When setting the PB 2025 prediction competition one of the questions we thought would be interesting was the number of MPs with the Reform whip on the 31st of December 2025 because Nigel Farage has a long history of falling out with those he works with.
Comments
I mean first, of course. Nigel can fall out with anybody and everybody.
How many in, and how many out?
The tweet basically reads as "the lawyer said I'm guilty as sin."
Of course, reality may be different ..
"I will do such things—What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth!"
The 37-year-old Russian-appointed deputy head of the city of Yevpatoriya (Crimea), Mikhail Ivanovich Kolganov, died unexpectedly. The causes and circumstances of death are not specified.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1942576548915339507
(Not to be confused with SODS - sudden oligarch death syndrome.)
Which means it can’t be Starmer and Reeves who have the heart to heart with the nation - they will need to be removed first
In Doncaster we currently stand at 2 out and zero in (original count of 37).
McMurdock seems like an oik, Lowe is too focussed on issues that Reform think they will win votes on without having to say anything that will put off some centrists.
All that said, I think they will fall way short, and their best hope is a pact with the Tories. At election time the other parties will point at Reform’s lack of experience in parliament. How can you go from the amount of MP’s you can count on one hand to government? Too far fetched
Come the next general election, Farage will actually be put on the spot about his inability to keep a party together and, more importantly, about the fantasy of Reform UK's spending plans. What do voters do then?
Perhaps Farage is worried about the optics and told him to repay the loan regardless, and if the legal advice is, "don't worry mate, it might look well dodge, but they can't get you for it," then the unspoken bit might be that he doesn't want to get into a public fight with Farage about repaying the cash.
If he were concerned about the party, his decision would have come with warm words for their future prospects.
He praised Rupert Lowe. Now hes ex Reform. Im joining the dots and its a picture of Nigel and Yusuf with a big knife
I think this is all separate to whether he's guilty of anything
Iran has reportedly received Chinese-made HQ-9B long-range air defense systems.
https://x.com/PolymarketIntel/status/1942570211355333021
Why not just say he's talked it over with friends and family and after careful consideration .... ?
The tweet can be fisked in various ways, but the most obvious (I have no idea) is that 'circumstances render it unlikely that a Reform party which plans to form a government would take me back because they would have more sense and I am plainly a pompous idiot, so I won't try my luck, but there is nothing which, with a fair wind behind me, will prevent me drawing my meagre stipend as an MP for the next four years, at least my solicitor/barrister has thus indicated'.
I still the Farage fans still cannot process that one day Rupert Lowe criticises Nigel Farage and the next day he is suspended on what turns out to be spurious grounds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2llkjy732o
Reform UK councillor Amanda Clare has been charged with assault and criminal damage after an incident at a Pride event.
https://news.polymarket.com/p/he-made-300k-betting-on-a-narcissistic
If you meet arseholes all day ...
My biggest conviction bet that isn't on Polymarket yet is that Somalia's government has a good chance of falling to al-Shabaab, say 50-50. It'll be Trump's biggest foreign policy disaster, tied to the AMISOM withdrawal. The government only controls Mogadishu now. Puntland has declared independence, Somaliland's gone. Al-Shabaab controls rural Somalia and has 80% support there now versus 20% a decade ago. What I’m seeing is basically a repeat of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the mid 90s.
https://news.polymarket.com/p/he-made-300k-betting-on-a-narcissistic
However, I do not know who will benefit with labour in such a bad place at present and a debt crisis beckoning
I would suggest to expect the unexpected
"One cannot hope to bribe or twist
Thank God! The British Journalist.
But seeing what the breed will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to."
Remember who is paying for GB News, and their disdain for anything approaching broadcasting regulations - specifically those relating to impartiality.
He has to avoid overt racism, repatriation and anything that suggests he could to bring about ethnic and cultural conflict of any sort. So the proper 'right' is closed off. At the same time he has to close borders to all the people who do jobs for us and keep HE funded.
He has to give the voters of Clacton and 324 other seats what they want, which state managed social democracy, which is the bit that costs almost the entire state budget (NHS, welfare, pensions, education, housing, NATO).
And he has to find a fiscal plan which makes a degree of sense - at least enough that you and the IFS don't just laugh.
And he has to find a plausible front bench.
The constraints are so severe (they apply in a similar way to all other parties) that at some point it will become obvious to most voters.
Pay negotiations will not be reopened with resident doctors because the Government "can't be more generous" than it already has been, Downing Street has said.
Medics in England have voted in favour of striking over a wage dispute, the British Medical Association union confirmed on Tuesday. The industrial action by resident doctors - formerly known as junior doctors - could see walks outs last until January next year.
In response to the announcement, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: "The NHS is finally moving in the right direction for the first time in 15 years so it's disappointing that the BMA is threatening to undermine that progress with strikes.
"We aren't going to reopen negotiations on pay. Resident doctors have received the highest pay award across the public sector for two years in a row, and we've been clear that we can't be more generous than we already have this year."
The Health Secretary has invited BMA representatives to discuss issues around working conditions and is committed to "working together" to find solutions, he added.
The medics were awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.
But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008 and are demanding "pay restoration".
In a ballot over whether to strike some 90% of resident doctors voted in favour on a turnout of 55%, just above the legal threshold of 50% required for industrial action.
The ballot gives the BMA’s wing of around 48,000 resident doctors a mandate to call strike action over the next six months.
The union said it would seek fresh talks with the government before announcing strike days.
https://x.com/TheDailyShow/status/1942609068591313332
How many parties has he now got through? What have we learned, apart from the fact that the guy can start a fight in an empty room? Mostly that he prefers foreign supporters: USA, Russia, he´s not too picky, and that he is a total charlatan.
Bayeux tapestry deal done. I think it was announced in maybe 2018?
Also see C4 news
We shouldn’t be thanking the French Prez for lending it, we should be demanding it back
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2k37x91vlo
A councillor on the Isle of Wight's new housing committee was previously hit with warning notices over the state of a flat she rented out.
Reform UK councillor Caroline Gladwin serves on the adult social care, public health and housing needs committee and was previously issued with three warning notices, it has emerged.
https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/britains-bayeux-tapestry
It's a stitch-by-stitch recreation of Version 1.0 done in the 1860s. Accurate to the last detail (save for three additional loincloths added to preserve Victorian modesty).
All exes paid. Eyeing up World Cup cities
That’s a nice gig. God Bless America
https://www.modernrailways.com/article/government-pauses-mml-electrification-york-capacity-works-and-dawlish-phase-5
👍🥂
Hope you're still on good terms with them.
Which is why I was on Bayeux in March to see it before the museum closed. Bayeux is actually a very nice town with some very decent restaurants btw
I remain more charitable towards the electorate at large than some, I think. Yes people dislike things being taken away, but it is incumbent on politicians to sell the decisions they make, and to explain how it will be of benefit in the long term.
Cameron and Osborne managed, by or large, to sell their spending decisions in 2010. Starmer and Reeves haven’t, because they were too timid in speaking about tough choices pre-election, and their party is too ideologically conflicted about it. I know I bang this drum a lot, but it really can’t be understated how badly the Labour leadership messed up the messaging at the GE and in their first year.
That would be an incredible article for the Spectator.
https://www.railengineer.co.uk/electrifying-scotland/
But I don't massively want a massive depiction of English defeat. The French are trolling us here.
Yes. I have been served a gin and tonic that is TOO STRONG TO DRINK
As you were
Have you been to El Salvador?
* Plus Bretons and Flemish, again not French.
They will not be alone. I suspect some of the more militant pro-Palestinian 'protestors' are getting similar encouragement, because it hurts *us*.
(*) A sadly common belief, even on here.
This is Russia weaponising our diversity against us.
I think I’ve discovered A DESTINATION
Inland Bulgaria. The mountains and forests. The towns are often crap but once you escape the concrete….
Insanely good prices
Of course, its slightly complicated by the small but non zero part of our ancestors who were Norman.
I do hope he is alright. One of my favourite people on PB. Gentle, learned, wry, a Scot Nat with a great sense of humour
1) UK gets Bayeux Tapestry permanently, Greece gets Elgin Marbles permanently.
2) France keeps Bayeux Tapestry, UK keeps Elgin Marbles
Unacceptable option:
France keeps Bayeux Tapestry, Greece gets Elgin Marbles
It was the fusion of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norman virtues which made Britain great. And I mean that
The Normans also brought a lot to the English language