Reform UK And The Rise Of Ignorance

Opinion polls continue to show a rise in support for Reform UK, headed by its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, with the result that the clueless coterie which is claimed to be running the Labour Party has become concerned enough to take action. Their problem is that the ship has already sailed, and no matter what they do, they can’t out-Farage Farage.

Ignorance is strength!

Reform UK may be a shambolic affair, with no shortage of revelations concerning the views of its newly-elected representatives, usually revealing sneering and vicious racism, coupled with staggering ignorance and an inability to understand that Great Britain and England are not interchangeable terms. This last was exemplified by new Lincolnshire Mayor Andrea Jenkyns.

There had, she argued, to be a way to stop the “Pull to England” which brought so many refugees. Perhaps if they arrived in Scotland or Wales, all would be well. No matter though, her pals at Reform UK have diverted the attention of voters with claims that the councils they now control will ban all that Woke Nonsense, although they probably couldn’t define “Woke”.

Richard Tice (he’s not very nice) has gone as far as to assert that Reform UK councils will crack down on planning applications for new wind farms. His problem is that pre-judging such applications is highly likely to lead to those councils being sued and costing a significant amount of public money in the process. He is also dishonestly blaming Net Zero for, well, anything.

None of this deters the voters, though. Nor does the further ignorance displayed by Tice’s unappealing partner Isabel Oakeshott, who recently trilled “[Reform UK] will go to court to close asylum seeker hotels in [Reform UK] council areas. When it comes to ending this scandal, the party means business”. That would be outside a council’s remit. Still, details, eh?

One might have expected an alleged investigative journalist to have thought that through before shooting off their online mouth, but there’s prejudice to spread and ignorance to feed, so off she goes. One incoming Reform UK councillor didn’t seem to know that you can’t obtain British citizenship without being able to speak English. Others will defend anything Farage supports.

The 3D chess ain't making it

So when the Economist looked at Reform UK’s spending plans and concluded that they would result in a worse fiscal shock than Liz Truss’ infamous intervention, there was the Reform UK brains trust claiming that this was only “The MSM” and they always lied about their hero. Farage is a congenital liar, but there are none so blind as will not see.

So what has Labour’s ruling clique done in response? Tried to out-Reform Reform. This is a colossal act of stupidity: Reform UK is a safe haven for racists, and they are not going to jump ship for Labour merely because they are pretending to be tough on all those migrants, which in practical terms means Scary Muslims™. Still, off they went, to no effect whatsoever.

Bringing the unedifying spectacle observed by Adam Bienkov of Byline Times: “Yvette Cooper gives an exclusive interview to GB News about her immigration plans, during which the interviewer tells her that some of their viewers live near asylum seekers and their ‘children can't leave home’ … No push back from the Home Secretary”. That was bad; Kier Starmer was worse.

One hates to go all Neil Kinnock on the PM, but here we had A Labour Prime Minister - A Labour Prime Minister - scuttling round media outlets saying “We risk becoming an island of strangers”. So close to Enoch Powell’s “They found themselves made strangers in their own country” from his infamous 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech as to make no difference.

Who is driving the Labour bus? If, as has been claimed by those close to The Great Man, it is the cabal headed by Morgan McSweeney, maybe he should be the one defending this disgraceful descent into scapegoating and bigotry. And, as a side order, explaining why Labour can’t leave Mr Thirsty to his racism and just improve voters’ lives. Because that’s what they’re there for.

They thought they were so clever in throwing the 2019 election. But the dirty tricks won’t win voters back. Now they are lost. And ignorance is king.

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Behold Lord Tobes Of Bellend

And so it came to pass that the time of year meant party leaders nominating a variety of the undeserving and otherwise underemployed as new members of the House of Lords, the Other Place that the current Government was so keen to abolish, but now, seemingly, isn’t. Labour has put forward thirty names, but most of them will escape scrutiny, thanks to Kemi Badenoch.

As ever, at times like this, the opposition rides to your rescue: Ms Badenoch, not content with making herself and her party look less credible with every week’s PMQs, has put forward one name guaranteed to put those of Charlotte Owen and Ross Kempsell, ennobled at the behest of disgraced former occasional PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, in the shade.

Because the latest name in the Tory prospective peerage frame is none other than the loathsome Toby Young, who has for many years been full value for his nickname of Captain Bellend. I first observed the deep and sincere affection his peers in the media held for Tobes some years ago.

At the launch event for the HuffPost UK, Zelo Street was there in the auditorium, sitting in the back row as the launch presentation and debate began. Some 20 minutes later, the entrance door to my left opened, someone walked through it, and a chorus of booing ensued. What, I asked the bloke to my left, was all that about? “It’s OK, it’s only Toby Young” came the reply.

It got worse: Tobes was apparently having difficulty finding a seat. The disruption was brought to a swift end when Arianna Huffington recognised The Great Man, and no doubt also knew about all the snarky abuse that he had dispensed in her general direction. “Would you like to join us?” she asked, at which point Tobes thought better of making an even bigger arsehole of himself, and found himself a seat with remarkable swiftness.

That is the memory coming to the fore every time our free and fearless press attempts to polish the turd that is Captain Bellend: the foot-soldiers of this industry have a rather lower opinion of his munificence than their bosses. So most of the crap being spoken about him in reaction to the peerage nomination can be taken with one gigantic piece of salt.

Pride of place in that department goes to the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph proclaiming “Free speech champion Toby Young awarded peerage”. As Billy Connolly once said, there’s going to be some swearing … FUCK OFF. Anyone and everyone has the right of free speech. But all too many on the right don’t like actions having consequences.

It gets worse, as a perusal of Tobes’ Wikipedia entry demonstrates: “Young has admitted using cocaine at the Groucho Club in central London, and also supplying drugs to others. He was subsequently expelled from membership of the club in late 2001 for writing about the cocaine use of friends he had supplied with the drug during a 1997 photo shoot for Vanity Fair”.

Any more minus points? “Young has come under criticism for comments he made on Twitter … These included what an Evening Standard editorial called ‘an obsession with commenting on the anatomy of women in the public eye’”. And how’s this for vanity? “Young is reported to have edited his own Wikipedia page 282 times over the course of six years”. Modest with it, eh?

Maybe this comment from Dawn Foster sums up Tobes’ true place in the establishment pantheon: “Young seems to think he is held in high regard by free school advocates. When I mentioned his name in the course of interviewing a former Department for Education employee for the piece, my interviewee headbutted the restaurant table in exasperation. I have found the sentiment, if not the gesture, to be common among his ideological comrades”.

That is merely reinforced by the knowledge that he was taken on, and then sacked, by the Times, under the editorship of Charles Wilson. This part of his career trajectory he shares with Bozo The Clown, someone else who is full of crap and gobby with it. He’s called Captain Bellend. Because he’s a bellend.

Lord Tobes of Bellend, of the borough of Leering in the county of Misogyny. Because they couldn’t find a horse called Incitatus.

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So Farewell Then US Democracy

We may not like the verdict passed by voters in the USA, but it is their right, their call, and their majority preference that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump be returned to the White House for another term as President. What creative propaganda was fed to the electorate we may never know. What we do know is that Trump is not fit to serve a burger and fries, let alone his country.

His all too recognisable mental decline has been on view for some months. His mind is failing him, and those who have backed him to the hilt with their millions know it. They know he is not up to the job. Yet they supported his re-election; Trump is easily flattered, and his business empire almost bust. He gets some praise, some money, and his backers bend the USA to their will.

It is easy to look two years forward to the 2026 midterms, and reason that all will be corrected as the GOP loses waves of House and Senate seats, thus bringing into play those checks and balances for which the Constitution is rightly famous. But Trump has also told his fans that they will not have to vote ever again. He showed you who he was; believe him the first time.

For those in the USA who will suffer the bigotry, the misogyny, the uncaring authoritarianism, some did warn us, like Mehdi Hasan: “People - including top US journalists, perhaps especially top US journalists - don’t quite get how bad it’s going to be. How beyond term one it’ll be. How bad the Musks and RFKs will be. I don’t think even I fully accept how bad it’s going to be and I have been shouting how bad it’s going to be for years”.

Here on the other side of the North Atlantic, though, the problems will be very simply trade and defence. Trump is threatening swingeing tariffs on anything coming into the USA. Maybe NAFTA will not survive. So countries in Europe, inside the EU or not, will have to learn to do without that market.

That is, of course, easier said than done. But it must be done. It will not be easy to do, especially as, more or less at the same time, European countries that had seen the USA as The Great Protector, the one country that underpinned the NATO alliance, will have to learn to look after themselves, singly or, more likely, collectively. Which probably means via the EU.

Those countries will include Ukraine, as Trump has repeatedly voiced his backing for the gangsterist régime of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and his disdain for the Government in Kyiv. US aid for Ukraine will wither away; either Europe allows the country to be annexed by Russia, or does something to prevent that. Trump’s USA will not ride to our rescue this time.

So where does that leave the UK, with its Government, headed by someone formerly so enthusiastically pro-EU, but now implacably opposed to closer ties with the European Club? Keir Starmer has to realise two things here: One, there is no point cosying up to Trump, who couldn’t give a crap about him. And two, he can’t ride the European Club horse and the Special Relationship horse at the same time. He has to choose one, and only one.

He must also learn to shut out the howling of our free and fearless press at even the mention of closer ties with the EU. Because he has little choice, when faced with an isolationist USA, but to mend fences with the EU, and forget his repeated refusal to countenance rejoining the bloc. In this, Trump and his gang have unintentionally done the UK a great service.

In the meantime, he will fulfil his promise for the USA to engage in no more wars, and instead keep those wars within his own country - a war on women’s rights, a war against ethnic minorities, a war against anyone opposed to his power grab, and a war against the freedom of speech he falsely promotes.

And those countries that have embraced neoliberalism can, in the meantime, reflect on its failure to deliver Trump’s opponents the White House. We might usefully consider re-reading The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money, whose embrace saved the West from revolution after World War 2, while The New Great Dictator gets on with laying waste to the USA.

Europe needs to look after itself. And the UK has to choose - wisely.

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Hello BBC - Your Team Lost

Winston Churchill once said that he knew very little about economics, but he did know that shooting Montagu Norman would have been a good thing. Churchill had relied heavily on the advice of the then Governor of the Bank of England when he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer by Stanley Baldwin in the latter’s 1924 to 1929 Government. The sentiment concerned one issue.

A most unfortunate juxtaposition

Norman had been highly supportive of returning Sterling to the Gold Standard, and at the pre-World War 1 rate of one pound to 4.86 US Dollars. The obvious problem was that Sterling was by this time worth no more than around $4.40. The initially lauded return to Gold had the effect of increasing the cost of UK exports by around 10%. So those abroad went elsewhere.

Norman and his counterparts from France and Germany then went to the USA to ask if the folks Stateside could perhaps alleviate the situation by a little loosening of monetary policy, which they duly did. From that point, rather a lot of the easier money went on purchasing common stocks, with the result that an overheated stock market crashed in late 1929.

Now, I know very little about the internal machinations of the BBC, but I do know that removing Robbie Gibb - permanently - from the Corporation would be a good thing. Anyone who is comfortable sharing a platform with the luminaries of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, and the rest of the Tufton Street alphabet soup brigade, has no place at our national broadcaster.

Looking at the Beeb’s website this morning, one could be forgiven for concluding that it was the Tories who won last week’s General Election, such is the glaring bias in coverage. The faux “equivalence” is there in the first UK News headline: “Starmer heading to Scotland as Jenrick says Tories failed to deliver”. Who gives a flying foxtrot what Robert bloody Jenrick thinks?

Scroll down a little and it gets worse: “Who could replace Rishi Sunak as party leader?” Only in the sub-heading does the word CONSERVATIVES appear. Default party = Tory party. Scroll down a bit more, to Latest Updates. “A quick guide to the PM who only lasted 45 days” is followed by “A very quick guide to Penny Mordaunt” and “A quick guide to Rishi Sunak”.

Not only are those features about Tories, but the first two lost their seats. And what’s this? “Gloomy in Looe as fishermen reflect on Labour coup”. Tanks on the streets, was it? It didn’t get any better when the Laura Kuenssberg show had its first post-election airing. Jenrick was one of two Tories given a platform. That’s the party with just 121 MPs. As opposed to Labour with 411.

Ed Davey, whose party put on another 61 MPs to reach a record high for them of 72, was greeted by the grudging “Congratulations, I suppose”. Former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal summed it up: “Laura Kuenssberg seems to be finding it hard to be in opposition”. So Jenrick is kicking off the Tory leadership race? Who cares? They’re out of it. Stop promoting them.

Likewise, the effective awarding of a season ticket for Question Time and other shows to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has to stop: his is a fringe party with just five seats. If he and his pals get access, so should the Greens. So they got a lot of votes. So did the Liberals in 1974, and the Liberal-SDP Alliance in 1983. Did the Beeb give them season tickets, too?

Giving the Tories such prominence despite their drubbing last week, and worse, giving a platform to the kinds of Tories who belong firmly in the wacko fringe, is out of order. Questionable displays of “impartiality” - pitting those with comprehensive knowledge of a subject against lobby group activists with bad faith talking points - should also be brought to an end.

That means serving up news and current affairs in a genuinely even-handed manner. No Astroturf lobby groups, especially those who decline to say who funds them. Fact check those known to peddle assertions of dubious veracity. No more Question Time audience plants. And let the Tories run their own leadership contest. They’ve got enough pals in the press as it is.

Robbie Gibb at the BBC was for a time, but not for all time. Order the taxi.

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Labour Landslide - Slow Handclap

And so ends the 2024 General Election campaign, the triumphant end point of the mission, so the media narrative goes, to make the Labour Party electable once more, with voters now able to make the positive choice to vote for The Red Team. After all, Labour now had a 170 seat majority, and had won in a landslide. But that electable positive choice was absent elsewhere.

New and electable leader secures for Labour ...

It was left to master pollster John Curtice to bring Labour cheerleaders the bad news: “Actually, but for the rise of the Labour Party in Scotland... we would be reporting that basically Labour’s vote has not changed from what it was in 2019”. In fact, the party garnered fewer votes than in 2019.

You remember 2019? Labour allegedly in the grip of “trots”, beset by claims of institutional anti-Semitism, when rather a lot of people within the party, it has since been alleged, either didn’t bother to campaign for its then leader, or tried their damnedest to throw the contest. Yes, totally unelectable Labour scored more votes than new and totally different Labour.

How such a thing could happen, and with such a different result, is down to the Tory vote collapsing - and the First Past The Post voting system. Labour’s vote share was up on 2019, but turnout was, shamefully, lower at something like 60%. The “Landslide on 34%” has now incurred the displeasure of the Daily Mail, calling it a “Loveless landslide”. There will be more of that.

And while the Tories were duly turfed out, Labour’s stance on the Gaza conflict, Starmer’s clumsy mention of “returning people to Bangladesh”, its below shitty treatment of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and equally shitty treatment of some of its candidates deserve analysis, as does the patently ridiculous behaviour of some of those client journalists out there.

Corbyn stood as an independent. Labour’s choice of Praful Nargund was staggeringly arrogant: here was someone who had made a lot of money in the healthcare business. A series of party luminaries let it be known that they were campaigning against Jezza. And then came the superior insights of the New Statesman magazine, starting with pundit Rachel Cunliffe.

Here was her schtick, delivered on live TV: “I have always found the argument that Jeremy Corbyn is such a prominent local figure, that he would be able to mount a strong, independent campaign. That has never really chimed with my experience living in the constituency. He certainly wasn’t particularly active in the time that I was there”. Would a Tweet/X/Whatever extolling the analysis of Ben Walker and Finn McRedmond add more?

... fewer votes than his predecessor. Who won his seat, thanks

It certainly would. “A few weeks ago Novara Media tried to claim that Labour's 14-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn in this seat was a narrow gap. It really isn't. But it has narrowed slightly”. Get sneering! Nose a little higher in the air, eh? Corbyn won, with a majority of more than 7,000. The Staggers? Meet the new client journalists, not so different from the old client journalists.

The new authoritarian Labour Party had other problems, too. In Chingford and Woodford Green, the cynical last-minute sidelining of Faiza Shaheen, on whom Keir Starmer had showered so much praise, resulted in her running as an independent, the anti-Tory vote splitting, and Iain Duncan Cough living to fight another day. And no, it was not Ms Shaheen’s fault. It was Labour’s.

Had the ousting not taken place, she would have won. Who did the ousting? The newly authoritarian Labour Party. For party loyalist Jonathan Ashworth, it got much worse: he lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian independent. Wes Streeting came close as Leanne Mohamad got within 530 votes of dispatching him. He described the campaign as “ugly”.

Which is an interesting way of saying “I nearly got humiliated by one of those Scary Muslims™”. How “ugly” is it for tens of thousands of Gazans to be randomly blown to pieces, Wes? Streeting, whose reputation at this blog was shredded when he failed to call out Tom Harwood’s lying on Question Time, needs to ask himself why he nearly lost, which he may not.

Starmer himself experienced a fall in vote share and number of votes cast for him. He also had to contend with a significant independent campaign from Andrew Feinstein. Labour lost Dewsbury and Batley to an independent by almost 7,000 votes. They lost Blackburn. They kicked out and then patronised Jo Bird, who has came second in Birkenhead for the Greens.

Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is not anti-Semitic, or indeed anti-Israel. Labour could have done that and headed off all the grief. Instead, a large part of their core vote has been alienated. On the other side of politics, the far right now has a presence in Parliament, given yet more airtime yesterday evening by the BBC, which really has had a dreadful election.

Relying on Tory collapse in order to win cannot be repeated. Realisation has dawned that Labour is beatable. Slow handclap, authoritarians.

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Election Day Press Shame

The day has finally dawned, when, if the latest poll is to be believed, Labour will sweep to a tally of well over 400 MPs, with the Tories facing something between annihilation and wipeout. The conclusion to the election campaign is as obvious now as it has been since Rishi Sunak went to see Brian in late May, his pals bet on the election date, and Labour were thereby alerted.

Turnout looks as if it may be on the high side: good. Sunak might, just might, provide the ultimate Portillo moment of the night as it looks possible that he could lose his seat. Five-figure Tory majorities are set to fall across the country, with at least one poll suggesting that Esther McVey in true blue Tatton could be a casualty. The Tories may end up with fewer than 100 seats.

If The Blue Team does worse even than that low bar, we could be looking at their being replaced as the official opposition by the Lib Dems. All of the foregoing is shaping up to provide excellent spectator sport after polls close at 2200 hours. But for one group of observers, there is a fear and foreboding in the air. They are the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press.

While the Murdoch Sun has done a screeching U-Turn during the week, going from attacking Labour to telling their remaining readers that Keir Starmer and his pals are actually the winning team, and the Sunday Times has also backed The Red Team, the daily title under the editorship of the deeply unpleasant Tony Gallagher has gone into fence-sitting mode.

Not so the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, which is pleading with any readers not yet asleep to back the Tories. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph has invented a Labour council tax raid. The Mail is trying to get readers not to back Reform UK. It is in a blind panic.

“Soaring taxes [no citation], uncontrolled immigration [no citation] … rampant wokery [meaningless drivel], betrayal of women’s rights [should be right up the Mail’s street, then], Net Zero mania [there is no mania], weaker defence [no citation], surrender of our Brexit freedoms [what ‘Brexit freedoms’ would those be, then?] - and votes at 16 to ‘rig’ future elections [is that in the Labour manifesto? I blinked and missed it]” And the “Supermajority” crap, too.

As well as the blatantly dishonest “You can stop it”. Right now, those Daily Mail readers with whom the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre had his imaginary “conversations” are queuing up at polling stations to vote out his preferred party of Government. After 14 years of ineptitude, corruption, waste, cronyism, cruelty, gaslighting, dishonesty, and rampant self-interest.

But what frightens the press more is that they have thus far failed to coax any assurance out of the Starmer team that there will be no return to Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, and the associated prospect of properly independent press regulation. No assurance that the press will be able to carry on behaving as badly as they see fit. Hence the panic, more lying, and scare stories.

Because a Government with a three-figure majority need not fear what all those obscenely overmonied hacks and pundits do in their efforts to derail whatever agenda is put before Parliament. If Labour triggers Leveson 2, not all the press lobbying in the Western world will stop it. Seeing what the press got up to for all those years will begin to turn the public’s heads. Good.

Worse for the press, the proliferation of poverty, those thousands of food banks, many working full time and still unable to make ends meet, will count against them. Why buy a paper when those who contribute to its production have so little understanding of how difficult life is for those hardworking people whom they claim to champion? They don’t care. Like the Tories.

The voters listened to the press, and their pals in all those Astroturf lobby groups. It got them a country that is in serious decline, a health service that is on its knees, roads that are literally falling apart, public transport that is either absent or expensive, a Police service that is mostly ineffective, and all they see is rich people filling their pockets. Then they see the press.

A press supporting more cruelty and more poverty. Don’t forget to vote.

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Don’t Mention The War, Sorry, Brexit

Perhaps the most surreal aspect of the General Election campaign is that the party most likely to form the next Government - Labour - is steadfastly refusing to recognise the elephant in the Economy room. The Elephant which has resulted in higher taxes, a decline in the UK’s ability to trade freely with its nearest neighbour, and therefore its attractiveness and competitiveness.

The name of the Elephant is Brexit. And Labour would rather not mention it, so frit are they of the fury that would rain down upon them from the general direction of our free and fearless press should they dare to Go There. This level of cowardice before gaining power gives every impression of enduring after Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves take up residence in Downing Street.

But at some time, Labour will have to talk about the Elephant. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are unencumbered by Labour’s cowardice, and John Sweeney, who is now fighting Sutton Coldfield for them, has put it directly: “I remember listening to the Brexit result in my little backyard and then it started to drizzle. Our wonderful country was conned something rotten: we have ended up with a broken economy, a blighted future and our national security endangered”.

And his solution? “The sooner we are back in the European Union the better and, if elected, I shall campaign for that … Vote for me and I shall fight for you”. Fight is the right word. Because the overmonied and intolerant part of the media class, less affected by Brexit, will fight to keep it.

They will always be able to summon a member of the punditerati to tell whoever reads the final article that the UK imposing economic sanctions upon itself is a small price to pay for the benefit of keeping all those FORRINS from making decisions that affect Brits. Screwing over farmers? Throwing the fishing industry under the nearest bus? Not their problem.

While the comfortable part of the media class can still dine at their reassuringly upmarket restaurants, can still summon tradespeople to patch up their over-valued properties, can still get domestic help without breaking the upmarket bank, and can still use the app to hail a private hire vehicle and therefore keep the hoi polloi away from them, Brexit will be excellent.

Typical of that media class is one Iain Martin, who claimed “‘The Office for Budget Responsibility says UK GDP will be around 4% lower every year than it would have been had we remained inside the EU,’ reports the [Observer]. This is not what the OBR says”, only to be Community Noted and for Jonathan Portes to tell him “This is *precisely* what the OBR says”.

In the meantime, Edwin Hayward, who has written a little on the subject, has put together a thread (HERE) where he groups the benefits of EU membership under the headings of Economic Benefits, Freedom of Movement, Education and Research, Consumer Rights and Protections, Health and Safety, Workers’ Rights, Environmental Protection, Citizenship and Legal Rights, Data and Digital Rights, Cultural and Creative Industries, Trade and Business, Security, Political Influence, and Future Potential.

Put yet more directly, improving the lot of all those Ordinary and Hard Working People without sinking yet deeper into decline and a vicious cycle of higher taxation, and without Sterling losing all remaining credibility, is going to be, er, challenging without returning to the EU. With or without another poll.

It will also involve not giving con men like Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his ability to talk well, but lie badly, equal status with leaders of democratically constituted political parties (which Reform UK, being a limited company with no internal democracy, cannot claim to be). Treat him on merit. Or lack of it.

But above all, Labour has to have the courage to talk about the EU. To be straight with the voters. This may well risk the bad faith lobbyists who lied and conned their way to success last time to crawl out of the Tufton Street woodwork. So what? They will have to be faced down whatever happens.

The average Polish citizen will soon be better off than their British counterpart. John Sweeney is right. The UK has to rejoin. That is all.

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Nigel Farage - You’re A Fraud

The potential collapse of Tory support, to the point where consideration is being given to the idea of the Lib Dems becoming the opposition after next month’s General Election, has also seen an increase in poll ratings for Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. But with the poll ratings has come - at last - serious scrutiny.

Our free and fearless press, and those in the broadcast media, have woken up to this potential threat to the UK: Farage urged what became Brexit for so many years, and the result has been to hobble the country’s economy, to precipitate a state of national decline of the likes not seen before. Now he wants more. That this may mean more decline has not passed unnoticed.

So what never got done in the past - genuine scrutiny of Farage, his team, and his backers - is now happening. After all, that same media gave a free pass to disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson too, and look where that got us. Now Farage is under pressure, and the edifice of bonhomie is cracking. He is being exposed as a fraud.

Worse, his sometimes wacko ideas on how the world is ordered have provoked ridicule, and from the right-wing press, disgust. Today’s Mail goes for Mr Thirsty, howling “FARAGE: THE WEST ‘PROVOKED’ PUTIN … Fury as Reform leader suggests Nato was to blame for invasion”.

There is a problem with Reform UK and its supporters claiming that Ukraine looking to join Nato, and indeed the EU, was what triggered the invasion by those in the service of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his gangsterist régime in Moscow, one of timing: Ukraine’s move to join Nato and the EU came AFTER the invasion. So it could not have been some kind of provocation.

On the domestic front, Reform UK’s Contract With Britain (or perhaps that should be Contract ON Britain) has seen the BBC’s Nick Robinson tell Farage “In your manifesto there are promises to spend more on health, more police, more soldiers, tax cuts for this group, tax cuts for that group, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the poor, everybody gets everything they want. It's like Christmas”, telling him he’s offering 50% more than Labour in 2019.

Exit ... stage right

Worse still, the promise to leave the World Economic Forum is unachievable - mainly because Britain is not a member of the WEF. And the long-standing commitment to leave the ECHR is worrying, given that this membership guarantees the right to a fair trial, the right to due process - when Farage spends so much time talking up deportations. And it gets worse still.

As David Clark has pointed out, apropos the Farage flagship feature, “This is why Reform UK deserves the designation far right. By talking about ‘invasion’ and framing immigration as an issue of national security, Farage is endorsing the conspiracy theory that it is being driven by a hostile foreign interest. It’s a fascist dog whistle”. Couple that with leaving the ECHR.

He blames Net Zero for “de-industrialising Britain”. Because it can’t be Brexit that done it. He claims exports are up, Britain going from 7th to 4th in the export league. Except this is only in services, not goods. Robinson pulled him up again on the infamous and swiftly-reversed Liz Truss “mini-budget”.

“You're laughing but you said on the day of the mini budget: Today is the best Conservative budget since the 1980s.. Is that the judgment of someone who deserves to be Prime Minister?” Ah well, responded Mr Thirsty, “Some of the thinking was right, the delivery was wrong, the timing was appalling”. No, the thinking was wrong too: handing rich people a tax handout is not the way to go for growth. Propensity to save v propensity to spend, and all that.

Also, Reform UK’s stance on climate change is in the wacko category. But, although the increased level of scrutiny is welcome, the thought enters that this may have been too late. Maybe Farage will win in Clacton. Which would, perversely as it may seem, be a good thing. Because then he would have to turn up to the Commons. Where he would get ridiculed more often.

And would finally be exposed as a fraud. Pity the country is screwed, mind.

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Whingeing In The Rain

The tell-tale signs had been there earlier yesterday, as more than one cabinet minister ducked out of media and other appearances. So when amateur Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped out of 10 Downing Street into a torrential downpour - there’s a bad omen if ever one was needed - it was obvious that he was about to do what Denis Healey once called “cut and run”.

Sadly for Sunak, such was his Billy No Mates presence that there was not even someone to hold an umbrella. Nor was his team sensible enough to change the venue to the Downing Street media room. And so it was that the electorate was told that the Tories were out of ideas, and out of time. There would be a General Election on the fourth of July. Independence Day, eh?

That date is also Independence Day in Rwanda. Oh the irony! Such was Sunak’s timing that, together with a Labour commitment to end the farce of deportations to that country, that no deportation flights will happen. Even though Sunak had said they would. Instead, his briefing to the assembled media was turned into a whingefest directed at Keir Starmer.

Not that too many will have remembered that, after someone (wasn’t Steve Bray, was it?) blasted the 1997 New Labour signature anthem “Things Can Only Get Better” from the end of Downing Street. The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar mused “Inauspicious start to campaign”, while even Laura Kuenssberg had to admit Sunak’s presentation was “not the authority of credibility”.

Meanwhile, after the Tories continued to alienate the media by chucking Sky News out of Downing Street, came Starmer’s response. James Chapman was impressed. “Well that Starmer speech was streets ahead of Sunak's, both in terms of the optics and content, with a compelling change narrative. I suspect Starmer is going to surprise on the upside in a campaign”.

That alienation, as Rachel Cunliffe of the Staggers pointed out, was not trivial: “It's not just journos but MPs, spads, MINISTERS who got the green light from No10 that the summer was safe. That's a lot of ill will to kick off a campaign with. From those on your own side”. Then came a truly wacko intervention by Christopher “No” Hope of GB “News”.

“Some furious Conservative MPs are tonight working on a plot to CALL OFF the general election by replacing Rishi Sunak as leader before Parliament is dissolved next Thursday”. But all it tells us is that there are those in the right-leaning media who are prepared to spray their credibility up the wall by recycling anything the Tories tell them. While backing The Blue Team.

Just what that will look like can be seen from this morning’s front pages. The Murdoch Sun brings us the news while avoiding using the photo of Sunak getting drenched outside No 10. Not quite “The Sun backs Blair”, is it? And the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph was also on message.

Obedient pundits were grovelling from the off, with Jeremy Warner declaring “The economic stars are aligned”, and wacko Janet Daley claiming “Starmer will be worrying now”. The Daily Brexit, still called the Express, told its faithful readers “The Prime Minister made a rallying cry for Express readers to get behind him”, and the Mail pontificated “Rishi seizes the initiative”. Like heck he did. Also, the Mail has more inside. Maybe too much more.

Sarah Vine obediently tells “This is about Sunak the man taking control and fighting his case head on”, while deeply unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn, live from North Vero Beach in Florida, concludes “Time for Rishi to summon up the blood, go for broke”. Not for nothing did Michael Heseltine decide “It is going to be the most dishonest General Election of my lifetime”.

The Tories are going to get a shellacking. But they might get a worse shellacking later. Hence Sunak deciding he had to turn and face his pursuers, despite teeing off many on his own side. And his media pals will back him to the hilt, despite the UK having been made a laughing stock over the past 14 years of inept and indeed corrupt leadership. That’s who they care about.

Rich people paying the desperate and greedy of the media to support their continued enrichment. This time the voters might just ignore them.

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Net Zero - Tories Lying AGAIN

The desperation of The Blue Team, as a General Election looms ever closer and the polls get ever worse, has now extended to flat-out lying about their main opposition. This has necessitated quoting the lobby groups in and around Tufton Street as if they were reliable sources, and not yet more highly partisan bad faith actors. Today has brought an excellent example.

Just after 0800 this morning, the Conservatives feed on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, declared “Labour’s green pledge costs over 4X MORE than they previously admitted, according to new reports. Energy experts this morning say Labour’s flagship policy is now ‘infeasible’". And how many “new reports” was that, then? Er, just the one, actually.

Could we have a source for that? Here is where the balloon of remaining Tory credibility was instantly deflated. The “source” was an article on the website of the Daily Brexit, still called the Express. And the article did not contain a citation, or link to the “report” quoted. But it did tell readers “Energy experts unveil 'true' £116bn cost of Labour's 'infeasible' 2030 net zero plan”.

And there is the warning sign, the hint that this may not actually be true: the use of quote marks to do the heavy lifting. Even the supporting article doesn’t make sense: “The money required is more than double the funds required under a net zero by 2035 scenario, modelling by Aurora Energy Research for think tank Policy Exchange has said”. TUFTON STREET ALERT! Do go on.

“Iain Mansfield, director of research at Policy Exchange, said: ‘To decarbonise the power grid by 2030 is simply not feasible. Given the state of the public finances it is hard to see how any Government could find the additional £93 billion required ‘ but even if the money were made available, it is simply not possible to build new renewable generation at the pace required’”.

But that assumes all the funding in the Labour proposal will be provided out of taxpayer funds, which it will not. Even the idea that the name Aurora Energy Research makes the Policy Exchange stance credible is rendered useless when we read “The paper’s author, Thomas Cabot, research fellow at Policy Exchange”. ONE OF THEIR OWN RESEARCH FELLOWS WROTE IT.

How much credibility does Policy Exchange have in the bank? Very little, sadly - ever since Tim Leunig’s wacko assertion that cities in the north of England, like Liverpool, had failed, and therefore their inhabitants should all move to London. Another fact not helping its credibility is that one of the group that founded Policy Exchange was Michael “Oiky” Gove.

Nor is this snippet from Policy Exchange’s Wiki entry: “Transparify's report ‘How Transparent are Think Tanks about Who Funds Them 2016?’ rated them as 'highly opaque,' one of 'a handful of think tanks that refuse to reveal even the identities of their donors’ … In 2022 it was revealed that the organisation is partially funded by ExxonMobil”.

Worse, and a sure sign that the Tories really, really want this hokum to be true, at 1100 hours came the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog to tell anyone not yet asleep “Labour’s bonkers £116 Billion Black Hole … LABOUR’S BLACK HOLE JUST GOT BIGGER”.

It did? How so? “Analysis by Aurora Energy Research has found that Starmer’s pledge to decarbonise Britain’s electricity grid by 2030 will cost £116 billion over the next 11 years. More than double the cost of the government’s current target of 2035 … The report concluded that even if Labour scraped the funds together, the policy is still ‘unfeasible’ due to the supply chain constraints, skills shortages and lead times”. There was more.

“No one believes going green is possible by 2030, though Starmer will bankrupt us trying. As Bim Afolami said, ‘Labour’s unfunded spending commitments just got bigger’”. No citation. Not even for the quote from Afolami. No mention of Policy Exchange. So much for the provisional wing of CCHQ and its dubiously talented convocation of lame propagandists.

Thus the true level of Tory desperation. It still won’t move the poll numbers.

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Labour - Press And Pundits Wrong

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press has, since the Tories’ poll lead vanished and Labour went in front by a margin now over 20%, tried every tactic in order to instruct their readership to vote in line with the superior insights of their editors, hacks and pundits. Every trick in the book of dirty tricks has been deployed. And the result thus far is total abject failure.

Soft left? Extremist doctors? How shall I put this ...

Some of the scare stories are off the scale batshit, exemplified by Janet Daly of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, someone who can be located in the no man’s land between “has-been” and “never was”, today bringing readers “Capitulation to the soft Left has ruined Britain”. Another who, in the days of Bill Deedes, would not have got in the Tel’s door.

Tory attempts to stop the Tel being sold off are pointless, though: free markets are wonderful until they mean your main propaganda conduit getting sold, all right-wing hands on deck, wittering about FREEZE PEACH, all this will be to no avail, sale or no. Hello press and pundits - you are facing an electorate that cares only about securing one outcome - sending the Tories packing.

Sure, there has been some unhappiness at Labour’s stance on the behaviour of Israel and its security agencies recently, and some high profile resignations, but this, as the saying goes, has been “priced in”. Many of those voters will return to the Labour fold come the General Election, and those that don’t are not going anywhere near the Tories. And it gets worse.

The more traditional attack lines, like trying to pick apart your opponent’s tax and spending plans, won’t work either. So the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog wetting themselves over Labour’s environmental commitments “only being an objective”, and not a spending commitment, is also pointless. The public mind is made up.

Worse, the filter being applied by many voters is merely entrenching their view: tax and spend attacks are filtered out, but the horror show of post-Brexit realisation that many who voted Leave were conned is not. Attempts to deflect the Post Office scandal onto either Labour, the Lib Dems, or both, have failed. As for the broadcast cheerleaders, no, that ain’t working, either.

... that's what that is. And pointless with it

Fiona Bruce realised that when she told a BBC Question Time audience that many of them would be voting Conservative, only to realise that they would not. Laura Kuenssberg has tried a variation on that today by telling Yvette Cooper that many viewers would disagree with her. She doesn’t have the immediacy of a studio audience. But she’ll find out that was wrong.

If the Tories and their hangers-on want to know what is going on, they need to stop and think: contrary to all the talking up of Tory Prime Ministers from Young Dave to Treeza to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak, voters know all of them do not measure up to who went before, whether it is Tone or Pa Broon they use as a comparator.

Voters also know that Ms Truss and her pals from Tufton Street came mightily close to totally screwing the UK’s finances. They know Sunak is irredeemably out of touch and dishonest with it. They know, especially, that the media class, yes, including Ms Kuenssberg, talked up Johnson when the bloke was monumentally inept, dishonest, selfish, lazy, and totally uncaring.

Yes, a few on the fringes will listen to pundits from Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) and believe the barrage of lies being broadcast. To a lesser extent, this is also true of Murdoch media noise floor occupant TalkTV. But these people will not swing constituencies from one party to another. Nor will the increasingly cruel Government policies.

The Rwanda plan, apparently thought up on the fly by Bozo as another of those wizard wheezes to get through another news cycle, is unlikely to see anyone deported. Cutting already inadequate benefits may get a few bigots on board, but so many voters will move the other way as to negate them. The next two by-elections, Kingswood and Wellingborough, are highly likely to be lost by the Tories. Heavily. Whatever the press try to dream up.

Save your breath, Tory backers. The voters want your team out. That is all.

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The Mail - Politics’ Malignant Cancer

As the dust settles on the bad jobs news from South Wales, with between 2,500 and 3,000 due to lose their livelihoods this year as the Port Talbot steelworks makes the transition from coal-fired to electric arc furnaces, there is our free and fearless press telling the electorate what to think about the news, with the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker in the vanguard.

Who might have caused vaccine uptake to fall?

And the Mail hacks are carrying out their orders despite their having called this one wrong. It is the Mail way: call it wrong, be called out, double down, smear those doing the calling out, demonise anyone of inconvenient thought, then at a convenient distance down the track, play the other side of the field, coming over all righteous over something they advocated in the first place.

So what’s caused the job losses at Port Talbot, owned nowadays by Indian company Tata Steel? Mail pundit and former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil was in no doubt. “Port Talbot is the latest victim of the Tory Government's headlong rush towards Net Zero carbon emissions which has pushed up British energy prices and made what's left of our heavy industry uneconomic”.

This evidence-free claim has been taken up by the Mail on Sunday’s political editor Glen Owen: “Critics have argued that the Net Zero target of eliminating additional greenhouse emissions by 2050 was helping to cripple the UK's industrial base. The job losses at Port Talbot, Britain's biggest steelworks, follow the replacement of its blast furnaces with an electric arc furnace that will emit less CO2”. What did former First Minister Carwyn Jones think?

It was put to him that Tory MPs and the likes of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage had blamed the job losses on “Net Zero hysteria or climate policy”. His response? “Why is it that the Netherlands’ plant at IJmuiden, and Tata’s operations elsewhere in the EU, are not being affected … it’s the UK’s operations that are talking the brunt”.

There was more. “We’ve seen what’s happened in the EU, we’ve seen what’s happened in the UK, why the difference? Brexit has created all this uncertainty … When you leave one of the world’s biggest markets, it is inevitable that you will not have the same ability to export unless you put in place … arrangements to enable you to do as you did before”.

Which had not happened. But for the Mail titles, this could not be admitted, as the Daily Mail had shilled for Brexit. Therefore it could not be Brexit’s fault. Worse, had the Government not bunged Tata £500 million to make the electric arc transition, Port Talbot would most likely have closed completely.

And what happened last time there was a Lawson Boom?

That would have been 8,000 jobs down the pan. And the previous day, the Mail was bemoaning “UK GRIPPED BY MEASLES CRISIS … ‘National incident’ declared over disease we wiped out in 2016’”. Not a shred of self-awareness: the Mail spent years demonising the MMR jab. So take-up fell.

Then Mail pundit Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips churned out article after article. “MMR safe? Baloney” she told, on the back of no medical qualifications whatever. No matter: the Mail declared her to be a “top writer”. Now, people are contracting measles and some will die from it. The Mail does not care. Nor does it care about its backing of dud leaders.

It backed Liz Truss. I’ll type that one again: IT BACKED LIZ TRUSS. It launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on then Labour leader Ed Miliband - then came over all righteous when Miliband’s successor was smeared as an anti-Semite. It backs the most inept, corrupt and malign Government the UK has known. And today it is openly backing another political wrong turn.

“HUNT: TAX CUTS WILL SPARK NEW LAWSON BOOM” it today’s headline. Except, as Jonathan Portes has observed, “The ‘Lawson Boom’ was a catastrophic episode of macroeconomic mismanagement that ended in economic and political disaster”. Which preceded a painful recession. Only after Black Wednesday and the ignominy of another Sterling devaluation did the economy begin to recover. The Mail wants a bit more of that.

Whatever the Mail wants, the UK suffers when it happens. This is not a newspaper. It is a malignant cancer on the body politic. That is all.

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Telegraph - It’s Not Worth Saving

Once again, the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph is devoting part of its front page to promoting Itself Personally Now in the face of a takeover bid from Redbird IMI, a company which, it claims today, is “a private equity joint venture that is three quarters funded by the Gulf autocracy [they mean Abu Dhabi]”. And lots of MPs back their stance, honestly.

It’s just that very few names are pitched. Instead, we read that “A Cabinet minister and frontbenchers from both major parties are among 73 MPs known to oppose the bid … One Cabinet minister [unnamed] told the Telegraph: ‘I do not support the sale and hope it won’t go ahead’ … Four other Conservative ministers are also understood to have concerns”. No citation. No evidence.

So is the Tel worth keeping out of the hands of dastardly Forrins? Sadly, one look at the rest of today’s front page tells you the answer, and that answer is a resounding NO. Gone is the paper of record, its reputation trashed by pursuit of profit and the abandonment of any delineation of News and Comment. Consider three items teased or discussed on that front page.

We see Dan, Dan The Oratory Man having another go at the NHS, in his effortless stuck record manner. Hannan has been telling stories of, shall we say, variable veracity on the subject since before Zelo Street started up, which means for at least fifteen years. If keeping the Tel away from Jeff Zucker and his backers means keeping Hannan, it ain’t worth it.

Nor is the peddling of climate change denialism dressed up as “News”, as in the headline “Councils in ‘antidemocratic’ dash to beat Net Zero targets”. This piece is underpinned by “Research by … Climate Debate UK”. Yeah, they only want a debate about it! FREEZE PEACH!! Let’s hear from CDUK, then.

“New sales of petrol and diesel cars are set to be banned, and ordinary people are being priced off the road [doesn’t follow - no citation]. The domestic gas boiler is due to be replaced with expensive and inferior heat pumps [pejorative - no citation], requiring extensive retrofits of our homes at yet more expense [no citation]”. Got any actual evidence?

“Governments, technocrats and ideologues pursue ever more intrusions into our lives, with plans to control our diets and change our behaviour [flat out lying]. Smart meters will ration our energy use through time-of-day pricing, and will switch off our appliances at the push of a button in some far-away office [more lying]. We are going to be confined to ’15 minute neighbourhoods’ [and yet more lying]”. So that’s NO actual evidence, then.

CDUK then pull another whopper by claiming dissenting voices are being shut out, when, with the assistance of the wacko part of our free and fearless press, dissenting voices are all we hear. And with the main headline in today’s Tel, it gets worse. “Sunak: I’ll cut tax by curbing welfare … Help for taxpayers in spring to be followed by additional pledges in run-up to election”.

Which means, as Adam Bienkov of Byline Times observed, “So a plan to cut support for some of the poorest people in the country in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest four per cent of estates”. Many of those on Universal Credit are also in work. What is Sunak proposing? Hitting the disabled, the long term sick, and carers? More likely, this is what the Tel is pushing.

As to the idea that Telegraph Media Group, which owns the Tel, and the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, is some kind of British institution, here’s a snippet from its Wiki entry: “In June 2023, the group was put up for sale, after its parent company B.UK, a Bermuda-based holding company, went into receivership”. A Bermuda-based holding company. Yes, well.

Moreover, the idea that Tel equals News is for the birds. As Dave Hill of OnLondon put it, “The [Telegraph] is more and more closely resembling a rogue media organisation - extremely misleading ‘stories’ if not outright lying and a sinister far-right political agenda”. It’s no longer a newspaper, but yet another propaganda outlet, filled with falsehood and misinformation.

Which means it’s not worth saving. Sold to Mr Zucker and his pals!

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Richard Tice - No-One Cares

With a General Election coming ever closer, and the removal of a corrupt, cynical, venal and above all inept Tory Government so odds-on that it has become a racing certainty, those on the centre-left and left stand to benefit from Tory meltdown, while those out there on the right do not. The problem for the latter is accepting reality, when tempted to pretend otherwise.

Which brings us to Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, when it enjoyed some cachet being headed by its best known failed politician, long-time UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. Sadly, now that Reform UK is headed by Richard Tice (he’s really not very nice), there is rather more heat than light being generated from its general direction.

So much so that their January press conference did not even merit a mention on the BBC website, even though it was recycled by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who tell “Richard Tice has ruled out an electoral deal with the Tories and promised to stand in every seat in Great Britain today at Reform’s January press conference”.

Big expletive deleteding deal. That’ll be another 650 plus lost deposits, then. Do go on. “Tice says he’s had ‘special pleading’ from self-proclaimed ‘nice guy’ Tory MPs not to stand in their seats. In response he says ‘you’ve all broken Britain, you’re all responsible. So there’s no special deals. we stand in every single seat in England, Scotland, and Wales’”. Thus the problem.

Tice, Farage and the rest all backed the exit of the UK from the European Union. But, characteristically, anything that fouls up as a result is not their fault. Not for them these silly ideas of taking responsibility. One swift bodyswerve, and the claim that, if only their Brexit criteria had been followed, all would be well, frees those out there on the right from taking the hit.

Worse are policy ideas such as “Remove EU regulations”. Er, hello, this is stupid, isn’t it? How the merry fuck do businesses trade with the EU Single Market if the rules governing trade within that market get summarily removed? Oh look, there’s also a “One in, one out policy on immigration”. Which hobbles the UK economy’s growth potential. Harry says marvellous.

The relevance of Reform UK, or lack of it, is summed up by the statement “Our Joint Deputy Leader, Ben Habib, will be our candidate in the upcoming Wellingborough by-election”. Quite apart from yet another lost deposit, few know who he is, fewer still care, and yet fewer are likely to vote for him. Habib is not so much a has-been, but more of a never-was.

Unless this group can persuade Mr Thirsty to devote a little less time to activities that generate rather more money for the benefit of Himself Personally Now - like shooting his North And South off on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) - it will do nothing more than rack up yet more lost deposits. It’ll not do much better with him on board.

Elections to the European Parliament, yes, he’s done well there, but there are no more of those. Farage in charge has never significantly moved the dial in a UK General Election. No new MP ever returned for either UKIP or the Brexit Party. GB News circle jerks might convince them of new relevance. But it ain’t going to happen. They might take a few votes from the Tory right.

The most original looking sales pitch for Reform UK is “Let’s save Britain”. Which is a straight lift of the “Save America” strapline so beloved of combover crybaby Donald Trump and those of like mind out there on the far-right fringe of the GOP. Who are also out of touch with the real world. Tice and Farage fighting over electoral leftovers with a doomed Rishi Sunak. What a prospect.

If only the money being thrown at Reform UK had been donated to food banks, helping rough sleepers find a roof over their heads and a little warmth this winter, helping to repair all those crumbling school buildings, and maybe fund volunteers at NHS hospitals, we would have given some of the least well off a little step up. Instead, it’s being used for self-promotion.

With no realistic chance of electoral success. Sad, really.

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Telegraph UAE Sale Hypocrisy

After the banks effectively called time on the Barclay family’s ownership of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, both Daily and Sunday versions of the paper, together with the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, were put up for sale. But who would want to own the Tel, which had been trading on its brand for years, and become a propaganda sheet?

Ultimately, as the Tel itself reported in today’s edition, “Ownership of the Telegraph is set to pass to RedBird IMI, an investment fund led by Jeff Zucker, the former CNN boss, and backed by Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the UAE’s Royal family”. Oh no! Takeover by Scary Muslims™! Quick, get out the excuse generator! Dump on the Forrins!

And so it came to pass that Tel columnist Janet Daley, who turns 80 next year and may well be on her way out if that change of ownership goes through, penned “The Telegraph’s proposed takeover by a foreign state must not be allowed to happen”. Do go on. “The US media company RedBird IMI, funded by the rulers of Abu Dhabi must not be permitted to take ownership of this newspaper. That statement should be obviously true”. Why not?

“The only point worth considering here is that in a free society no government - including the country’s elected one - should own a news media outlet. The power wielded by a state must be, always and without qualification, separate from the presentation and analysis of information in the public domain. That principle has been one of the distinguishing differences between tyrannies and democracies in the modern world”. And there was more.

“Even media outlets financed by public funding mandates like the BBC, or Channel 4 which is owned by a corporation that belongs to the government but is funded by advertising, have managerial and editorial independence”.

That’s in the “debatable” category, especially the Beeb. But do go on. “Are there really serious grown-ups who believe that social media has made newspapers - and real journalism - redundant, rather than more urgently needed than ever to hold the tidal wave of fakery and falsehood up to the light?”. For the Tel, that’s For Some Value Of “Real Journalism”. Carry on.

“To those naive people, let me explain that a professional newspaper operation is not only subject to all the old legal constraints of libel and contempt, but a whole new battery of Ipso guidelines on accuracy and ethical procedure, overseen by inhouse enforcement officers, in which its trainees are rigorously instructed”. Shall we see how that plays out in the real world?

Let’s have a look at the Tel’s Wiki page. “In July 2014, the Daily Telegraph was criticised for carrying links on its website to pro-Kremlin articles supplied by a Russian state-funded publication that downplayed any Russian involvement in the downing of [MH17]”. Then there was the lack of coverage of that Swiss tax-dodging scandal to placate advertiser HSBC.

Peter Oborne had linked “the refusal to take an editorial stance on the repression of democratic demonstrations in Hong Kong to the Telegraph’s support from China”. What was that about “editorial independence”? And as to that “accuracy and ethical procedure”, ah well.

Anti-Semitism, anyone? Remember the George Soros front page splash? Two Tel pundits, Allister Heath and Sherelle Jacobs, have played the “Cultural Marxism” card. Accuracy? Covid-19 misinformation. Climate change denial. Using the Muslim-bashing Henry Jackson Society as a single source? The “Meghan cook book equals ISIS” story, and the defamatory attack on scout leader Ahammed Hussain - damages, apology and costs - refer.

Foreign Governments dictating content. Agenda driven stories. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Islamophobia. And something else you never saw in the Tel while the Barclay family owned it - any mention of the Barclay family. Add to that the best the Tel can do to defend itself is an endorsement from Liz Truss, the comedy Prime Minister who was too useless even for the Tories.

If the Tel is sold to RedBird IMI, the standard of its journalism might even improve. It couldn’t get much worse. As for independence - yeah, right.

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