Reform UK said I was 'bullying' when I pointed out their colleague was jailed for beating up his former partner. Now, they're trying to sneak him back into their party. So I'll say it again: James McMurdock was jailed for beating up his former partner. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Australians now have better mobility into the EU than Brits “Under the new scheme, Australians can live and work in Europe for up to four years without needing a job offer before arrival.” Second class citizens in our own continent www.skynews.com.au/lifestyle/tr...

Just a selection from the last 2 days. Reform is a disturbingly inadequate and racist political outfit. This ugly collection of prejudiced malfunctioning ghouls would wreak utter havoc on the country, just as they are in every council that voters were stupid enough to let them get their hands on.

These people have a funny way of saying "Environmentalists have been proved right yet again."

“This is a dark day for Britain” howls Reform’s Zia Yusuf on the govt’s decision to immediately ban crypto and cap foreign donations to political parties. Almost as if he doesn’t give a shit about democracy or patriotism and cares much more about money, no matter how dirty and corrupt it is. (Times)

It's been eight hours since the Government announced that crypto donations to political parties had been banned effective immediately and Reform's crypto portal is still accepting donations

Reform UK's poll score is now heading downwards very quickly. Turns out that being really unpleasant, remaining disorganised, having loads of skeletons in their closet, being reliant on a very unpopular leader and hating almost everything the public thinks doesn't work for long. Who knew eh.

Crypto donations to political parties to be banned. Good. Farage claims this is aimed directly at Reform. Good. He also says that him publicly promoting Harborne’s crypto company had nothing to do with Harborne giving Reform £9M. You’d have to be a v special kind of useful idiot to believe that.

“That’s why Reform’s fossil-fuel funded politicians are so opposed to climate science and… Net Zero… Not because Net Zero is an economic failure but because its success will hit their donors’ profits” Farage: Never acts in the national interest. Only ever his own. open.substack.com/pub/democrac...

As the EU and Australia announce their trade deal… 10 years in the making… it brings back fond memories of the absolute pant-soiling our own politicians did when ‘negotiating’ the UK’s deal with Australia.

Wondering what leverage in negotiations looks like? Australia's new FTA with the EU provides 16,830 tonnes of tariff free access for beef. Australia's FTA with the UK, completed with a desperate Johnson administration, provided 35,000 tonnes tariff free, rising to unlimited over 15 years.

"What's your favourite book of the Bible, Robert?" "Tough one. I think I'd have to say The Best of the Bible"

"So far, there is little sign that either Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, or Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, want a new fight over Brexit, which is now widely unpopular with voters, including among many Leave supporters." www.ft.com/content/b031... In a day of otherwise rubbish news

Farage uses…”digital culture to fuel his popularity. If we want a preview of what a Reform govt might bring, we can turn to the US, where shitposting, AI slop and brain rot are the aesthetic of an authoritarian regime wreaking havoc at home and abroad” Horrific. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“The Trump horror show in America gives a glimpse into how Farage would govern and approach the world… Farage poses as a patriot, yet the first duty of any political leader is to protect national interests. Iran shows again he is not fit to be prime minister.” liveapp.inews.co.uk/category/430...

“Whether it be Farage flying to the USA to call for sanctions that would hammer Britain’s economy, or his party treasurer jetting off to Nicaragua to do business with people sanctioned by the British state, they’re incapable of acting in the national interest.” www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

So it turns out Reform are laundering their donations through crypto, before converting them into cash, hiding the original source of the money. So who is really funding Nigel Farage and Reform UK? observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Just another reminder that Farage is not in it for ordinary voters at all. Power is about gorging himself in the trough while proposing to cut the national minimum wage for our young people. £9m payday, paying taxes with crypto and a sovereign wealth fund for him. Less that £12.71 per hour for you.

Brexit: So much work. So much time. So many resources. So much red tape. And yet so little progress. In fact, just relentless loss, risk and failure. It’s so mind-numbingly tedious. And no one who did this damage is ever held to account. But god they make a fuss about fixing it.

Just had this flagged with me. This is disgusting. If Kemi Badenoch had one ounce of leadership in her, she would condemn this. I don’t want any faux sadness from her or Nick Timothy when one of us is hurt or worse. This is how low the Conservative Party have sunk.

How Australia killed populism open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Reform’s loud opposition to net zero is driven by “the success of populist messages around Brexit plus significant financial backing from the fossil fuel industry and climate sceptics” Not science. Not national interest. Not public opinion. Just personal greed. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

So, in another ugly little tantrum, Farage has paused his video-grift due to “security concerns”. His own, apparently. Not the national security threat of having a prominent far right tart of a politician saying god knows what to god knows who for money. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Truly one of the all time great takes

A welcome blast of honesty. And it’s good that Labour is finally acknowledging how rubbish Brexit is. But the elephant in the room remains. It’s immigration and the racism Brexit unleashed. Until we can have an honest public debate about that, we stay stuck. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour...

I know I've said this a trillion times but I have to say it periodically to keep from going insane: The right ran a huge, well-funded, & ultimately successful campaign to completely take over political media & the infosphere more generally. This is by far the most important political development...

Private Eye on the recent hissy fit Farage had when YouGov published polling results that show he isn’t as popular as he thinks he is… “He's a thin-skinned, corrupt demagogue whose party has dodgy Russian links and most true British patriots would rather chop their hand off than vote for him” Yes!

Since Ofcom seems to have given up, we asked 20 experienced journalists from a range of backgrounds to watch multiple hours of @gbnewsonline.bsky.social . Their conclusion: the channel has, in effect, become Reform TV. How did it happen? www.thenewworld.co.uk/alan-rusbrid...

It doesn't even logically follow. If Brexit was as big a mistake as Reeves says, why would we still stick to the red lines it created?

In response to revelations about Farage’s racist, Nazi-sympathising, misogynistic, greedy little video side gig, Farage’s spokesman said - if you’re grifting your arse off as furiously as Farage is- “occasional mistakes can occur” Yes. Easily done. If you’re a racist, Nazi-sympathising misogynist.

“As Tice surely knows, the law sets the floor of our obligations, not the ceiling. A society cannot function on the basis that everyone does the bare minimum they can get away with” Very good on the mean but intensely - selfishly - greedy politics of Reform. open.substack.com/pub/theleadu...

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, "Brexit was a colossal mistake" "I'm too diplomatic to express exactly what I think about those who promoted Brexit" "It's not only like shooting yourself in the foot" "It's like amputating your leg without a medical reason for doing it"

The special relationship doesn't exist. Our fantasy about it deprives us of our dignity. But we can once reacquire our national pride if we make hard decisions about our future. inews.co.uk/opinion/brit...

Farage really is utterly repulsive. A racist, misogynistic, Nazi-sympathising, hate-filled grifting arsehole. And v much not a school boy any more, so god knows what his excuse will be this time. Totally unfit for office. This should be career-ending. The fact that it won’t be is deeply depressing.

Thank God Starmer is in charge, really. If it had been any of his immediate predecessors, we'd currently be at war with Iran, playing lapdog to a deranged US administration, unable to say what we were doing or why.

Finding BBC and #r4today analysis of Trump’s insults of Starmer to be bizarre. Why are we even considering what Trump said? It’s meaningless. Genuinely. Not even Trump knows what he means. The story is - Starmer stood firm and acted in the national interest. Trump threw some toys out of his pram.

Just look at him. He’s not the future. A stale, flat-cap-wearing fraud peddling prejudice that costs us all a fortune. There’s nothing hopeful or constructive about anything Farage wants. Just more hate, more division, more failure. So fucking sick of him. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

I think the President musing about killing people "just for fun" would have resulted in every major paper demanding impeachment in the before times.

Inside the Department of War are two wolves: "We've shut down the Colleges of War because book learnings are woke, gay, and irrelevant to war fighting." "How come no one told us the Strait is important, there are different kinds of Kurds, Iran is big, and air power historically doesn't win wars?"

The point is not that it's legal, but whether it's ethical. Perfectly justified story that's in the public interest.

This is the best response I've seen to Trump from the UK Government so far. We should feel no obligation to get ourselves further involved in this calamity www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“YouGov agrees to change poll results after Farage criticism” (Times headline) So, populist grifter MP who can’t be arsed to do his constituency work, has a full-on tantrum about polling, in case - by giving a more accurate prediction - it impacts donations to his party. How is this democracy?

Personally, my favorite allied-country expression of naval non-commitment is “intensively looking”. What’s yours?

He looks as bored as we all feel about what are now interminable negotiations with the EU for better terms. But his arguments for not being bolder are feeble. Being out of the SM and CU = erecting growth-repelling trade barriers. So, what TF is he on about here? www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Reform is too thick to hide their real motive for power. It’s not to make us wealthier. It’s not to improve our public services. It’s not even to manage immigration. It’s to wildly enrich themselves by dumping the rules and regulations that protect us from exploitation, discrimination and risk.

If we made the green energy transition this war would be unthinkable and these authoritarians wouldn’t be in power — not in the US, not in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia, not in Russia. Hydrocarbons are killing our freedom and just plain killing us.

Typical Times doing its overbearing brexity parent act. Telling Reeves she can try to improve market access with the EU but nothing more. Because then we’d be “supplicants”. Ffs. The endless tedium of it. Get over yourselves. Look at our geopolitical insecurity and the actual numbers (Private Eye).

Policy ‘believers’. Another red flag gets waved in our faces… An unworkable policy remains unworkable whether you believe in it, or not. Much like Brexit. Relying on ideological zeal to run the show is basically admitting that your ideas are utterly shit.

Dear Europe, Please help me to unshit myself. In return, I will harm your economy with tariffs, and insult your leaders, your cultures, and your military. Kind regards, A very stable genius