Telegraph Social Media Incitement

After the attempts by the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press to leverage the highly suspect evidence of a former Czech diplomat and smear Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as some sort of Soviet agent collapsed in ignominy last week, and Tory vice-chairman Ben Bradley was forced to apologise for blatantly libelling Jezza, there was a need for The Blue Team and its cheerleaders to pull something from the rubble.

The Tories had been shamed; their lack of membership meant they were having to recruit a paid Twitter “troll army” to shill for them. But all was not lost: at the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, help was at hand.

The new approach was launched on the BBC Sunday Politics, as Alex Nunns noted. “Here's what @KateEMcCann of the Telegraph said on #bbcsp. She actually said this, I'm not making it up: ‘Ben Bradley's apology has been retweeted & is now an attack line & it's quite vicious & vindictive. People need to be kinder to each other’”.

A Retweet is now “vicious and vindictive”. Ms McCann was quick to play the victim in response to Nunns: “The point I was making - albeit a little scruffily - was I don’t see why everything has to be so vicious. It puts people off politics and it’s unedifying on all sides. Your tweet attacking me only reinforces that point”. It was the Rotten Leftie’s fault! He simply replied “I look forward to your public condemnation of your newspaper's vicious campaign against the Leader of the Opposition based on a single discredited source”.

But Ms McCann was not done with the victimhood: “All you’re seeking to do with that tweet is direct nasty messages to someone you don’t agree with. You’re not engaging, you’re grandstanding - and I think that’s snide and damaging to decent political debate”.

Another Tweeter had noticed a pattern forming: “Here's another Telegraph journalist @asabenn saying Corbynites have a 'demented obsession'. Like @KateEMcCann these reporters know exactly how people will react. It is their behaviour that leads to people being vicious on social media”. Indeed. And a third Tel voice was in on the act.

Christopher “No” Hope Tweeted “Everyone must apologise for factual inaccuracies. But the fact that a Tory MP has paid out damages over a political ding dong with Jeremy Corbyn is deeply worrying. This could seriously chill political debate and sets an appalling precedent in mainstream British politics”. Pick the dishonesty out of that one.

It wasn’t a “ding dong”, no damages were paid, and no precedent was set, as Matt Black pointed out in his own inimitable style. And Hope, being of less than perfect courage, deleted his effort, leaving Alex Hovden to ask why he had done so. But there was no reply.

Worse, Sunday Politics is again not looking too clever over its enabling of the Tel’s smear and victimhood agenda, as Nunns noted: “The BBC Sunday Politics panel gets round to the false spy story & only the two panelists from the right (including one from the Telegraph which pushed the smear) are asked to comment. Steve Richards wasn't given the chance to rebut or balance it”. The “commentators who count”, eh?

The Telegraph’s campaign to moan about nastiness while ramping it up is so blatant, the BBC should be calling them on it. Sunday Politics is not doing its job. Again.

Leicester Explosion - Enter The Sickos

An explosion in a building in Leicester has left four people dead, and others injured. Emergency services are working to make the scene safe. Little more is known. But because this is a vibrant multicultural city, it has not taken long for the sickos to crawl out of the woodwork and assert that it’s the Scary Muslims (tm) making bombs.

Some of those stirring hatred have tens of thousands of Twitter followers; few have any regard for facts, or, indeed, the dead and injured. Take former BNP chief idiot Nick Griffin, who got the ball rolling by nudging and winking “Could just be a gas accident. But, there again, #Leicester is one of the most colonised cities in England, so a #Jihadi bomb factory might just have gone up!” Colonised. Jihadi. And that was only the beginning.

Another member of the brains trust claimed “Breaking: Leicester Hinckley Road  Londis flat explosion thought to be bomb factory no 2, hunted by police after 8 terrorists arrested when explosives found a hundred yards away in Daneshill Road five months ago. Cover story is ‘gas leak’ to avoid racial tensions”. Just make it up, stuff reality.

One moron - but a moron with 6,700 Twitter followers - asserted “Suspected Terrorist Bomb Makers just let a bomb off in #Leicester - clearly by mistake - 3 individuals + looked to be building a bomb but thankfully they weren’t skilled enough and likely blew themselves up or certainly injured themselves - wait for the Media to suggests gas leak”. To this, a moron with over 44,000 followers added “These stores in place like Leicester are usually run by muslims … Was this a bomb lab? Police are saying ‘gas leak’”.

You get the picture. Any more than 44,000 followers? How about 58,000? “No indications it is terror related .. other than the big bomb blast! (Bet they say gas explosion again lol)”. And another: “People have been asked not to speculate on the Leicester explosion, as if the Authorities are not. It could be gas and that ‘gas’ could be from a cylinder considering the violent nature and the ensuing [fire] Similar happened in Catalonia last year from Muslim bomb-makers”. Muslim bomb-makers. Wink. Nudge.

The stupidity continued. “My first thought upon reading this was not gas explosion. It was terrorist bomb factory” Tweeted one idiot “distrustful of MSM” (for which read “paranoid”). Another continued to make it up: “A likely terrorist attack - intelligence shows an uptick in chatter about a possible car bomb in the U.K. or E.U.” Intelligence my arse.

Only after this was some sanity injected: “would Isis bomb [a] Londis because they have raised the price of Ribena? Get a grip” said someone sensibly not buying the Sun. A terrorist incident “In a polish grocery store! What a cockwomble” said another.

One LCFC fan urged caution: “Major incident in #Leicester - looks like a gas explosion - calm down twitter, highly unlikely to be a bomb or terror attack! Praying there are no injuries or worse”. And Helen Knott, who actually lives in the city, expressed her disgust at the sickos: “This is my street, my community and my people and you know NOTHING about us. This is a diverse area with more nationalities living in harmony than ANYWHERE else in the UK. #Leicester is an example to the rest of the country in how to get it right!”

The conspiracy idiocy is in full flow. Perhaps those on the media fringes who encourage this kind of paranoid stupidity might like to stop and think for a moment. Or maybe not.

Tony Parsons Says BBC Made Him Stupid

As if the attempts by the Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun to extract something, anything, from their utterly discredited claims about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn having a cup of tea with a Czech diplomat in the late 1980s had not made the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker look stupid enough, along has come Tony Parsons to make the stupidest claim of all. Yes, the BBC did it. Perhaps.

Parsons, who has spent so long as a has-been that few can remember he once scaled the giddy heights of mediocrity at the NME, has tried valiantly to tie up the loose ends from Jan Sarkocy’s claims, Jezza brushing them off, and the resulting press establishment paranoia, only to drop them all in the rush to score another paycheque.

“Why does Jeremy Corbyn get a free pass to attack the press as the BBC sits in silence? The BBC's lack of coverage of these threats only prove they see the Labour leader as a way to block Brexit” he warbles plaintively to no purpose at all. Brexit? Er, HELLO?

“IMAGINE the kerfuffle if President Trump threatened the free press with a punishment beating for daring to criticise him”. We don’t need to: he has denounced much of the USA’s broadcast media as “Fake News”, and his supporters have been threatening journalists.

Parsons isn’t bothered about them. “Jeremy Corbyn openly ­menaces national newspapers and, at our state broadcaster, he gets a free pass”. Had he actually menaced anyone, the BBC might have reported it. He didn’t, so they didn’t. Paranoia is not a legitimate reason for wasting valuable broadcasting time.

Do go on. “The Labour leader’s attempt to bully the press into silence is not even news at the Beeb. Corbyn barks he has no case to answer … The BBC meekly defers to his ruling”. He’s not bullied anyone, merely restated what’s in the Labour manifesto.

Tone isn’t bothered about that either. “Corbyn is deeply embarrassed by the revelations that he met Czech spy Jan Sarkocy in the Eighties”. Doesn’t look like it. “But it would have been so easy for him to neutralise these stories, simply by telling the truth”. We know the truth. Sarkocy is a liar and fantasist, and the Sun’s claims are bust.

But now he’s on to the abuse and smears: “The Labour leader, while clearly having no great love or loyalty to our country, makes a very unlikely spy”. Loyalty smear from someone who wants the UK to be like another country altogether (Japan). Next. “If Corbyn had told us he never had any intelligence to extract, God knows we would have believed him”. Says the world’s worst Sunday columnist. Apart from Dan Hodges.

Still, onwards and, er, onwards, eh? “Corbyn had a chilling message for the ‘press barons’ with their ‘bad old habits’ about the brave new world that would be coming in with a Labour Government”. We know. Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry and Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. “If President Trump had made exactly that threat, in exactly those words, then the BBC would have been justifiably furious”. Trump isn’t capable of that level of reason.

Then he throws Brexit into the mix: “I know that the BBC sees Corbyn as the last chance of blocking Brexit but its vow of silence on his Cold War shenanigans is breathtaking”. Yes, this excuse for a pundit is now blaming his own paper’s incompetence on the BBC.

Liam Fox Is A Disgrace

After he had been invited on to The Andy Marr Show (tm) to tell the waiting masses how wonderfully the Government’s Brexit strategy is going, but managed not to tell anyone, the show’s host turned to ask the disgraced former minister Liam Fox, now inexplicably restored to the cabinet, about his party’s vice-chairman Ben Bradley. Bradley had blatantly libelled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. But other Tories had smeared Jezza, too.

Disgraced MP is still a disgraced MP

Not least of these was Gavin “stupid boy” Williamson, who stated unequivocally that Corbyn had “betrayed his country”. The Private Pike of the cabinet would do well to check out the grovelling apology from his party vice-chairman on the use of that word. Bradley said “I fully accept that my statement was wholly untrue and false. I accept that I caused distress and upset to Jeremy Corbyn by my untrue and false allegations, suggesting he had betrayed his country by collaborating with foreign spies” [my emphasis].

On the basis of that statement, Williamson, who claimed “That he met foreign spies is a betrayal of this country. He cannot be trusted”, may be in line for another of those letters from Team Jezza’s lawyers, and he’ll have to do more than blub to Uncle Arthur about it. Nor did Fox exactly rule himself out of attracting lawyers’ attention after his shifty, sneering and not very superior response to Marr’s probing. Here’s what he had to say.

“I think that the Labour left, during the Cold War, were extremely unhelpful to this country … I don’t think that you can use the word ‘betray’ … I certainly think that the Labour left were the Soviet Union’s ‘useful idiots’ during that period”. So should Williamson apologise for using the B-word? “This is part of the lively debate that we have [!] … it’s not necessarily a word I would use, but I certainly believe, and I think it’s true, that Jeremy Corbyn - and others - were very useful to the Soviet Union during the Cold War”.

Make that two disgraced MPs

And why would that be? “Because they undermined the arguments of the West”. How this alleged undermining took place was not told. Meanwhile, Marr tried for one final time to get an answer from Fox on whether Williamson should apologise to Jezza. Here, again, is what Fox said in reply: “Well, I think in the broader sense, he was undermining the security of our country by siding with the Soviet Union in that argument, and I think that was very damaging to the country. Luckily it was our side of the arguments, not Jeremy Corbyn’s, that won the day”. Would Sir like to dig his way in a little deeper?

Sir certainly would. “I think he certainly undermined … the Labour left undermined the security of the United Kingdom by their one-sided disarmament and their very clear preference for a Soviet-style communism”. Exactly how that diverges from using words like “betrayal” and terms like “fellow traveller” is one for the lawyers to pore over.

Quite apart from Liam Fox’s ridiculous supposition that back bench opposition MPs can achieve what he claims Corbyn and others did, it looks very much as if his smearing of the Labour leader, and that of “Stupid Boy” Williamson, has veered over the defamation line. Now that Jezza’s lawyers have laid down a marker, those comments may interest them further. And the BBC transcript of the Marr Show chat will be available later.

Liam Fox should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. And on the basis of his latest appearance, nowhere near a TV studio either.

Ben Bradley - Now Resign

The deeply unpleasant Tory Party vice-chairman Ben Bradley, he of “Splat the Chavs” and advocating sterilisation for the unemployed, overreached himself yet again last week with a claim about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that was totally untrue, and indeed libellous. As a reward for his diligence in smearing the opposition, Jezza instructed lawyers and the hapless Bradley is now facing a non-trivial bill for their services.

Ben Bradley - time to go

He has also been prevailed upon to tell his followers “I fully accept that my statement was wholly untrue and false. I accept that I caused distress and upset to Jeremy Corbyn by my untrue and false allegations, suggesting he had betrayed his country by collaborating with foreign spies … I am very sorry for publishing this untrue and false statement and I have no hesitation in offering my unreserved and unconditional apology to Jeremy Corbyn for the distress I have caused him”. And there was more.

Bradley has also agreed to make a payment to a charity of Corbyn’s choice, and the Labour leader’s choice was that the payment be split between a homeless charity and a food bank - in Bradley’s own constituency of Mansfield. That will have hurt twice over: the local food bank suggestion was pitched by Owen Jones, who was there yesterday in Mansfield to rally the Labour troops - campaigning to unseat Bradley next time round.

Remember how the Tories went after him?

Could it get worse? It certainly could: when Bradley Tweeted out his apology yesterday evening, as agreed with Jezza’s lawyers, this became the most successful Tweet he has sent out. It has scored more than 20,000 Retweets. As James Felton pointed out, Bradley “has been charged by the conservatives to connect with the youth” and this was the only example he could point to of having a Tweet go viral.

And yet worse: Tory chairman Brandon “barrow boy” Lewis, who is effectively Bradley’s boss, spent much of last Thursday’s edition of BBC Question Time being reminded of his supposed pledge not to insult opponents. As the BBC reported at the time, “Conservative candidates will be suspended if they insult rivals, the new party chairman says … Brandon Lewis said a new code of conduct would require people standing for Parliament to ‘behave responsibly and show respect’ to others”. Sounds straightforward enough.

Brandon Lewis - should be calling for Bradley's resignation

So what is Lewis going to do with Ben Bradley? He’s not merely insulted a rival, he’s libelled him. He’s not behaved responsibly and certainly hasn’t shown respect for others (don’t forget the chav splatting and sterilisation comments, either). When Labour new boy Jared O’Mara was caught being disrespectful to others - even historically - he was suspended by the party, and remains suspended. So what about Bradley?

And if the MP for Mansfield is suspended, as a comparison with O’Mara suggests, and the Tories’ own pledge demands, then his position as party vice-chairman is untenable. So he would have to resign, or be sacked. After all, Brandon Lewis has laid down the law with his new code of conduct, and his party lost no time condemning Jared O’Mara.

Ben Bradley has to resign as Tory vice-chairman. Or Brandon Lewis has to sack him. The party has no alternative. After all, they have those high principles to uphold. Allegedly.

Top Six - February 25

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

6 Corbyn Smear - Now It’s Libel The attacks on the Labour leader were broadened to claim that several of the party’s MPs had been in the pay of Eastern bloc agents. It was totally untrue. Again.

5 Cadbury Halal Stupidity Tell some people that chocolate is halal - which it just is, like water and vegetables - and watch them lose it completely.

4 Milo Yiannopoulos Is Bust The over-promoted man-baby withdrew his court case against Simon & Schuster over the piss-poor book they refused to publish. So now he’s completely washed up (except, we now know, for promoting rubbish on Info Wars).

3 Corbyn Provokes Press Meltdown After the smears against the Labour leader came the response. And all Jezza needed to say was “change is coming” for our free and fearless press to lose it. Badly.

2 Guido Fawked - Corbyn Stasi File ISN’T The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog had bet the house on there being a file on Jezza held by the former East German security services. There wasn’t one. Another fine mess.

1 UKIP - Arrests Imminent News that the Trump-Russia probe, under the aegis of Robert Mueller, had three indictments ready to go for UK nationals meant only one thing - someone would be coming for Mr Thirsty and his pals.

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

Farage Ukraine Money Trouble

The possibility of three UK nationals being indicted as part of the Trump-Russia investigation, as I discussed yesterday, may come so close to former UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage that he ends up getting nicked. But how he might be linked to all the others being charged by special counsel Rober Mueller was not immediately clear. It is now, and the key man is Paul Manafort.

Squeaky illegal bung finger up the bum time

As the BBC has reported, “Ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly paid unnamed former senior European politicians to lobby for Ukraine's previous pro-Russia government, a new indictment filed by special counsel Robert Mueller says … Mr Manafort paid over €2m ($2.5m; £1.8m) to the ex-politicians, including a former European chancellor, it says”. So what were these alleged bungs for?

“His alleged payments to former senior European politicians were made in 2012 and 2013, the new indictment says … The alleged paid lobbying was part of Mr Manafort's work for the Ukrainian government, a pro-Russian party, the Party of Regions, and its leader Viktor Yanukovych, who was president between 2010 and 2014, the indictment says … Mr Manafort's work for Ukrainian pro-Russian political parties is said to have continued after Mr Yanukovych was overthrown and fled to Russia in 2014”.

But where does Farage fit in? James Lamond had a clue: “Rick Gates admitted to lying about a meeting between Manafort & a U.S. congressman. Turns out Dana Rohrabacher, had a meeting with Manafort scheduled for that day”. Rohrabacher, otherwise known as “Putin’s favourite Congressman”, is a pal of Nigel Farage.

Indeed, the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr caught Rohrabacher posting a photo of himself and Mr Thirsty on a fishing trip together. The image has since been deleted - but not by Ms Cadwalladr. Nor has all the characteristically loud and persistent pro-Russia lobbying by Farage - after the alleged Manafort payments were made.

In 2014, as the Guardian reported, “Nigel Farage intensified his attack on the EU's ‘vanity’ foreign policy on Thursday as he accused Brussels of poking the ‘Russian bear with a stick’ over Ukraine”. He also claimed the EU “has encouraged brave young men and women in western Ukraine to rebel to the point of toppling a legitimate president”.

Later, Farage, who resents anything he sees as interference from outside in UK affairs, went to the Netherlands to, er, interfere in their affairs and urge a no vote in their Ukraine referendum. And the Telegraph put it thus: “The West must stop opposing Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine and join forces with the Russian leader in the fight against Islamic extremists, Nigel Farage has said”. All since Manafort made his alleged bungs.

And the last link in the chain will be the one that clinches it - so we need to know one thing. Was Nigel Farage a recipient of the alleged Manafort largesse? Because if he is, he’s toast. He had all the connections, made all the right noises at the right times, and rocked up in all the right places. He’s got some of those questions to answer.

Of course, someone close to Mueller may already have answered them.

Dearlove Corbyn Smear IRRELEVANT

Former MI6 head man Richard Dearlove, the successor to the fictional “M” of Bond fame, has been sounding off about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s meetings with a Czech diplomat in the late 1980s. And despite Jan Sarkocy having already been exposed as a liar and a fantasist, the right-wing press has been more than happy to hang on his every word - particularly the Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun.

The paywalled original of this story was in the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, but the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker have most kindly lifted the relevant bits. “JEREMY Corbyn’s Cold War spy link must be taken seriously, says an ex-spook … Former MI6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove said it was ‘absurd’ for the Labour leader to suggest he didn’t know who he was meeting … Sir Richard, stationed in Prague during the Cold War, insisted that Mr Corbyn had ‘questions to answer’”.

There was more. “He told: ‘Everything I learnt about the way those services, known as the StB, operated tells me these accusations should be taken seriously’ … Sir Richard, head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999-2004, said the StB tried to identify ‘recruitable’ MPs … And he slammed the Czech regime as ‘one of the nastiest in Europe’”.

There is, sadly, one teensy problem with taking Dearlove seriously: his track record consists mainly of him getting it wrong, and in a way that has proved seriously damaging to this country. Take, for instance, the 2003 Iraq war: the Chilcot Inquiry looked at the claims of WMD and observed “Sir Richard Dearlove's personal intervention, and its urgency, gave added weight to a report that had not been properly evaluated and would have coloured the perception of ministers and senior officials. The report should have been treated with caution”. Why should caution have been exercised?

Richard Dearlove - good at getting it wrong

Because MI6 “did not inform No 10 or others that the source who had provided the reporting issued on 11 and 23 September 2002, about production of chemical and biological agent, had been lying to SIS”. In other words, they failed to tell Tony Blair and his team - who got all the stick for the wrong WMD call - that the intelligence was suspect.

Instead, Dearlove urged his people to find the non-existent WMDs, telling his contacts in Iraq he was “emphasising the utmost importance of a major find in the next two weeks, and asking them to do everything possible to try and identify where materials are being hidden”. He knew he’d sold Blair a pup, and was desperately trying to cover his arse.

Dearlove is also a favourite of the Alt-Right Henry Jackson Society, where in an address on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 he got it wrong yet again: “what is surprising ten years on is the relative failure of violent Islamism to make a more lasting political impact … what we are seeing … is a resurgence of moderate Islam with Islamist parties. These groups are now apparently arguing for the very democratic values and individual rights that al-Qaeda was so opposed to. This can be seen in what is happening today in Egypt, in Libya, the sort of things that Erdogan was saying on his visit to Egypt. The Turkish Prime Minister has recently been immensely important”. Yeah, right.

Egypt has gone backwards, Erdogan has become a virtual dictator, and while Dearlove bleated about moderates gaining the upper hand, IS was taking hold. All of which shows that when it comes to intelligence matters, we need take no lectures from him.

Richard Kemp - Another Bigot Busted

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press is not racist, not bigoted, and not at all biased against Muslims, oh no. After all, only one out of 8,148 complaints of discrimination made to sham press regulator IPSO over a one year period recently was upheld, so that must be right. But it isn’t: as any fule kno, the Editor’s Code to which IPSO works only considers complaints from individuals. So demonising Muslims as a group is OK.

Blog post? Critical? Damned insolence, Fenton - get back in line this minute!

It isn’t, of course, nor is hiring pundits for whom bigotry is a stock in trade. And here we come to Richard Kemp, former Army officer, for whom punditry has become a Nice Little Earner. Billed as “former Commander of the British forces”, the Daily Mail has run stories under Kemp’s by-line telling “Any lawyer who knowingly makes false accusations against our troops deserves to be in the dock”, and reminding us “Almost all the allegations of maltreatment brought against British troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out to be baseless”. He’s also been featured by the Sun.

Sayeeda Warsi - libelled by Kemp

And his ramblings for the Murdoch goons expose his true beliefs: he has told that “all British citizens feared to have been radicalised should be imprisoned without trial - even if there isn't enough evidence to prosecute them … Colonel Richard Kemp also said non-Brits suspected of extremism should be instantly deported”.

Reliable sources ...

Replicating failed policies from the past, though, was only the beginning. Kemp also wanted to arm the Police: “We need to have every cop in this country armed, which gives us a greater chance of having an immediate response”. Plus it was doubly the Scary Muslims (tm) to blame, because “During Ramadan we always expect to see a higher level of violence from ISIS and we’ve seen that around the world, and now in London”.

... unbiased sources ...

Kemp’s Twitter feed is also filled with a less than totally charitable attitude to Muslims and Islam. He approvingly cites Breitbart and the Gatestone Institute, claiming that Islam can only mean “Theocratic Rule”. So Jewish News should have known who they were hiring last year when Kemp launched a tirade in their pages against Sayeeda Warsi.

... even-handedness ...

His article triggered a libel action which resulted in Jewish News having to publish a front page apology: “In a column written by Colonel Richard Kemp published in the Jewish News and jewishnews.co.uk on 6 April 2017, it was suggested that Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has sought to excuse the appalling conduct of the barbaric Islamic State terror group … The column also suggested that Baroness Warsi has objected to action being taken against British Muslims who murder and rape for Islamic State. We wish to make absolutely clear that these allegations were wholly untrue and should never have been published”. Sayeeda Warsi will have her costs paid, plus damages of £20,000.

... clear-headed, evidence based conclusions

There does not, though, appear to be any sign of contrition from Kemp, who continues to use Twitter to throw his weight about, claim criticism of Israel equates to anti-Semitism, and order dissenters around like so many disobedient squaddies.

Richard Kemp is now exposed as an Islamophobic bigot, his reputation forever tarnished by the intolerance he cannot hide. So he’s still ideal Mail and Sun material, then.

UKIP - Arrests Imminent

As special counsel Robert Mueller continues his investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 United States Presidential Election, the indictments keep on coming. Only yesterday, as Vox has reported, “A federal grand jury in Virginia approved a new set of charges from special counsel Robert Mueller against former Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates”. And there was more.

Squeaky You're Nicked finger up the bum time

“Mueller had indicted Manafort and Gates on a combined 12 counts last October in Washington, DC, but he has now assembled a ‘superseding indictment’ with a combined 32 counts of tax, financial, and bank fraud charges against the two men - in Virginia rather than Washington … There have been reports that Gates was close to making a plea deal with Mueller’s team, but that seems not to have panned out”.

Cut the crap Nige, just sit down and start singing

And last week, as CNN reported, “Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Department of Justice announced Friday … In addition, three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft”.

But what of the go-betweens? What of the potential UK connections? We may not have long to wait: Mueller and his team have just spent a week chatting with former Trump gang main man Steve Bannon, best-known for his work with the convocation of the irredeemably batshit otherwise known as Breitbart. Bannon was close to several of the Brits involved with the Trump gang. And now the breaking news suggests action soon.

One well-informed source has told “Breaking - apparently Mueller has 3 sealed warrants destined for the UK Any ideas as to the lucky winners?” and just to jog memories had added “Farage has been listed as a 'person of interest' by the FBI for some time. His mentor, Steve Bannon, has just spent a week talking to Mueller”. Indeed he has. Nigel “Thirsty” Farage is close to some of those already indicted - like Manafort.

Also stressed was the strong possibility that Bannon has been singing his heart out: “He's had Bannon on ice for over a week. I can't imagine he hasn't sold them out to save his own hide”. Quite. But what is the source for this information? “US, not public yet, wait a week”. It all fits with those already grilled, and in some cases, indicted.

So whose name is in the frame? One of the three has to be Farage. The other two are most likely to be Nige’s bestest pal Arron Banks, especially given his ability to magic up several millions to bankroll the Leave campaign seemingly from nowhere. And the third is probably Banks’ sidekick Andy Wigmore - Banksy and Wiggy as they call themselves.

Sorry Ray, you're not worth arresting

Anyone expecting Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam to feature will probably be disappointed, as he thinks he’s important, but he isn’t important enough. As for Julian Assange - look, just be patient, and in any case it’s not as if he’s going anywhere soon.

Conveniently, Farage is attending CPAC in Maryland right now. It would be a terrible shame if he were to be prevented from making one last Question Time appearance.