Nigel Farage’s history of spurious election fraud allegations. 2014: Farage claims voting fraud happening “on a third world scale”, no evidence found. 2015: South Thanet elections, Farage fraud allegations dismissed.

It's a common refrain for ministers to note Nigel Farage's absence from the Commons, but the stats do seem to back it up. So far this year he has spoken five times and voted seven times. As a very rough, smaller-party comparison, Ellie Chowns of the Greens has spoken 46 times and voted 24 times.

Halifax go with a very 'boy-who-cried-wolf' approach to banking security. Could an established UK train company with a Government licence to operate since 1988, that I have used on at least a weekly basis for the past 12 years, suddenly have decided to scam me.

Sadiq gets it right www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I don't think I've ever seen a party so clearly declare that they're purposefully alienating their core voters.

This needs to be condemned, not amplified in the responsible media. It is racist, MAGA-inspired, far right propaganda. People in Gorton & Denton voted for a range of reasons. Many Muslims voted as members of a disillusioned working class & *most* white constituents voted against Reform’s bigotry.

A party that is resolutely anti-bourgeois while being staffed and supported by the bourgeoisie is an intriguing and inevitably impossible strategy. Anyway good luck attracting those Reform voters who hate you.

The bad thing about this happening in a Labour seat is it gives the press a big excuse to ignore the fact Reform’s strategy is failing. They’ve now lost 3 in a row in 3 different countries to 3 different parties because their plan of coming through a split vote isn’t working. Their vote is too low

Twat dooming Reform? (4,7)

The outcry over the events at last night's BAFTAs is once again a reminder of the usefulness Isaiah Berlin's philosophy of value pluralism, introduced to me by @iandunt.bsky.social in the podcast @originstorypodcast.bsky.social

Brexit - what was it good for, trade, immigration, red tape, economic growth - none of those, they all went backward. Since we’re not in the EU our farmers have been allowed to carry on using toxic pesticides, recently banned by the EU. So Brexit has made our food less safe. buff.ly/HI2jUZo

The radical right lies about London. They can't fathom that a city anyone can call home can also be successful and vibrant. Londoners know better. https://www.ft.com/content/05b8e8ba-5763-46f1-a2e5-9820bbe4d053

Nadhim Zahawi covered up and lied about £3m in unpaid tax for 6 years. If he's looking for criminals he only needs a mirror.

The Epstein files show that Brexit was never a “plucky British revolt”. In reality, Brexit was fed, and empowered, by an entire class of oligarchs and autocrats, who thrive on chaos, weak regulation and brittle institutions.

Hard to believe that none of the Reform MPs turned up for the debate on Russian interference in our politics. Maybe they were visiting their former Kremlin talking points Welsh leader Nathan Gill in prison? Or en route to their next BBC interview to act as commentators on why Starmer should go?

Awkward. bsky.app/profile/rich...

Ian Dunt (@iandunt.bsky.social ) sums up the key problem with this current Labour government in less than 30 words: "It is vivid, persistent, a strategy, a concerted effort to secure the admiration of nationalist reactionaries in the hope they might one day vote Labour, which they never will."

“I look at the performative hand-wringing, all the ‘OMG can’t believe Starmer appointed him despite all this!’ and I feel I’m in a parallel universe. Starmer appointed him BECAUSE of, not despite it. To be our interface with a corrupt WH that operates in precisely the same way. Everyone understood.”

If Starmer, who appointed Mandelson in what he thought Britain’s best interests, does turn out to be the first major political casualty of the Epstein files, while Trump & Farage, both actually in the files & neither with a scintilla of integrity, remain, it’ll be a travesty of natural justice.

Jeffrey Epstein celebrated Brexit... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeffrey-epstein-brexit-peter-thiel-b2912853.html

Today is Candlemas If you have not cleared all your Christmas decorations by today, a demon hiding behind them will cause dire mischief in your house for the rest of the year. See my popular post on this: emptycity.substack.com/p/twelfth-ni...

Lord Newby on the damage Brexit has caused: "Brexit will reduce GDP by 4% over a 15-year period." "UK-EU trade will fall by 15%." "Brexit has already had a negative impact on the public finances to the tune of over £40 billion over the period to 2024."

This should be posted under every post Farage sends and quoted at him in every interview he gives - forever.

Kremlin-linked Matryoshka bot network launches campaign on Greenland dispute, claims Zelensky ready to send troops to fight against the U.S. theins.ru/en/news/288644

NEW: NEW: Standards commissioner finds Nigel Farage committed seventeen breaches of MPs code of conduct. He failed to declare £333,000 in outside interests (more than 3x MPs annual salary)…

🔴It’s Time for an Apology From the Trump Apologists The politicians and commentators who mocked those warning about the threat posed by Trump as being “hysterical” need to face up to their own role in the calamity now unfolding, argues @adambienkov.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/01/19/i...

Oops.

A week is an awfully long time in politics...

Some more poor judgement

More lies from the people who brought you Brexit, glad it’s all being found out now.

When are people going to be held accountable for the nonsense slop and puff they emit.

Such judgement

h/i David Grinspoon

28 Years Later : The Bone Temple had me hooked from the moment I heard a character chant "In miles of sharp blue water coming in where she lies" about ten minutes into the film. Glad to see the music of the fab five survived the zombie apocalypse.

The immigration doom loop in full swing. Chasing the xenophobes is a doomed strategy both economically *and* politically. (1/3) archive.ph/pyVLg

The government doesn't even have to leave Twitter straight away – it could issue a diktat that everything posted on Twitter has to be posted simultaneously over here, as that would still give journalists/Westminster types an incentive to move over.

Kind of wish currently UK and World Politicians were subjected to the same journalistic criticism as 1960s French film stars.

This is perfect. The DOJ's embarrassing snafu with disappearing redactions was the fault of Elon Musk. Musk cancelled government subscriptions to Adobe programs that would have made the redactions permanent. What a pack of fools.

Thick as mince and thick as thieves. A column about the absolute idiots European legislators have made of themselves over the naming of food, at the behest of meat lobbyists. You laugh and then you weep. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Buddies canny flair sublime www.theguardian.com/football/202...

📝 "The latest (research), says that GDP per head, the best measure of prosperity, is 6 to 8 per cent lower than it would have been had Brexit not happened. That’s around £3,000 for each of us." 📉 Brexit is worsening the cost of living crisis for us all. https://bit.ly/3MvK89r

There is one overriding political problem, from which all others follow. Until it is addressed, every policy advanced by governments is window dressing. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

1. The European Parliament’s attempt to ban plant-based foods from being sold as “sausages”, “burgers” etc is a direct response to livestock industry lobbying. This is a short thread on how utterly bleeding ridiculous it is. 🧵1/6

I do think we need to have a grown up conversation as to what counts as balance in journalism. If Fred West was replaced as Prime Minister by Nelson Mandela. You could say having the same number of negative articles about each is 'balanced'. But is that really giving a balanced picture?

Budget 2025: This is how you lose the world iandunt.substack.com/p/budget-202...

And honestly I don't give a fuck if it's popular or not. It's going to make a lot of kids' lives better. That's the point of government. Not an opinion poll.

OBR? OBI more like.

There are some truly unhinged bits in the piece about Glasman, as to be expected when dealing with Glasman, but seriously what the actual? That's...one hell of a conflation of terminology.