring Trump’s disfavour being barred from White House press briefings, which themselves are being taken away from the cameras.

Think about that for a moment. A great constant, no matter whose candidate occupied the Presidency of the USA, has been the visible and regular briefing of the press. Journalists have been free to question not only the President’s press officers, but the incumbent himself. Now, the Trump gang is cutting back on letting the President face questioning, and on top of that, shutting out many media organisations.

Who has fallen out of favour? Well, this is where it gets really worrying: the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian, the New York Daily News, Politico, BuzzFeed and even the Daily Mail (remember the Melania Trump lawsuit? You can bet the President does) have been excluded. And … the BBC. But Breitbart, the conservative Washington Times, and Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) have been allowed in.

Meanwhile, Trump has addressed the annual gathering of the right wing at CPAC, telling them “As you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn’t tell the truth … I say it doesn’t represent the people, it never will represent the people, and we’re going to do something about it”. And the press in the UK blubbers and snivels at the thought of having a press regulator they can’t directly control.

What is starting in the White House is a premeditated attack on the freedom of the news media to report as they see it, without fear or favour. And the new occupant of that building has been - all too hurriedly - been invited to make a State Visit to the UK by our new and not at all unelected Prime Minister. Well, if Theresa May wants to show her commitment to the freedom of the press - and broadcasters - she has a very simple solution.

And that is that the invitation to Trump to make a State Visit to the UK be put in abeyance until the attack on free speech being made on his behalf ceases. No doubt there can be concerned diplomatic noises made beforehand, but the intent should be clear: a Presidency that is copying from the Nazi playbook should not be given the cachet of having the Royal Family wheeled out to give it its implicit seal of approval.

Theresa May is all for press freedom? Then she should stand up to Donald Trump. Now.