Nigel Farage of course seems to have been very happy to do his pro-Russian propaganda for free

Michael Crick, journalist: “It depresses me how much fellow political journalists are down-playing this - a dranatic story not just about Russia corrupting a British politician - as they've done in Germany & France - but also about the character judgement+relationships of Reform leaders Farage+Tice”

If the 2030 World Cup final was held today….

What Labour should be doing, written in April by @blairmcdougall.com. He’s spot on. Essential reading. (Thanks to @robertthomson54.bsky.social for the link) blairmail.substack.com/p/attention-...

And also by the death of local papers. Nobody is learning how to do civic reporting any more, how to cover councils, how to look for stories in dull paperwork. There's no bedrock of training; kids start covering politics as personality-driven rumour and gossip.

@jwsidders.bsky.social This is a good read on the subject

Theory: much of this is explained by journalism being quite a young business (crap money at lower levels, lot of bottlenecks, people age out). A lot of political journalists barely remember Westminster before things went nuts c2014. Not enough of the lobby grew up in peacetime.

May be an idea to actually tell people things over and over and over until it goes in

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

The even more unbelievable crime fact (which I learned relatively recently) is that burglary has fallen by more than 90% since the 1990s. Did anyone notice? Nope. Does anyone believe it? Nope. But is is true? It is!

Until Labour can come out and say: “you listened to these liars and clowns once before and look at the mess” Farage will get to brush everything off. It’s completely unsustainable. The people still pro-Brexit are gone, they’re never voting Labour again so what’s to lose?

And that absolutely is about the government's agenda setting power - everything they do is couched in shallow electoralism, so everything is assessed in those terms, too.

It just straightforwardly *insane* how much political chatter in the United Kingdom is about the next general election, an event that is a long way in the future, and how basically none of it is about 'uh, this policy agenda doesn't look adequate to the scale of the inherited problem'.

Populism gets the clicks. Until we sort that out, very hard to see how we climb out of a widespread political mess.

I hate to admit it but I suspect McSweeney is right that the 2029 election will be a ‘republican front’ vs Farage. Farage veering further right makes that easier to do. Whether McSweeney’s own advice over the past year has made this situation more likely is another question…

How conflicted with Clarkson and Melville be with these 😂

BBC push alert tomorrow: ‘The Rapture is here. Why this could be good news for Reform UK’

Yep, the interesting thing is previously he'd been quite good at holding that line/excluding the far-far right. Now he's heading towards them

The grimly hilarious bit (and I emphasise the grim part of that phrase) is it's Farage being subject to exactly the same phenomenon that he's pushed on the rest of politics. He's trying to appease a bunch of people for whom he will never be radical enough.

This is because X is radicalising its user base… and many of them don’t realise it.

"Keir Starmer’s Government’s refusal to explicitly condemn the Reform leader’s plans to tear thousands of families and communities apart is only clearing his path to Downing Street" @adambienkov.bsky.social writes

Being cancelled by MAGA is now a badge of honour all late night shows must aspire to

I generally rate Chris Mason but it would make things easier for all if Robbie Gibb - Brexiter & Theresa May’s director of comms at Number 10 - were not still a non-executive director of the BBC. Everything he touches turns to shit. Including, at the moment, a lot of the Beeb’s political journalism.

Labour have branded Nigel Farage’s migration attacks "unfunded, unworkable and falling apart in real time." And the classic: "Unserious". They seem very reluctant to say "immoral" or "wrong".

Their numbers need scrutinised - but Farage WANTS debate centred around process. None of his voters care if the sums don’t add up and they relish him breaking laws - the sooner people accept this the better You’re not going to beat them with facts, figures and legalities - it’s fuel to populists

The government is stuck running a 20th century news operation – focused on traditional media – 25 years into the 21st century. But even worse, it’s even losing at that, not because of “comms” but because the government seemingly has absolutely nothing of its own to say.

The government is, y’know, the government. They could announce policies of their own in Monday’s papers, which the media would cover. But instead they just leave an endless news void, and end up chasing their tails trying to keep up with Reform on its strongest issue. It’s woeful.

Reform hold a press conference every Monday, for which they trail a policy announcement in that morning’s papers. Given Monday is a slow news day, that often means they lead the papers – and so the breakfast shows, and so they set the agenda for the week. It’s a good trick, but easy to counter!

Just a few of the extremely obvious cases that are going to be in the news every single day following a mass remigration policy. Will police / Home Office willingly deport pensioners who have lived in UK for 50 years? Do we have our own ICE? Not yet...

3. 45 year old mother of two British children who leaves country for over 90 days in whatever period Reform are using to look after sick relative, and is not allowed back in. 4. Hong Kong BNO visa holder, likely to be arrested by Chinese on return, but does not have a job meeting salary threshold

Focus on these personal stories instead of saying their plans are “unfunded” or “gimmicky” People will respond to real-life human impacts, nothing else. Govt needs to show it is working this out!

Some very obvious cases that Farage and Yusuf need to be hammered on: 1. 78 year old pensioner on ILR for last 30 years who obviously cannot get work visa 2. 35 year old born in UK to non-nationals, never got UK citizenship because of cost, loses job and has to move to country they've never lived in

Tommy Robinson is now driving Nigel Farage’s policies and Labour needs to be pointing that out at every possible opportunity

Fascinating interview of ⁦‪Peter Pomeranzev by ⁦Heidi Cud‬⁩a on Byline Times Big takeaway - fighting modern populism is not about fact telling, but story telling. But what is the story? In the US “non-stop, cognitive civil war” www.bylinesupplement.com/p/hot-type-a...

Oh dear

Hi God guys, send cash!

"We are not giving you any details because we're SO serious" - utter charlatans

This is a loony position which can't hold until 2029. Starmer is going to have to break and spell it out before too much longer

At what point will they move from deporting to exterminating? If you’re not deploying your vote specifically and directly to stop these psychotic fascists from coming to power in 2029, you’re actively helping them.

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

Small boats: TV coverage - day after day after day after day.... PPE scandal: TV coverage - let's stick this powerful, enraging documentary on at quarter past ten on a Sunday night.

Reform's plans to end indefinite leave to remain go to the post I wrote last week on their slide towards chaotic authoritarianism. The British constitution would allow them to do it if they had a majority but at vast cost to our society and way of life. samf.substack.com/p/the-route-...

Kemi Badenoch is chasing Nigel Farage who is being dragged along by Tommy Robinson into dark, murky waters he’s always wanted to avoid. What will Reform feel compelled to propose by 2029?!

Imagine where they’ll be in 4yrs time

Trump’s allies now control X, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, & TikTok. They own Fox News, CBS, WaPo, WSJ & NY Post. They own Sinclair Broadcasting which has 200 tv stations and local news in 100 markets. “Freedom of speech” is now what Trump and his billionaire pals say it is.

Surely every late night host in America has to try their best to be kicked off air now? It’s their public duty

Chicken nugget debacle. One popular anecdote used to criticise the ECHR relates to an Albanian criminal who supposedly avoided deportation because his son disliked foreign chicken nuggets. This case has been cited by both Badenoch and Farage.

The truth. There was no such ruling that the foreign offender should be allowed to stay in Britain because of his child’s eating habits. A senior judge made clear an aversion to chicken nuggets should never be enough to prevent deportation.

The latest inflation figures in the UK confirm that we are still mired in Brexit stagflation. When is the Labour Party going to acknowledge this and pin this disaster on it's primary author Farage?

'And Chris Mason will be joining us shortly to tell us how this plays directly into the hands of Reform UK's unstoppable Nigel Farage...' #r4today #BBCBreakfast