Farmlands Documentary A RACIST SHAM

The subject of murder among farmers in South Africa, which Zelo Street covered recently after the visit to that country by pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins, has come back to the fore after Lauren Southern, who is persona non grata in the UK, released a documentary on the subject. Farmlands claims to tell the story of the plight of white farmers in South Africa, and asserts that they are being murdered in disproportionate numbers.

Sadly for all those out on the far right, Ms Southern’s painstaking research has gone no further than to produce the kind of propaganda designed to fire up her supporter base - white racists. Here, she is lauded for being prepared to “say the unsayable”. Elsewhere, her documentary has been dismissed as hype, fearmongering, egocentric self-promotion, and even AWB supremacist propaganda.

Why this should be is not hard to discover. As I pointed out when considering Ms Hopkins’ claims, a paper published by the Medical Research Council had said of South Africa’s murder rate “it is lower than the murder rate documented in 1970 under apartheid” and then added “the increase in the white homicide rate began in the late 1970s and has remained markedly less than the increase in murder rates for all other race groups”.

It should have come as no surprise, then, to see the Guardian report the other day “Murders of farmers in South Africa at 20-year low, research shows … Forty-seven farmers reportedly killed in 2017-18, consistent with decline since peak in 1998 when 153 died”.

There was more. “Forty-seven farmers were killed in 2017-18, according to statistics compiled by AgriSA, an association of hundreds of agricultural associations across South Africa. This is consistent with a steady decline since a peak of violence in 1998 when 153 died … Between 80 and 100 were murdered each year from 2003 to 2011, and around 60 until 2016”. The murder rate among white farmers is actually declining.

Lauren Southern - banned from the UK

And more. “The figures have been challenged by other organisations representing farmers in South Africa, but AgriSA said its research was ‘reliable’ and an important contribution to understanding the threat faced by farmers in South Africa … The chair of the association’s Center of Excellence on Rural Safety, Kobus Breytenbach, said there had been a rise in the number of attacks on farms to 561, from 478 in 2016-17 … But the numbers remain much lower than the 1,068 reached in 2001-02”.

Breytenbach also pointed out that one factor in the decline was that farmers are taking more effective security precautions “to protect themselves and their livelihoods … The rural community has become alert and prepared … They are working with the South African police service and are much more organised than 20 years ago. Everyone is aware of the situation”. It’s a complex picture, but figures do not stand up Ms Southern’s claims.

But then, one look at that publicity image for Farmlands should tell you all you need to know about Lauren Southern and her painstaking research. Look at that vehicle on the highway, driving away from the camera. See the howler yet?

It’s driving on the right. In South Africa, they drive on the left. Lauren Southern can’t even get her publicity stills right. One more for the bin.

Piers Morgan And Sadiq Khan

A breakfast TV appearance should not be an onerous duty for any seasoned politician. So why London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has allegedly been avoiding ITV’s Good Morning Britain might baffle some. But this is a story that speaks not only to the increasingly confrontational nature of that show, but also the infiltration of the tabloid press into the broadcast arena - and the inability of ITV bosses to keep their hosts under control.

Or, rather, that should be host singular: the presence pushing to get the Mayor on GMB is that of former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, whose rhetoric has been increasingly shrill of late. His behaviour has also been a dead giveaway.

What is also clear is that Morgan’s use of his breakfast bully pulpit to rant at Khan is happening at the same time as one part of our free and fearless press is also attacking the Mayor - the Murdoch Sun. It is almost as if the two are in lockstep.

In late March, Morgan ranted “SIX knife murders in London in the past week. This is appalling. What are you going to do about it, Mr Mayor @SadiqKhan ??” In early April, it was “This is happening on YOUR watch, Mr Mayor @SadiqKhan - what are you going to do about it?”. Then, two days later, came the Sun to back him up.

“MURDER CAPITAL Sadiq Khan faces calls to resign over London’s spiralling murder rate after another teenager gunned down overnight … The Mayor of London, who vowed to increase stop and searches in January to to tackle the issue, is now under huge pressure” screamed the headline. Morgan’s Tweet was included in the attack.

This was supported by so-called “Opinion” columns, typified by miserable bigot Rod Liddle the day after the Sun’s attack. Liddle called the Mayor a “vacuous dwarf”. Thus the level of discourse when it comes to the Sun and politics.

Quoting the Sun - entirely coincidental, you understand

Morgan continued his attack on the Mayor throughout May. “You're not keeping Londoners safe. That's the point. Stop hiding, Mr Mayor @SadiqKhan & come on @GMB tomorrow to discuss this very urgent issue. Our viewers are entitled to hear from you … Another stabbing in London. You prepared to come on @GMB tomorrow & discuss this, Mr Mayor @SadiqKhan - or are you going to keep ducking tough questions? … Great to see @SadiqKhan on @GMB today talking about the terrible threat of junk food on public transport. Especially as he refuses to come on @GMB when I am there to talk about the explosion in knife crime happening on his watch. Grow a pair, Mr Mayor”.

Goading, sneering … and then came the Sun in support. “WHERE'S SADIQ? London Mayor Sadiq Khan ‘would rather share selfies than face up to crime crisis’ as he tweets about electric cars and new museums … Top Tories blasted the Mayor for sharing fluffy pictures online while crime rates spiral”. Top Tories? Well, James “not so” Cleverly, at least.

The following day, the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker were back on the attack. “SADIQ MUST GO Sadiq Khan should QUIT as London Mayor if he can’t end deadly crime wave, says Stephen Lawrence pal who was with teenager when he was murdered”. Only at the foot of the article is it admitted that Duwayne Brooks has joined the Tories.

And, after a two week break, back it was to Piers Morgan. “UPDATE: London Mayor @SadiqKhan will not be appearing on @GMB tomorrow. He's bottled it once again. Meanwhile, moped & knife crime continue to rocket on his watch. Your silence is shameful, Mr Khan”. Guess which paper faithfully reported that?

Yep, the Sun. “PIERS Morgan today tore into ‘gutless’ Sadiq Khan for refusing to appear on TV to address London's crime crisis. The Good Morning Britain host said the Mayor of London had ‘bottled it’ by supposedly pulling out of a planned interview on the ITV show”.

No connection between ITV and News UK ...

Er, hang on a minute, what’s that “supposedly” doing there? Ah well. “Mr Khan hit back, insisting he'd never agreed to talk to Mr Morgan in the first place - and ITV bosses then admitted they had screwed up”. Will Morgan be saying sorry to the Mayor?

... that's totally untrue ...

As if you need to ask. Not a peep from the Morgan Twitter feed. And why Sadiq Khan should subject himself to what would not be so much an interview as a premeditated shouting down is an interesting question. It also speaks to Piers Morgan’s links with the Murdoch press, and ITV’s inability to keep him under control.

... there's no evidence to support that idea ...

Morgan and News UK’s CEO Rebekah Brooks go back a long way together. They look out for one another; old pals, part of the Old Media set and all that. Piers Morgan is especially sensitive to any mention of her name, as Evan Harris of campaigning group Hacked Off demonstrated recently in another of those “interviews” that was anything but.

Harris had been invited on to talk about the Celebrity Couple and that Threesome that we cannot talk about for legal reasons. He mentioned that Ms Brooks and Andy Coulson had used the same kind of injunction to keep their affair out of the papers.

... not so much as a shred

Morgan lost it, shouting down Harris, partly by maliciously lying. More than once. The encounter should be instructive to anyone thinking of subjecting themselves to that same treatment. Once Morgan was off and running, there was little his co-host Susanna Reid could do to stop him. And that is what awaits Sadiq Khan.

Moreover, that an encounter between Khan and Morgan might have, shall we say, other overtones is a thought that is never far away, not after Twitter excursions like “Before we scrap @realDonaldTrump's visit, @SadiqKhan - how about we scrap passports for all jihadists streaming back into UK from Syria?” What does Khan have to do with the potential rescinding of passports? OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY.

ITV bosses know Morgan and Ms Brooks are old pals. They know the Sun is running attacks on the London Mayor alongside Morgan’s own tirades. What this would mean if Khan were to agree to an “interview” is in the realms of the bleeding obvious.

Piers Morgan lied in order to shout down Evan Harris. He lied about Sadiq Khan coming on GMB. ITV’s bosses have failed to keep him under control, with the result that viewers get not so much interviews, but shouting-down exhibitions from a mouth artist promoted way above his pay grade. London’s Mayor is right to give this charade short shrift.

As to where that, and the proximity of the Murdoch press, leaves a supposedly impartial breakfast TV show, well, you might like to ask that - I couldn’t possibly comment.

Arron Banks Insurance Empire ISN’T

First it was the FT on his case; now it is the legendary Slicker column in Private Eye magazine. Arron Banks, allegedly “The Man Who Bankrolled Brexit”, is coming under the kind of scrutiny that he would rather avoid. This time, it is his business empire which is under the spotlight. And what is being revealed only serves to generate more questions about where all those millions in loans and donations came from.

The FT has put it plainly: “The Gibraltar-based insurance company owned by Arron Banks made a loss of £32m in 2016, raising questions about the financial health of his insurance business … Southern Rock Insurance Company - the main underwriter for Eldon Insurance, another of Mr Banks’ companies - has made multimillion-pound losses on its core business of underwriting in five of seven years since 2010”. There was more.

“In 2015, the company made a profit of £42m profit after selling certain rights to future income to ICS Risk Solutions, a related company in the Isle of Man, for £77m … This allowed Southern Rock to book upfront profits from the future income streams, but in turn removed the income stream from the Gibraltar company … ICS Risk Solutions is majority-owned by Mr Banks”. So where did the Brexit bonanza originate?

The Eye’s account, though, puts the knife in. “Banks helped bring about Brexit by making the largest donation in British political history. Five registered groups reported donations from his company Better For The Country totalling £2,359,842.76”. So far, so procedural. But it is what the Electoral Commission has told that is truly eyebrow raising.

“The Electoral Commission is investigating ‘whether or not Better For The Country Limited was the true source of donations, or if it was acting as an agent’. It also wants to know ‘whether or not Banks was the true source of loans reported by a referendum campaigner in his name’”. And then comes the real shocker.

“Interestingly, the Commission makes a point of saying that ‘donors from outside the UK and Gibraltar were impermissible donors for the purposes of the UK referendum’”. The Eye also suggests that Banks is doing all he can to delay investigators until Brexit is done and the importance of any misbehaviour will be thereby diminished.

So let’s pull the strings together. The FT report suggests that Banks’ companies are not making money, and that the only way a profit has been reported is by accounting purposes - moving money around his own empire. The main underwriter for his own insurance business just keeps on losing money. Then the Electoral Commission goes further.

That body’s suggestion - no more than that at this stage - is that Banks may have been a mere courier for someone else’s money. Moreover, that someone else is suspected of being an impermissible source. One from outside the UK. On top of that, the EC is also hinting at Banks’ loans not really coming from him.

It was only two weeks ago that Zelo Street first broached the subject of money laundering in relation to Banks. It’s looking like a distinct possibility right now.

Tories IGNORE Their Racism Problem

Since Sajid Javid appeared before the inquisition of the host on The Andy Marr Show (tm) and proclaimed that the Tories did not deal with the Muslim Council of Britain - which wasn’t entirely true - The Blue Team has done next to nothing to deal with the rising tide of criticism of its inertia in tackling Islamophobia within its ranks.

Brandon Lewis - ignorant spiv

Indeed, party Chairman Brandon “Barrow Boy” Lewis has not even given the MCB the courtesy of a reply to their last letter to him. As Sky News has reported, “Muslim leaders have accused the Conservative chair Brandon Lewis of ignoring calls to set up an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party … The Muslim Council of Britain has written its second letter to him, saying it is ‘deeply disappointed’ at not having received a reply or acknowledgement of their demand.” And there was more.

Ben Bradley - bigotry swept under the carpet

“Harun Khan, secretary general of the group which represents more than 1,000 mosques and Muslim institutions, said some victims of Islamophobia were afraid to raise their concerns, risking ‘political suicide’ … In the letter seen by Sky News, Mr Khan said: ‘This is a sad state of affairs for our democracy and we hope they can be taken up in an independent inquiry.’” The Tories still won’t have that inquiry.

Sayeeda Warsi - ignored by her own party

And at PMQs today, Afzal Khan, who represents Manchester Gorton, put it to Theresa May directly. “Three weeks have passed since the Muslim Council of Britain wrote to the chair of the Conservative Party, to raise concerns about Islamophobia in the party, and they are yet to receive a reply. He has also failed to respond to my letter of the 16th June following reports of what looked like an attempt by Tory Headquarters to cover up allegations about one of the Conservative Party vice chairs [Ben Bradley]”.

La la la, the PM can't hear you

There was more. “Does the Prime Minister agree with Baroness Warsi and the Conservative Muslim Forum that the Conservative Party is in denial about Islamophobia in its ranks?” Theresa May pointedly bodyswerved the question, failing to even go near the shamefully ignorant behaviour of her party Chairman. But, she claimed, Brandon Lewis had met TellMAMA. They would investigate any allegations of Islamophobia.

But of the inquiry there is nothing. Anyone might think the Tories are deliberately ignoring the problem in the hope that it will go away. But it will not. The MCB have now asked “Since our letter to the Conservative Party three weeks ago, more incidents of Islamophobia have come to light and a wide range of organisations have backed the call into an independent inquiry. Will @BrandonLewis now listen to this wide range of voices and initiate an inquiry?” And Miqdaad Versi of the MCB has a question for Brandon Lewis.

“Does @BrandonLewis really think the new widespread evidence of Islamophobia across different sections of the @Conservatives will magically disappear if he ignores @MuslimCouncil?” The Tories were quick to jump on the Labour Party and demand inquiries after accusations of anti-Semitism. Now that the boot is so firmly on the other foot, they don’t want to know. And that’s not good enough.

The Tories have a racism problem. The first thing they need to do is admit it.

Godders Blames Grenfell On EU

The inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster continues, as does the misinformed and often idiotic commentary from all those armchair enthusiasts across social media. One of those alleged experts, except he isn’t, is disgraced former MEP Godfrey Bloom, who was too poisonous even for UKIP. He was also too much for the Ludwig von Mises Centre, who stripped him of his Honorary Presidency following an anti-Semitic outburst.

But what Godders is still good at is pretending he knows what he’s talking about. He is also attuned to iron law of far-right Brexiteers that the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr must be attacked at every opportunity. So he took to Twitter to dismiss her concerns about the Grenfell tragedy and instead impose his own warped view of proceedings.

Ms Cadwalladr had told “look at Grenfell. This is systemic failure. Everything failed. Our laws, our regulators, our ability to hold power (big tech) to account. Politics failed. We have a govt that is covering up. And an opposition that is enabling it”. Godders wan’t having any of that liberal namby-pamby rubbish, no Sirree!

“This disaster was the direct result of uncontrolled mass immigration & the disastrous EU fire regulation superseding British regs. I suspect the enquiry will airbrush all this out & blame the Russians” he declared, which was wrong on so many levels that it took several further Twitter interventions to correct the old fraud.

On the subject of those fire regulations, one observer asked “Will you cite ‘the disastrous EU fire regulation’ or are you just making it up?” Yes, the EU has confirmed “EU Member States remain responsible for setting the level of fire safety in buildings on their territory and to enforce their building regulations”. Godders pants on fire again!

Another Tweeter simply replied “@goddersbloom is lying. Just repeating an already debunked myth in the hope some of his gullible followers repeat the lie. The safety regulations among other EU states are much more stringent than ours. Don’t forget, leaving EU will result in ‘a bonfire of red tape/regulations’”. Whoops!

More injection of reality followed: “You are a small-minded racist. This was caused by a wealthy council abandoning its duty of care for its residents in favour of gentrification, then scapegoating the fire service”. Could it get worse? It certainly could.

It didn’t take long for someone to notice that this was just another gratuitous attempt to smear Ms Cadwalladr: “Piling on with your mates in attacking one of the few decent journalists left in the country I see. If it were up to the likes of you there would be no fire regs at all”. But Godders was not downhearted - far from it.

So he was back at it today, attacking the NHS. “The NHS was indeed conceived over sixty years ago. That is the point. Do you drive a 60 year old car? Use a 60 year old telephone. The whole concept is anachronistic”. Very good, Godders. And how old are you?

Godfrey Bloom is so useless he can’t even smear straight. No change there, then.

UKIP Welcomes Nazi Paedophile

The far right has always had a problem with paedophilia. On the one hand, whenever one of their number calls out someone who is not white over being allegedly involved, it is deemed A Very Bad Thing Indeed. But when one of their number says it’s a cool thing, that conflicts them terribly. And that conflict has now come to UKIP.

No. Just no

After the departure of former Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage from its leadership, UKIP has been in a popularity nosedive, as leaders have come and gone, and membership has dwindled. Now, under the genuinely bigoted and intolerant stewardship of Adolf von Batten, the party is desperate for new members. Maybe a little too desperate.

Thus it was that UKIP welcomed Battersea bedroom dweller Paul Watson, purveyor of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and Mark Meechan, famous because he got his partner’s dog to respond to the command “Gas the Jews”. Could it get any worse? It certainly could: now the Kippers have welcomed into their ranks one Milo Yiannopoulos.

Still A Liar And A Cheat ...

Not only has Yiannopoulos joined UKIP, his arrival has been the subject of congratulations from disgraced former MP Neil “A Liar And A Cheat” Hamilton, an individual of such high principle that he managed to lose one of the safest Tory seats in the UK after the Guardian caught him lying about his more creative money-making activities.

Did Hamilton bother to check out Yiannopoulos’ back story before welcoming him to UKIP? Most likely they’re so desperate that they no longer care. But the wider public might just care, given Yiannopoulos’ recent advocacy for paedophilia. You read that right.

... just as he was in the 1990s

Yiannopoulos had been recorded talking about older men having sexual relationships with “young boys”. After some discussion, he asserted “You’re misunderstanding what paedophilia means! Paedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old who is sexually mature”. After that revelation, he had his invitation to give a keynote speech to CPAC rescinded, and his book deal with Simon & Schuster was cancelled.

He also left the convocation of the terminally batshit otherwise known as Breitbart. All that was on top of his being handed a lifetime ban by Twitter for inciting hatred. And there is more, including, as BuzzFeed News recalled, “a previously unreleased April 2016 video in which Yiannopoulos sings ‘America the Beautiful’ in a Dallas karaoke bar as admirers, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, raise their arms in Nazi salutes”.

And more: “Yiannopoulos has … sent anti-Semitic messages to the writer and fact checker Talia Lavin. ‘This past weekend, the nationalist bragged on Facebook and Instagram that he’d sent $14.88 to The New Yorker‘s former fact checker Talia Lavin,’ Observer notes. (1488 being a notorious code used by white supremacists to hail each other).”

That from the New Republic. And there was yet more: “Asked by Observer to comment on a story, Yiannopoulos texted, ‘I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.’ He sent a similar comment to a Daily Beast writer”.

Now this mass of sub-human filth has been welcomed into UKIP. The likes of Neil Hamilton think that’s A Good Thing. Perhaps now the broadcasters will finally cut them loose.

Uber - Carry On Lawbreaking

This week, the appeal of driver and rider matching service Uber against TfL’s decision to refuse it a licence renewal has been heard, and the result has just been announced. It seems all those who believe that Uber is A Very Wonderful Thing can breathe easily now, but only for a short while: the verdict is that the coveted five year licence has still not been approved, and that there are a list of conditions attached.

The decision, handed down by a magistrate and not by TfL, is that Uber can operate in London for another 15 months. Also, it is being stressed that this is very much a probation period. But the overwhelming evidence that shows this has been an illegal operation from the very moment it arrived in the capital appears to have been disregarded. For that alone, Uber should have been run out of town. And there is more.

Apparent interference by Downing Street has also not been considered: this included the pretence that Uber was bringing inward investment to the UK, but it was not. Their drivers paid for their cars; all that Uber provided was the app. And it was that app which broke the law. So unless the app has been significantly re-engineered, Uber will still be breaking the law every time one of its drivers accepts a job.

So it will be interesting to see the list of conditions that has been placed on Uber by the magistrate deciding their appeal. As the Anderson Shelter has told, Uber “have been dispatching 2 million jobs illegally on a weekly basis for the last six years”. That having been established, no regulator - and no arbitrator of appeals - should have had any problem with telling them it was Game Over.

The Anderson Shelter again: “This verdict has stunned the London Taxi and private hire trades … Over 100 London cabbies have handed their badges back to TfL over the last 18 months … Hundreds of Private Hire operates have been put out of business, not being able to compete with Uber's subsidised predator pricing … This decision will probably also see the end of purpose built LEVC taxis, as no one will be able to afford them”.

Uber apologists, who care only about the short-term gain of cheap fares - achieved by the parent company losing hundreds of millions of US Dollars a year as it seeks to put the competition out of business - will be over the moon. Selfish and overpaid pundits, editors, and indeed downmarket radio show presenters, will be queuing up to tell what a victory this is for choice and freedom. It is nothing of the sort.

It is about the return of the robber baron: Uber is in business not to offer choice, but to remove choice by putting established taxi and private hire operations out of business. Its drivers have freedom only to be prisoners of the app, many working such long hours that they fall asleep at the wheel. Accident rates among London’s Uber community are horrendous; the sight of another bent Toyota Prius just part of the capital’s scenery.

Perhaps the list of conditions will force Uber to behave legally, but one should not hold one’s breath. In another 15 months’ time, and tens of millions more illegally accepted jobs down the road, the company will be even more heavily entrenched.

This has not been a good day for London. But it isn’t over until it’s over.

Farage Brexit Sterling Fiddle EXPOSED

While his pals Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore keep up their ill-advised attacks on the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr, former UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has encountered a little local difficulty of his own, becoming embroiled in a Bloomberg exclusive which fingers him as complicit in abuse of election night polling data.

Squeaky currency manipulation finger up the bum time

The narrative is straightforward: soon after polls closed in the EU referendum vote, Farage went on TV and told that Remain had most likely won. The currency markets, which had been tracking the polls, reacted immediately: Sterling rose above $1.50, reaching its highest level for six months. However, a group of hedge fund bosses had access to private exit poll data which suggested the opposite - that Leave had in fact won.

The Bloomberg report puts it directly. “The law is clear: It would have been a violation if, prior to the polls closing, ‘any section of the public’ had gotten the same data the pollsters sold privately to hedge funds”. It seems Farage had that information.

As the report then tells, “He twice told the world on election night that Leave had likely lost, when he had information suggesting his side had actually won. He also has changed his story about who told him what regarding that very valuable piece of information”. Just what Mr Thirsty was up to is then alluded to in this paragraph.

“The private exit poll that appears to have had the most clients was conducted by Farage’s favourite pollster and friend, Damian Lyons-Lowe, whose company is called Survation. It was sold to multiple clients and correctly predicted Leave, according to Farage and other sources familiar with the results. In an interview with Bloomberg, Farage said he learned of Survation’s results before making at least one of two public concessions that night, meaning there was a good chance he was feeding specious sentiment into markets.”.

That means Farage had the information that Leave was likely to have won, but still went out there and claimed otherwise. His pals made hundreds of millions of pounds out of betting on a fall in the market. Reaction was, understandably, adverse to The Great Man. Jo Maugham asked “Hard to imagine @Nigel_Farage did this for free... is there more to come on this extraordinary story?” Tim Walker of The New European mused “It needs to be established too if Farage was rewarded for what he said”.

Chris Morris of the BBC noted it had been “One of the most profitable single days in the history of their industry” for the hedgies. Catherine Pickersgil asked “Farage will have been paid for this … I wonder where it's stashed. Could it perhaps be in Belize?”

Nige’s pals all hurried to rubbish the story, not least Isabel Oakeshott: “This is such rubbish. I was with @Nigel_Farage/ other Brexit campaigners that night. Till the early hours of the morning, he was sure Remain had won”. But no-one believes her. Arron Banks agreed: “he was depressed all day because he didn’t believe we would win”.

Then Andy Wigmore gave the game away by launching a tirade of abuse against Peter Geoghegan of Open Democracy. “You tool it didn’t happen and @Nigel_Farage had nothing to do with any of it and by the way what law have the hedge funds broken? Wake up @PeterKGeoghegan this is just another moronic attack on Brexit by morons”.

Yeah, and what’s More, Ron … Farage himself let his adoring fans know “On my @LBC show at 7pm I will discuss the latest Brexit conspiracy theory from Bloomberg”. Which means he wasn’t going to discuss it with anyone he couldn’t have cut off. Including Liz from London. But James Felton, meanwhile, had unearthed more incriminating evidence.

Noting that the Leave EU post-referendum party had cheered at news the Pound had fallen, he observed “Cheering as your own currency plummets is an odd thing to do if you aren't shorting the pound”. Along with a most interesting slice of sub-titling.

Bloomberg’s report has Mr Thirsty bang to rights. All we need to know now is how much he made out of his post-polling cameo. It might even earn him a Bafta.

Whether or not one is allowed to take such awards into those nice Stateside correctional facilities is not, however, known. But what is known is that while many of those who voted leave are going to see their living standards go down the pan, Farage will not.

You’ve been had for mugs, Leave voters. But Nige will already have banked the cheque.