And So This Is Christmas

The world is now a more dangerous, more unequal, more unjust, more authoritarian, and more uncaring place. Peace is in short supply, except in the fevered minds of more of those Here Today And Gone Tomorrow Politicians. And you can forget goodwill. Where it will end we know not. But end it will, with the grim certainty of night following day.

Christmas tree in Lisbon's Praça do Comércio

Centre stage is the most corrupt régime of any modern and allegedly democratic nation, that of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump. This only occasionally coherent, rambling, terminally vain, and obscenely unpleasant being is about to start a war with Venezuela. Over oil. It will not end well for the USA. Meanwhile, Trump is driving the economy off a cliff.

Those cheering him on are an increasingly compliant media, and the ranks of the obscenely overmonied, who care about themselves, and not about the 98% who are becoming poorer by the day. The political and media class in the UK also cares, mostly, about itself, and not about the 98%, but imagines itself to be in touch with those hard-working people it likes to talk about.

But it isn’t: our media elite likes not-even-one-dimensional politicians like Wes Streeting, somehow unaware that the voters dislike him intensely. The media class likes political operators like Morgan McSweeney, unable or unwilling to confront the reality of Labour’s poll numbers, and that half Labour’s membership has got fed up and left since Keir Starmer became leader.

Fewer members means fewer people to canvass, leaflet, persuade uncommitted voters, and get the vote out. There were hints of that problem in the 2024 election results. Voters know that they are being taken for mugs by New New Labour; many are backing Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. But here a problem enters.

The UK had a congenital liar, racist bigot and con man as PM before, and look where supporting the disgraced Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson got us. Farage, like Johnson, and like almost all the others in the political and media class, does not give a flying foxtrot about the proles. Some in that media class also treat their audience like so many mugs.

Santa driving his tram. Ho ho ho

Who might exemplify this approach? Step forward Gammon Broadcasting News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to freely pump misinformation, and, indeed, disinformation, to an audience that can no longer tell fact from fiction. GB News’ approach was deliciously busted recently when their “host” Carole Malone, another deeply unpleasant being, was caught defaming live on air.

Sadly for Ms Malone, she had defamed Doria Raglund, whose better-known daughter is the Duchess of Sussex. The “please don’t sue us, we didn’t mean it, honestly” on-air sort-of-apologies were a thing to behold. But a serious point had been made: this illustrated the contempt in which the media class holds ordinary people. A contempt which has been exposed elsewhere.

And that is in the reportage, and associated punditry, concerning the actions of the Israeli Government and its armed forces, mainly in Gaza, but also in the illegally occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon. This time, though, smearing those opposed to slaughtering tens of thousands of human beings as anti-Semites is not working. Because the public can see what’s going on.

This, in turn, brings us back to Starmer and the Labour Together cabal that put him in power. They treat the voters with contempt, and are clueless as to how they get those voters to return. Meanwhile, the Greens make steady progress under Zack Polanski, because he is listening to voters, and cares about them. So it is that we reach Christmas 2025.

With a media and political class, many of whom want to pursue policies that will make the 98% yet poorer. A Government like so many rabbits caught in the headlights. An electorate battered by harsh reality, and a tsunami of bad faith media actors. And little prospect of improvement any time soon.

Feliz Natal e Boas Festas, as they say here in Portugal. Eat, drink, be merry, and hope for an end to the period of elite stupidity. That is all.

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J D Vance - You’re A Moron

Those who thought that the vice Presidency of J Danforth Quayle, the one who had problems spelling such complex words as POTATO (to which he insisted on adding a spurious E), defined the most stupid holder of that office, have now been asked by the current incumbent, J D Vance, to Hold His Beer. Because Vance is not merely stupid. He is a bona fide moron.

This should come as no surprise: he is, after all, Veep to Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, the individual (one hates to use the dignifying term “man” in this instance) least suited to be President since, well, the proclamation of the Republic back in 1783. Trump is monumentally stupid. So his deputy must, to preserve the dignities, be yet more stupid. Vance is ideally suited to that.

Just how stupid Vance really is was demonstrated yesterday in the full glare of publicity: he addressed the Munich Security Conference, to tell all those Goddamned YURPEENS just how wonderful Himself and his world view were. He lectured them about FREEZE PEACH and MOXY, as if the USA had both, and YURP had neither. This went down like a cup of cold sick.

Which may have had something to do with there being no curbs on freedom of speech anywhere in western Europe, while the Trump gang are excluding those who do not toe their particular line from press briefings, and accompanying The Donald on Air Force One. Trump and his supporters have significant past form for harassing media folk of inconvenient view.

Also, as the Guardian pointed out, “Many in the hall were swift to say that Vance had still refused to accept that Trump lost the US presidential election in 2020, a refusal that ultimately resulted in a mob of the president’s supporters attacking the US Capitol”. Trump’s acceptance of MOXY is the kind where he wins. Vance is too scared, or stupid, to accept reality.

And get this claim: “For years we have been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values, everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy, but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others we ought to ask ourselves if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard”. Whoops, flat-out lie time!

As with Reform UK’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage claiming that the EU interfered in member states’ elections, this is total crap. Vance’s stupidity extended to believing that his audience would not have a grasp of reality superior to that of Himself Personally Now.

It also extended to believing he would secure more approval by cracking this year’s Lamest Joke Ever™. The BBC’s Frank Gardner noted “He made a joke at one point saying, ‘if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk’. And then he paused for the applause, to be met with absolute dead silence”.

False equivalence. Paranoia. More stupidity. Meanwhile, in the USA, supposed land of FREEZE PEACH and MOXY, judges are under attack for upholding the law, when that law goes against one of Trump’s executive orders (an executive order is not law, and the President cannot make law without the agreement of Congress). Instead, Vance kicks YURP.

But YURP enjoys freedom of speech, and of expression, rather more than the USA right now, with media outlets self-censoring to keep on the right side of the Trump gang. Vance is too stupid to see that comparing western European Governments to totalitarian states, while his own country is ruled over by an enfeebled man-baby and an unelected Nazi, is not a good look.

Good of him, though, to remind YURP that it needs to look after itself rather more, and depend on the Trump régime rather less. Vance could do worse than letting us all know what his country’s position on Ukraine really is. Because, right now, we don’t know. Except that Trump gives the impression he is about to sell the Ukrainians down the river.

Then he can learn a bit more about YURP. And stop being a moron.

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Khan K Exposes Press Racism

Whenever there is an accusation of racism levelled at our free and fearless press, they close ranks, issue forthright denials, and of course restate the claim that they wouldn’t dream of such things, they have all cleaned up their acts since Leveson, and generally attempt to get everyone to Look Over There at whatever dead cat they can, in the meantime, dream up.

It was the same when the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph was called out for anti-Semitism in the wake of its attack on George Soros. It was the same when the Mail, under the less than benevolent control of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, launched a viciously anti-Semitic attack on the memory of the late Ralph Miliband. Now it has come round again.

And again, it is the Telegraph and Mail being exposed as racist newspapers, after both of them launched a spiteful and petty assault on London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has been knighted in the New Year’s Honours. Khan has won three terms as elected Mayor. He has helped to reduce the capital’s chronic pollution. His free school meals initiative helps the least well off.

He has also tried his best to keep a lid on public transport costs. His prospectus has won through against a variety of Tory opponents, two of whom, Zac Goldsmith and Shaun Bailey, have since been ennobled. By complete coincidence, you understand, there was no press outcry about rewarding failure by sending Tories who failed to the Lords.

But enough of that: let’s see what the Mail and Tel have ponied up for the delectation of their unfortunate readers. The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker have howled “PM’S ‘REWARD FOR FAILURE’ AS SADIQ KHAN IS KNIGHTED … London Mayor row risks overshadowing New Year Honours”. A row which the Mail and Telegraph have concocted. So it’s their fault.

Not that they will admit that. But do go on. “SADIQ Khan has been handed a knighthood in the New Year Honours - prompting furious claims of a ‘reward for failure’ [you said that already] … Leading Tories pointed to his ‘track record of failure’ in the capital, including over tackling knife crime and dramatic hikes in council tax, congestion charges and emissions levels”.

Emissions have not seen a dramatic hike, but hey ho. They probably mean the ULEZ, which failed to get Khan defeated last time round, much to the annoyance of the same right-wing papers that are now pouring out spite. The Telegraph offers “PM knights Khan in ‘reward for failure’ … Starmer accused of putting party before country as he hands honours to ‘cronies’”.

Those quote marks are doing seriously heavy lifting. So what else is testing the Tel? He allegedly “waged war on London’s drivers with the Ultra-Low Emission Zone and capitulated to unions over Tube strikes”. He did? “He … handed Tube drivers a 5 per cent pay increase”. And ended a disruptive series of strikes, which don’t affect the Tel’s rich bosses, so they don’t care.

There is more of this tedious drivel. But one person escapes any criticism, and to no surprise, that person is the disgraced former Prime Minister and occasional former Mayor of London Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who bequeathed a mess to Sadiq Khan which he has had to sort out. And it was Bozo, let us not forget, who brought the ULEZ to London in the first place.

It was Bozo who foisted a thousand vanity buses onto TfL, for which a premium over conventional buses had to be paid. It was Bozo who shelled out tens of millions on the Garden Bridge fiasco. It was Bozo who spaffed millions up the wall (his own happy phrase) on the impractical Thames Estuary Airport study. It was Bozo who caved in to George Osborne and relinquished TfL’s subsidy from central Government. And so on.

But Bozo escapes the ritual and spiteful slagging off because he’s a Tory, he’s one of their own, and he’s white. Sadiq Khan, for all his efforts to make life better for all Londoners, will get no more than abuse, because he’s a Rotten Lefty™, he’s brown, and he’s a Muslim. The attacks are straight-up racism.

The racist and hopelessly out of touch right-wing press don’t care about ordinary Londoners. Sadiq Khan does. But you knew that already.

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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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Labour - Tone Deaf In The Bubble

The Labour leadership should not need reminding of the promise brought by all those poll leads, only to result in an apathetic electorate giving them half a million fewer votes than in 2019, and a percentage increase in vote share of a measly 1.6%. Thus the reality of the party that had been transformed from a supposed basket case into an all-conquering electoral machine.

Had it not been for Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals eating into the Tory vote share, Keir Starmer’s magnificent landslide majority would have been rather more modest. But at Labour’s Conference, held this year in Liverpool, no such consideration was allowed to enter. Nor were the latest and not at all favourable poll numbers.

So, given that fewer voters chose New New Labour than Labour as led by Jeremy Corbyn, how would Starmer and his pals approach their first Conference since the General Election? What would a pragmatic, sensible and indeed listening party have done? What would a party supposedly of the left have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly, it soon became clear that it was not about thinking of the poor, of a new left-leaning tide raising all boats, of making the obscenely overmonied begin to pay their taxes. Instead it was about another obscenity, that of freeloading on an industrial scale, with Starmer as chief culprit, scoring supposedly free clothes, specs, and a private box over at The Arsenal.

Others were on the take, too, with the lamest of excuses proferred in response to questioning. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had accepted “free” tickets to see Taylor Swift earlier this year, excusing herself with "It was a hard one to turn down ... one of my children was keen to go”. Fine. So open yer wallet. Pay for it yerself. For one obvious reason.

To paraphrase Milton Friedman, there is no such thing as free clothes, or indeed free specs, free boxes at The Arsenal, or free Taylor Swift tickets. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for them. And what Milt may not have said, but I will, is that there is inevitably a Quid Pro Quo: that someone, somewhere is not practising altruism here. The gifts are all about leverage later on.

And it’s no good pointing at disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and reminding us that, in the 2019 Parliament, he managed to rack up more than six million notes’ worth of supposed freebies. We know Bozo was irretrievably bent, but it’s not good enough to be a little less bent. Labour should not be bent at all.

Nor should it be intolerant of dissent: as Rachel Reeves was delivering her speech, one young man stood up and heckled her, calling out “Stop selling arms to Israel”. Again the tone-deaf response: “This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protest”. If you won’t listen to those in the real world, protest is all they have.

The young man was dragged out of the auditorium, with obvious marks on his neck to show for his trouble. Labour MSP Richard Leonard mused “Grabbing this protester by the throat was an unnecessary and disproportionate use of force. When Walter Wolfgang was manhandled out of the conference hall in 2005, the Labour Party apologised to him. We should do the same now”.

Walter Wolfgang was from the left, Bevanite, tradition. Would New New Labour have even let him remain in the party? After all, they’ve managed to expel an awful lot of Jewish members in pursuit of allegedly tackling anti-Semitism. Added to all of that, our free and fearless press is on Labour’s case as never before. Because New New Labour gave them an excuse.

Jeremy Corbyn would never have accepted all those freebies; he still sits with the rest of those ordinary paying fans at The Arsenal. But, in the looking-glass world of New New Labour, he is The Bad Guy and Keir Starmer is The Good Guy. So why d’you think Labour’s poll numbers have dropped like a stone in a very deep pool? D’you think the freebies have something to do with it?

You might conclude that they most certainly do. I couldn’t possibly comment.

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Hello Rioters - You’ve Been Had

So here we are, the morning after a day of gratuitous and unjustifiable rioting and indeed looting, perhaps with some afters to come in a few of those towns and cities not already scarred by the attentions of The Fash, or as the more gullible of them like to pretend, “Concerned Citizens”.

He won't be going to jail, and ...

The violence meted out - for no good reason at all - was supposed to have something to do with three little girls dying as a result of a stabbing attack in Southport. But the reality was that it was just a lame excuse, trotted out to give cover for an orgy of violent conduct. Muslims, not involved in the stabbings, got most of the blame. It was just an excuse for racist and bigoted behaviour. Many of the participants did not stop and think about that.

They didn’t stop and think about a sudden surge of bad faith actors sounding off at new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. How, if the problems that led to the riots had been brewing for some time, was the bloke who only came to power last month to blame? How was he the originator of “Two tier policing”, when this pack of lies had been in circulation for months beforehand?

On top of all that, how was getting aled up and kicking off honouring the memory of those killed and injured in Southport? What kind of tribute was served up by trashing phone shops, travel agents, citizens’ advice centres, libraries, and looting the nearest Sainsbury’s Local? And why the constant obsession with Muslims, when they had nothing to do with the stabbings?

Then the $64,000 question, which those rioting may not have considered asking beforehand, but may be doing so now: what happens when all that video is pored over by the authorities, which it will be, with the certainty of night following day? Who gets to wear the electronic tag, get heavily fined, get sent down for a few months and lose their job afterwards?

Already, scores of those accused of rioting have been visited by the cops and taken away for a little chat, after which some will be bailed, and all of those proved to have taken part in the disturbances will get a criminal record. On the other hand, those who egged them on will get off Scot Free. There will be no consequences for those who nudged and winked the rioters into rioting.

... he told protesters to be peaceful. But shouted a bit, too

You listened to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, sitting there at his desk with Union flags behind him, like he was the President of somewhere unstable? More fool you. You took Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, at present on the run somewhere in mainland Europe, on trust? Big mistake. They don’t care about you.

They, along with Richard Tice (he’s not very nice), “30p” Lee Anderson, anyone else at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), those at Murdoch noise floor occupant TalkTV, and the dubiously talented convocation of hacks and pundits at our free and fearless press, which hasn’t been whipping up the mob against Muslims, honestly, won’t be there.

Won’t be there when, as barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind recalled from 2011, “I have never forgotten telling man after man in cell after cell how long they would get in prison for the 2011 London riots. Once enthusiasm for lobbing bins at police has waned, once your pals have been arrested, once the booze & adrenaline subside - you realise. Then regret”.

Farage can (thus far) get away with borderline incitement such as “What you have seen happen in London, Liverpool and Hartlepool is nothing compared to what you could see in the next few weeks” (a privilege not enjoyed by any followers of The Prophet), but if you take that as the green light for kicking off after a session in the local Spoons, you’re up shit creek without a paddle.

And claiming that Starmer is to blame for “insulting” ordinary hard-working people won’t wash, either. As James Ball has pointed out (thread HERE), the PM only tied those rioting to the far right, and that “all violent disorder that flares up, whatever the apparent cause or motivation - we make no distinction…Crime is crime” would be tackled. No two tier policing, sorry.

Hello rioters. You had no excuses. You’re on your own. Repent at leisure.

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Another Day, Another Incitement

No, no, no, it wasn’t about race. It wasn’t racism, and anyone who said it was could expect a visit in the dead of night for one of those laughably titled “polite conversations”. It was about Islam, right? Not about race. Honestly not about old fashioned racist bigotry. It was all about getting those Scary Muslims™ to Sort Their Religion Out. And it wasn’t about race. Except it was.

And it wasn’t about incitement. All those who gathered to confront the Police, trash whole areas of towns like Southport, set meat vans on fire, no, no, no, it was only because they were angry. Cops kicking an Asian man in the head was fine, reassuring even, but cops being beaten, knocked unconscious, that was fine because the perpetrators were angry. But it WAS about incitement.

They all got most indignant at the suggestion it was only racism, but with the veneer of “look over there at Islam”, and the claim “if it’s only about religion, then it can’t be racist”. Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, and who is now on the run from an arrest warrant somewhere in mainland Europe, was a prime exponent of this ploy.

“Tell me what I said that’s racist” he would angrily and aggressively declaim in the face of anyone who used the R-Word against him. If you were especially unlucky, he would declaim it several times, but not to ensure you were unsettled and unable to get a word in edgeways, you understand.

Well, now it is not only in Southport that locals have been left to clear up following probably-not-really-spontaneous rioting. The town saw a shocking knife attack on a dance and yoga class for little girls; the suspect was British, not a migrant, not a Muslim, and had not come here on a small boat. So the rioting was, er, anti-Muslim. The local mosque was targeted and attacked. And so came the giveaway. It was never about Islam. It was just racism.

Because the suspect was of African heritage. Not a Muslim, but not white. So as he was not a Muslim, there would not be rioting targeting a local mosque, right? The Southport knife attack was as vicious as it was fatal for three of those little girls, but it had nothing to do with Muslims. So there would not be anti-Muslim rioting, because it was about Islam and not racism. Right?

Wrong. Many Police officers were injured, some seriously. There was a smaller but still violent disturbance in Hartlepool. And there was a violent protest in London. There will be more. Stephen Lennon has made sure of that by constantly sniping from the sidelines. And Reform UK’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has also been sounding off.

“I have to say there are one or two questions. Was this guy being monitored by the security services? Some reports say he was, others less sure. The Police say it’s a non-terror incident, just as they said the stabbing of an Army Lieutenant-Colonel in uniform on the streets of Kent the other day was A. Non. Terror. Incident. I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don’t know the answer to that … a fair and legitimate question”.

Farage is, as usual, full of crap. As he is now an MP, he could have gone to Parliament and asked his “fair and legitimate” questions there. Instead, he chose to broadcast to his followers with an added serving of nudge-nudgery.

Now we hear that the far right are intent on organising more “protests”, for which read “excuse for the Gammonati to get aled up and kick off, then blame the cops, anyone who is not white, Rotten Lefties™, Scary Muslims™, and the MSM™”. Stephen Lennon, in between generating excuses for skipping the country so abruptly, is meanwhile sneering that the Southport stabbing suspect, who comes from Cardiff, does not have a Welsh-sounding name.

And Farage is hosting shows on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) telling the world that most of these Muslim chappies are OK people, but, and this is a big but, some of them, well, y’know … sharp intake of breath, are you thinking what he’s thinking, he’s only telling it like it is.

The rioting, though, nails both of them. It was never just about Islam. It was always about Good Old Fashioned Racism. We see the both of you.

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Reform UK - Unfit To Govern Whelk Stall

After reading the headline “UKIP candidate also works as porn star ‘Johnny Rockard’ [Geddit?!?!?]”, Isabel Oakeshott mused “Beyond parody. I thought UKIP was grown up enough to vet candidates these days?? Epic fail!” But that was back in 2015, and she is less effusive right now, after UKIP’s successor organisation Reform UK messed up in the very same area.

Another fine mess ...

The party’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage had already been the subject of media cynicism over the costings behind its manifesto commitments, which he was told directly did not add up. He and his pals then lied about the figures’ veracity. which generated yet more cynicism. But worse was to come. A lot worse. It was back to candidate vetting.

And what made Reform UK and its leading lights look yet more stupid was that they openly admitted what had happened - or, as it turned out, what they claimed had happened, before they were exposed as more stupid still. You think I jest? Rob Hutton’s initial response was “How am I supposed to write anything funnier than this Reform press release?”

Several Reform UK candidates had been called out for wacko, racist or downright fascist views. This, the press release told, was someone else’s fault. “Reform UK has consulted lawyers about suing the company to which it paid £144,000 to vet over 400 of its candidates in April but which failed to return a single piece of research”. Did someone see them coming?

There was more: “Vetting dot com is co-owned by Colin Bloom, a former Conservative adviser who once worked as a faith engagement adviser under Boris Johnson, who rewarded him with a CBE … Reform UK is now exploring legal action, as well as potentially involving the Police”. Do go on.

“Richard Tice, the chairman of Reform UK, said: ‘They promised a deep dive, particularly on social media, and adverse press checks, received our candidate data but then delivered absolutely nothing … Suddenly, a round of stories appear in the Times and elsewhere after nominations close, including some stories that are 15 years old. Something feels very wrong, and I have instructed lawyers to pursue this matter vigorously’”. Any more claims?

... we got ourselves in to

As if you need to ask. “Mr Farage said ‘This is an establishment stitch-up. The owner of the vetting company has deep links to the Tory party, and they have some serious questions to answer’”. Reform UK may also have some serious questions to answer after what looks like potentially actionable comments from Farage (who is himself part of the establishment).

What say Vetting? “Everyone’s working assumption was that the election would be in the Autumn, giving us the Summer to complete this work. Given the explicit need for candidate consent, as well as our systems needing basic personal data like dates of birth, our automated software was not able [to] process Reform’s candidates with the data that was provided when it was provided … Mr Bloom has not had anything to do with the UK Conservative Party since 2022 and remains politically neutral”. It then got worse.

Tom Witherow concluded “In that statement they say ‘our automated software was not able process Reform’s candidates with the data that was provided when it was provided’. That suggests that Reform did not provide the data required to do checks, or the candidates' consent forms, or it did so too late”.

Also, the Vetting FAQs contain this nugget: “Q: Are you an outsourced background screening company? A: No, we provide you with the ability to complete your own background screening in house”. Which suggests this was just a means of helping Reform vet their own candidates more rapidly.

Or, as Frances Coppola told Mr Thirsty, “Nigel ... you bought a licence to use their platform to carry out YOUR OWN CHECKS”. This is shaping up to become an outstanding example of why no-one should trust Reform UK with anything - especially their vote. More stupidity than the stupid faculty at the University of Stupid in Stupid City. And all by their own admission.

Reform UK, who went to catch a toe-hold in Parliament - and dropped it.

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Kate And A Media Obsession

The most telling giveaway of election coverage, the revelation that this is a campaign destined to develop not necessarily to their favourite team’s advantage, is when it vanishes from the front page. Today is one of those days, the impending loss of power by the Tories replaced by an even more inexplicable obsession - the Royals, or rather, the Royals the press likes.

That means Royalty that does not complain about the sick and creepy coverage served up by our free and fearless press. Which leads us to the return to duty of the Princess of Wales. The former Kate Middleton has had her share of creepy coverage over the years, only out-creeped by what was dished out to her sister Pippa, in the years before the latter married.

The Moniker coined - most likely by the Daily Mail, under the less than benign leadership of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre - and applied to Pippa was “Her Royal Hotness”, the kind of toe-curlingly embarrassing, borderline vomit inducing, and bang out of order leering misogyny that only the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker can get away with nowadays.

So Kate has had treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. So have millions of 42-year-old women, most of whom then pick themselves up and get back to work, family, home, and the rest. For them, there is no press coverage, and certainly not the fawning, creepy and obsessive diet served up this morning, telling readers in no uncertain terms what to think.

The crawling tone is set by papers like the Sunday Brexit, still called the Express, proclaiming “IT’S JUST KATE TO SEE YOU AGAIN … Princess steps out for first time in six months”, and the Murdoch Sun on Sunday simpering “Princess Back On Parade … Kate wows in return to duty after cancer shock … SUPER TROOPER”. Headline writer revealing their age.

But these were a mere hors d’oeuvres for a much more sick-making entrée: cue the Mail on Sunday telling readers “Day That Lifted The Nation’s Hearts … On cue, the sun broke through the showers to shine on her - and the whole world said in unison … It’s lovely to see you too, Kate”. The name on the by-line, to no surprise at all, is that of Sarah “Vain” Vine.

The underlying aggressiveness in the headline is so obvious: the whole world thinks like this, so if you don’t, not only are you not the Mail’s kind of people, you risk incurring the displeasure of the Vagina Monologue and his attack dogs if you so much as utter a peep in protest. Thus the fear of the press at any thought of the monarchy being binned is revealed for all to see.

Moreover, the MoS is not the worst in the crawl-fest: that honour goes to the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, and the irretrievably batshit Allison Pearson. “Our Fair Lady lifts nation’s spirits [headline writer even older than the Sun’s] … On a cold, grey day, Princess proves a tonic at Trooping the Colour on her return to public life after cancer treatment”.

BIG INTERCOURSING DEAL. Cue Ms Pearson.

“Two words. Thank you. Thank you Princess of Wales for being an absolute trouper and attending Trooping the Colour on a cold, grey day when lesser mortals with your illness would have stayed home, tucked up in their jim-jams [that would not have got past the subs in Bill Deedes’ day]. Thank you for sacrificing the privacy that is so much needed to get you back to full health”.

Whatever that means to those not in possession of servants, unfeasible amounts of money, the most upmarket of property portfolios, a Government prepared to step in and foot rather a lot of the bills, and a media class ready and willing to shit all over anyone who objects to the whole circus.

The Monarchy will endure for as long as it enjoys the support of the people over whom it continues to rule. Our free and fearless press shows that it is an integral part of an Establishment frightened at the thought of reality intruding and the Royals vanishing from view. After all, if they go, what part of the power structure not based on merit will go next? Best keep the proles in line.

Which means more fawning copy when deemed necessary. Ho hum.

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Farage - The Con Man Returns

As if there were not enough charlatans, spin merchants, one trick ponies, habitual liars, and other practitioners of self-aggrandisement in play during the run-up to next month’s UK General Election, yesterday brought one more con man into the mix. Reform UK’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage was back in the swimming pool. As the resident turd.

The inevitable news came as Mr Thirsty told his adoring followers yesterday “I will be making an Emergency General Election announcement at 4pm today”. He would take over as head man of Reform from Richard Tice. And, as ITV News then told, he “has said he will stand as the Reform UK parliamentary candidate for Clacton, Essex, in the General Election”.

Thus performing two functions likely to move the dial: One, taking votes from the Tory right, and Two, frightening Muslim voters, and indeed many others who are not white, back to Labour, or, in some areas, the Lib Dems. The net result of all that, whether Farage is elected or not, will be to move the Tories closer to Absolute Wipeout. And probable third party status.

That, though, was not a good enough excuse to plaster Mr Thirsty all over the media, something that has carried over onto many front pages this morning, with the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph proclaiming “I’m back to lead the revolt”. What intercoursing revolt? More accurate was the Guardian’s “Tory alarm as Farage takes control of Reform UK”.

What a difference Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s conviction makes: Farage was on his way to the USA to lend his backing to the increasingly incoherent orange lump; 34 unanimous Guilty verdicts later, no he isn’t. So what would his USP be? Same as before. He’s dog whistling potential voters with scare stories of Scary Muslims™. Same old racism.

Having accused British Muslims of “split loyalties” (recycling an anti-Semitic trope as Muslim bashing to make it acceptable), of their being a “fifth column”, and more recently claimed that a Muslim proclaiming “Allahu Akhbar” was something deeply sinister, rather than merely saying “God is Great”, which he wouldn’t complain about if the speaker were Christian. Or Jewish.

(c) Steve Bell 2016

By this morning, the habitual lying had kicked in, as he told Mishal Husain on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that there were entire streets in Oldham where no-one spoke English. But Ms Husain, like the Beeb’s Ben Thompson, was not persuaded this time round of Farage’s righteousness. Which caused The Great Man to get tetchy and even abusive. It won’t get any better for him.

Not when he is on record as saying “Richard Tice probably does want me to replace him. But do I want to be an MP? Do I want to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton?” As the previously best placed candidate, Labour’s Jovan Owusu Nepaul should have that one ready to roll out to any and every voter who even hints at voting for The Thirsty One.

What Reform UK’s opponents should also point out is that this is a party that still wants to dump the country’s problems on migrants, wants to leave the ECHR (why? Oh, I dunno, maybe cos it’s FORRIN), and even wants to leave the World Health Organisation, because Covid Lockdown Conspiracy Theories. What next, leaving the UN? Leaving NATO?

And why do so many media opportunities open up to someone whose party has (for instance) no MPs and just eight councillors, when (for instance) the Greens can muster a regularly re-elected MP and hundreds of councillors? Why pay attention to Farage, who has no plan, and will take responsibility for nothing? Why take any notice of this flap-mouthed con artist?

He gets to take part in the TV debates. Then he’ll most likely lose - for the eighth time - and work to use his newly heightened profile to drag the Tories even further to the right. Screwing over the UK through advocating for leaving the EU was not enough for him: now he wants to screw over UK politics as well.

Which means he needs to be held to account, and exposed for the Spiv he is, and always was. He has no solutions, no plan, and no right to shit on us all.

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Carry On Conscription

Your party is more than 20 points adrift in the polls. MPs are in open revolt over your decision to call a General Election without keeping them in the loop. Many of those MPs have decided not to stand at the election. You need to avert an imminent and historic wipeout. What would a sensible and pragmatic leader have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly for his party, Rishi Sunak does not operate on such a lofty intellectual plateau. And so it came to pass that the amateur Prime Minister, having been ambushed by the media during a pointless visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter - the Tories do not field any candidates in Northern Ireland - he doubled down on his not-telling-his-MPs-first with a truly wacko policy proposal.

He would, if the Tories were returned to power, introduce National Service. Not the National Service whose last intake was in 1960, and which was lampooned in the first Carry On film Carry On Sergeant, you understand. This would be different, promoting a “shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country”. Yeah, right.

So what would Sunak’s plan entail? “The proposed new scheme would not be conscription, where people are legally required to join the armed forces for a period. But it would compel people by law to complete a community programme over a 12-month period, or enrol in a year-long military training scheme, when they turn 18”. And where did this bright idea originate?

It seems to have emerged from another of those alleged “think tanks”, called Onward, which “has been described as ‘close to Rishi Sunak's Downing Street’. It was founded in 2018 by Will Tanner, Martyn Rose, and Neil O'Brien. The think tank's advisory board is chaired by Daniel Finkelstein. The founders state that Onward would operate in the mainstream of conservative politics, and is a reaction to the ‘lack of energy on the centre right’”.

Sadly, Onward does not appear to have thought through such inconvenient details as how the Tories would pay for this non-starter. As such, they have been ridiculed after it was discovered that the money would have to come from their much-vaunted “levelling up” scheme. And it got worse.

While hapless Home Secretary James Cleverly ruled out criminal sanctions for teenagers who refused to participate in any part of the scheme, saying: "There's no-one going to jail over this", Anne Marie Trevelyan declared that the employment prospects of refuseniks “could be affected”. Cleverly was also asked what kind of community work might be involved.

“National Service could be uniformed public services … Special constable … On call fire-fighter … Emergency health responder … Environmental protection … Flood defence work”. In other words, getting actual full-time paid work done on the cheap. Way to shrink the economy, Tories. Worse still, not all Tories are signed up to this scheme. And some are saying so.

Steve Baker, one of those standing and fighting rather than calling it a day, has told “In that context, before any more policy is announced, I want to be absolutely clear where I stand for the electors of Wycombe: I am for liberty under the rule of law and Parliamentary democracy. History has proven time and time again that liberty under law - not compulsion and planning - is the surest road to peace and prosperity”. Sounds like a No, then.

That’s before the inevitable questions which will come Sunak’s way, like whether his children will be expected to serve. Or maybe he expects to lose and emigrate. Even the slavishly Tory Telegraph has told readers “Young Royals face National Service in Sunak plan”. The press isn’t keen.

And while the Mail has tried to keep up flagging pro-Tory spirits by claiming “Bold scheme will ‘open doors’ for teenagers when applying for jobs and University, says PM”, the Guardian has a message from the military. “Sunak’s National Service plan is ‘bonkers’, says ex-military chief”. The first fruits of his not-really-a-relaunch have already withered and died.

Without Labour having to break sweat. Third party behind the Lib Dems it is.

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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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Liz Truss - Chicken In A Basket

And so it came to pass that, rather than accepting that she has not been the most successful or popular of politicians, Mary Elizabeth Truss, aided and abetted by our free and fearless press, mounted a comeback. This has been so successful that the best her team could do was to secure an appearance on Sun TV, which means the audience would be very small indeed.

Except, of course, for Ms Truss’ fellow right-leaning politicians, and all those hacks and pundits who would watch the broadcast, then tell anyone not yet asleep how wonderful it was. Sending down the softball “questions” and not subjecting Ms Truss to any discernible reality check was the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist.

So what is the Truss tonic that would improve the lot of average hard-working taxpayers? Don’t ask. “I think we need to leave the ECHR”. Make the trip to the supermarket a bit cheaper, would it? Put food on the table? Make transport costs more affordable? Over to Master Cole. “With or without a referendum? No more referendums?” None you might lose, he means.

“No more referendums. I agree with you”. How Murdoch collegiate of her. Back came Cole. “But you’d need a massive mandate from the people to do that”. Which more or less kills her ambition stone dead. Who’s going to vote for the Tories if it means her? There was a flicker of realisation before she continued “You would. But it’s not enough just to leave the ECHR”.

Uh-oh. So what else is on her wrecking ball target list? “What else do we need to leave?” asked Cole. Leave? Nah, Liz is talking abolition. “We’ve got to abolish the Supreme Court”. Yeah, rule of law? Phooey! Master Cole cued her up for the follow-up: “Bring it back into the Lords?” She liked that idea. “Yes, bring it back into the Lords”. So abolition is no abolition.

And then came the Oh What A Giveaway moment from Master Cole. “I presume the OBR’s pretty high on your hit list as well”. Not much of an interrogation, is it? Go on Liz! “That’s definitely, although … what the OBR do with their modelling is they actually encourage Governments to have higher immigration”. EH? How the merry fuck do they manage that?

“Because they essentially try and force Governments to trade off tax cuts for immigration rises”. The OBR doesn’t even “try” to force any outcome on Governments. Anyhoo, carry on. “But the other thing, we’ve got to leave the ECHR, abolish the Supreme Court, abolish the Human Rights Act”. Master Cole? “And what, a British bill of rights? The Tories tried to do that”.

It was a simple question, a tap-in from six inches, an open goal. Not for Ms Truss. “I prefer the traditional Bill of Rights”. Which is, or was, what, exactly? “I mean, Britons have been free for many, many years”. Starting to sound like her lobby group handlers didn’t program the Trussbot all that well.

“The idea that Human Rights were only invented in 1997 is a Blair fiction”. It would be a more credible assertion if anyone were making that claim. Then she went totally wacko. “All that he’s invented is rights for people that shouldn’t be in our country”. Liz Truss, folks, who doesn’t understand that Human Rights apply to all humans, the clue being in the name.

Her fortunately brief tenure as Prime Minister was marked by frightening economic ineptitude - cheered on by the right-leaning press - which was heralded as going for growth when all it would have done would have been to line the pockets of the already well-off. She needs to learn the basics of Propensity to Spend versus Propensity to Save, and stop allowing the Tufton Street mafia to fill her empty head with outmoded economic drivel.

She also needs to accept the reality - that her time has been and is not coming back. Politically and economically, she is a walking basket case. Blaming migration for failure, and wanting to abolish all those institutions that done her wrong (allegedly) will solve nothing, will help the country not at all. Liz Truss needs to embrace the real world, not chicken out of it.

I give you Mary Elizabeth Truss - the epitome of Chicken In A Basket.

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Julian Assange And Justice

And so came the last opportunity for Julian Assange to avoid being extradited from the UK to the United States: the current court hearing is to challenge a decision by Priti Patel, then Home Secretary, and also the 2021 High Court ruling that he could be extradited. He has been incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison since being dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019.

So what has Assange allegedly done to warrant his being banged up in Belmarsh? The US authorities claim “Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” and violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Why so? That is all down to the information released by WikiLeaks. Information which showed the USA, its security agencies, and its armed forces in a very poor light indeed.

In other words, he blew the whistle on some seriously deadly behaviour. He also did not endear himself to the US Democrats by publishing information suggesting the party was biased against Bernie Sanders, in the run-up to the party’s 2016 Convention. He was also critical of combover crybaby Donald Trump. But Trump was later to speak highly of WikiLeaks.

As the BBC has reported, “On the campaign trail, Trump heaped praise on Wikileaks, saying at one rally that ‘Wikileaks is like a treasure trove,’ and ‘Boy, I love reading Wikileaks,’ at another”. So would he cut Assange some slack? Er, no: “But in 2019, when asked about the prosecution of Assange, Trump said: ‘I know nothing really about him. That’s not my deal in life.’”

If Assange thought Trump might look favourably upon him, he was sorely mistaken. For Trump, everything is transactional: if Assange, or anyone else, is no longer any use to him, does not confer any benefit upon him, then they are simply discarded. He’ll get nothing out of Trump. And, as Wikileaks was behind the leaking of Hillary Clinton’s private emails, he’ll get nothing out of Joe Biden either. The current President has been silent on the matter.

Some will point to Assange’s behaviour being, shall we say, challenging. He can be a right royal pain in the neck. But that is not a criminal offence: were it so, most of the Parliamentary Conservative party, along with their lobby group pals, and most of their press hangers-on, would now have been banged up.

Countries that might have given Assange asylum are most likely frightened of the USA turning on them - whoever is in the White House. And now there is the issue of his health suffering as a result of his imprisonment. Ominously, the BBC report now tells “Julian Assange's lawyer says the Wikileaks founder is not in court today as he is unwell”. How unwell is then spelled out.

“Assange's wife Stella [told the BBC] that he would not survive being extradited from the UK to the US as he is physically and mentally extremely weak … [his brother] said his health was in 'a very delicate position' and he was ‘going through immense amounts of suffering’ at Belmarsh Prison, where he has been since 2019”. Years of confinement take their toll.

So why continue with the extradition? After all, the WikiLeaks trove “are said to have originated from former US soldier Chelsea Manning. Back in 2013, Manning was court martialled and sentenced to 35 years in prison for charges relating to this leak. But this sentence was later commuted by then US President Barack Obama after she'd already served four years in prison”.

More suspiciously, as Wikipedia notes, “Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice did not indict Assange because it could not find evidence that his actions differed from those of a journalist”. But then, “During the Trump Administration, CIA director Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped up pursuit of Assange”.

So Trump spoke with forked tongue. Again. Looking at the case now, there seems no point in continuing the pursuit of Assange, especially given Chelsea Manning has been free for some years. Being a difficult SOB is no excuse for imprisoning someone in a maximum security jail. So why not just free him and have done with it? Ah well. They have to make an example of someone.

That’s how the same They keeps everyone else in line. Sad but true.

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BBC Bias? No, Press And Tory Lies

Today has brought a superb example of relentless press falsehood and misinformation gradually seeping into public consciousness, that result then being fraudulently used to peddle yet more falsehood and misinformation. The target is the BBC, whose level of impartiality the press cannot equal, and so it has to be dragged down to the level of right-wing propaganda rags.

The Tories have briefed the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph in pursuit of their target, telling readers “BBC faces tougher scrutiny over bias … Ofcom to police web and social media as minister raises viewers’ impartiality fears”. And those fears are what, exactly? Ah, but that, as Number Two told Number Six, would be telling. So we aren’t told.

That this is just another load of weapons grade bullpucky is then given away in the first paragraph. “BBC audiences think the Corporation is not ‘sufficiently impartial’, the Culture Secretary says today as she announces tougher scrutiny of the broadcaster to deal with perceived bias”. Those quote marks are because there is no evidence to back up the claim.

You think I jest? It did not take much probing from concerned journalists during this morning’s media round for Lucy Frazer (for it was she) to be exposed simultaneously as both utter charlatan and busted flush. It did not help that her interview on ITV Good Morning Britain was conducted by Susanna Reid, who knows a little about working at the Beeb.

“What is the BBC not impartial on?” she asked Ms Frazer. Who stonewalled from the off. “A large part of that will be about its news, but also in its programming as a whole”. “What are people complaining that the BBC is not impartial about?” asked Ms Reid, possibly knowing her interviewee had no evidence. More flannelling. More waffle. But then came a specific.

Sort of. “What is BBC News getting wrong?” asked Ms Reid. “Take, for instance, the recent coverage … Gaza and Israel … What we saw there was that the BBC … a significant number of complaints … and what we’ve seen is that it did make an error”. Making an error is not bias, or lack of impartiality. And it got worse as Ms Frazer arrived at Sky News to talk to Kay Burley.

Come on Kay! “Do you think the BBC is biased?” What say Ms Frazer? “I do think that, on occasion, it has been biased, yes”. Ms Burley was not impressed. “In relation to what?” Out came the Israel - Gaza example and the Beeb saying sorry. There was a difference between a mistake and bias. “There is a perception among the public that the BBC is biased” she claimed.

Ms Burley continued to be unimpressed. “I’m talking about evidence of bias. Where’s the evidence?” Ms Frazer offered “The evidence of bias is what the audience believe …”. That, Ms Burley corrected her, was perception, not evidence. There was, though, evidence from Ofcom, who had done questionnaires and studies. So maybe someone could pony up the results?

Until then, all we have is the Tel whining “The BBC was last month accused of offering a ‘steady diet of woke bias’, with a review of its output suggesting prejudice in coverage of debates over race and gender”. Who made the accusation? What review? Why a mere “suggestion”? And while you’re at it, give a definition of “Woke”. And why you’re misusing the term.

This is nothing more than an attempt by the Tories, and their pals in the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, to go after the BBC on the back of absolutely zero evidence. In the days of Bill Deedes’ Telegraph, this excuse for journalism would have been instantly spiked, if anyone had been foolish enough to offer it up for publication. The culprit may then have been sacked.

But the claims of bias are given the full support of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. Who shill remorselessly for the Tories without having to face the inconvenience of questioning. This tells you that the Telegraph “story” was prompted by CCHQ. It also shows why the Tories are so frightened about the Tel changing hands.

No use peddling this drivel if ministers cannot defend it. Just a thought.

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