The facade is cracking

In one chapter of his book entitled 'The Art of the Bribe', Nigel Farage donor and convicted fraudster George Cottrell describes how politicians can be bought www.ft.com/content/7a0f...

Why we could be seeing the beginning of the end of Nigel Farage's political career www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-scanda...

Amazing work by Reform in picking Robert Jenrick as the man to tour the broadcast studios to portray Nigel Farage and his party as a model of probity

Why we could be seeing the beginning of the end of Nigel Farage's political career www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-scanda...

'Make it sound like a minor administrative error then lead on the denial'

Your regular reminder that cryptocurrency does in fact have a use case and that use case is crime

The Conservatives are for "the super rich" says Robert Jenrick, whose own campaigns have been funded by a billionaire Israeli mining heir and a firm controlled by a sanctioned oligarch

Amazing work by Reform in picking Robert Jenrick as the man to tour the broadcast studios to portray Nigel Farage and his party as a model of probity

Nigel Farage failed to declare staff, security and housing gifted to him by a convicted fraudster and crypto gambler who was charged for his role in a “dark web” money laundering plot www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

The walls are closing in around the Reform leader and some of Nigel Farage's allies now believe he could soon be heading for the door www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-scanda...

The walls are closing in around the Reform leader and some of Nigel Farage's allies now believe he could soon be heading for the door www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-scanda...

This isn't a Reform UK press release but if it were, how would it be any different?

This is the right decision and suspect others will now follow, but very interesting timing on this

That 4% of the population who oppose or strongly oppose the use of renewable energy sure do seem to get a lot of airtime and column inches.

I guess you had to be there

“We have to ask, how and why are companies in financial peril choosing to donate money they don’t have to a political party?” Byline Times report on a very interesting pattern: https://bit.ly/4xYMaCf

Summary of the Home Office Impact Assessment for Asylum Bill is hilarious (if it weren't so depressing). HO analysts say "basically no evidence to suggest *any* of these policies will work *even on their own terms*" (but will probably cost money). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a43e1...

Asked about rising racism and hatred in the UK, Keir Starmer says "the very sad thing is I am not able to say that in the 10 years since Jo Cox's death that things have got better because sadly they have got worse. That's on all of us to fix." Well yes, and your government has done what exactly?

In the last month Nigel Farage has spent around eight times longer promoting gold bars for money (4 hours) than he has spent doing his supposed main job of being an MP voting in the House of Commons (just two votes, taking approximately 30 minutes)

Nothing says 'speaking for the concerns of the common man' like being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to promote actual gold bars

A quarter of terror attacks in Britain over the past decade have targeted Muslims, but some have gone largely unnoticed because of delays formally declaring them terrorism Most jihadist attacks, by contrast, have been declared within hours of taking place inews.co.uk/news/uk-terr...

Prediction: We will start to see polls putting Labour (and possibly the Conservatives) ahead of Reform in the coming months

It’s important to understand that “consulted” in Home Office speak means “told people what we were going to do”, so I wouldn’t *necessarily* read this as having got Burnham’s approval for these grim proposals on repaying asylum support. But if he doesn’t act swiftly we can all draw our conclusions.

This is performative cruelty. Asylum seeking people are not allowed to work - fix that first. People with refugee status are allowed to work, and therefore pay tax into the system that once supported them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Taxing vulnerable people for the crime of fleeing from war, torture and persecution. A new low from Shabana Mahmood

Taxing vulnerable people for the crime of fleeing from war, torture and persecution. A new low from Shabana Mahmood

I've never met a reporter with such a gleam in his eye for holding power to account in such a human and hopeful way. All of us at @bylinetimes.bsky.social are so sad to have lost David Hencke. He was a brilliant reporter, but perhaps more importantly: he was a really lovely man. Thank you, David!

She wanted to be in this war and argued that the only reason Keir Starmer didn't want to is that he was in hoc to British Muslims. Not a serious person.

There's somethign about private school VAT that makes Tories lose their minds. I've been accused of hating children for defending it. By people who backed the two-child limit! I guess that wasn't their kids.

A curious definition of what the Gestapo did from Kemi Badenoch, this.

A few hostages to fortune there (hello "I will not use the whipping system to stifle debate") but Burnham's speech also contained lots of actual political ideas on devolution, the economy and reforming Westminster and he weaved them together into a single cohesive argument. V different from Starmer

Andy Burnham says he will deliver "good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart" "Let's make it happen" he says

Andy Burnham promises to give people "breathing space" on the cost of living "as soon as I can", whilst sticking to the fiscal rules. "People need to be able to look forward to a night out or a holiday with the kids. People need hope."

Andy Burnham promises the "biggest council house building programme since the postwar period."

Andy Burnham says he will also devolve more power to London on housing and education to ensure it "remains the world's greatest capital city"

Andy Burnham says he will stop Government from "using the whip system to stifle debate" if he becomes Prime Minister

I swear Kemi Badenoch's only consistent position is that any policies put forward by parties to the left of her must be wrong by definition, regardless of what they are Labour wants more devolution. More devolution must therefore be wrong, despite the Conservatives spending years pushing for it

Just perfect

So it turns out the massive scandal here is that Bridget Phillipson's mum bought a council house for £9k in 1990 and then sold it *33 years* later for £99k. That's the entire story

Yep Starmer lost 30% of Labour's vote to the Greens and Lib Dems because he was just too nice to migrants and those on welfare.

The Westminster establishment is currently campaigning relentlessly to stop Andy Burnham from appointing his preferred choice of Chancellor. How he responds will tell us everything we need to know about what sort of Prime Minister he will be. www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/andy-burnh...

This is the new talking point from Reform supporters over on X. In other news, Nigel Farage has yet to hold a single in-person MP surgery in his constituency in the almost two years since he was elected

"Will [Burnham] stand up to the Westminster establishment and create a team that is capable of transforming the lives of those who backed him in Makerfield, or will he simply walk down exactly the same path of failure that his predecessor walked down many times before?"

The Westminster establishment is currently campaigning relentlessly to stop Andy Burnham from appointing his preferred choice of Chancellor. How he responds will tell us everything we need to know about what sort of Prime Minister he will be. www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/andy-burnh...

Really sad to learn my great colleague David Hencke has just died. He was a legendary journalist, probably best known for breaking the cash for questions scandal He was a lovely man, who loved reporting stories others missed and kept filing, even from his hospital bed. He will be hugely missed

I mean the main reason it is 'unwritten' rule is that it doesn't actually exist. Of the last five Prime Ministers to take over mid-term, only one called a general election soon after

At some point this Government will come to its moral senses and realise that retrospectively denying people settled status/citizenship is wrong. With Reform on the horizon that moral imperative is even more urgent. It should be encouraging people to become citizens. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Galloway lives in Russia and has done since last year. Feel this has rather gone under the radar.

I have to say, it's making me feel a little insane hearing commentators say Ed Miliband shouldn't be chancellor because of his "ideological zeal" for Net Zero, in a week where temperatures are so extreme that my kids are being sent home early every day and it's regularly 30 degrees inside my house