You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you – politicalbetting.com
You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you – politicalbetting.com
The tax arrangements of politicians buying properties has been in the news recently which helped topple the Deputy Prime Minister so Nigel Farage’s arrangements when it comes to property in his constituency, as The Times notes ‘Had Farage purchased [the property] himself, he would have been liable to pay the £44,250 surcharge in stamp duty for second homes.
0
Comments
If the current trend continues and refuk continue to lead, their policy positions will come under scrutiny.
Policy can win or lose an election, even if people agree with the policies they have to agree with the person saying them. Ask Jeremy Corbyn about this - popular policies until you say whose they are.
Farage has the inverse problem - the popular guy who will Fix People's Problems. But as we get into actual detail and people start to actually think, how much of this will survive as people have it explained to them in black and white how the Nigel's policies are the exact opposite of what they expect? How voting Reform will make their lives worse, not better?
I expect "fake news" to be used a lot to try and explain away awkward facts...
Or sooner if he continues down the austerity Reeves route.
The reshuffle takes him deeper down that route BTW
And now he is Being Boiled over it...
It worked for Starmer [ Ming vase] and look where we are now
To be honest I think Farage will find it difficult to gain a majority, but then if Labour with Starmer continue on the same path then they are putting in a lot of groundwork for Farage to win
As far as his girlfriend's flat is concerned I doubt he will be found to have done anything wrong though many seem to think this is the 'gotcha'
https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1967363161419600214
Look also at the comments below, for a sense of where Anerica is heading, without some major corrections.
My concern is despite all this gotcha nonsense for Farage and Rayner the focus is never on how ridiculous our rules and indeed taxes are on the buying of property. Why on earth should buying a house be a taxable event? How does this help job mobility, younger buyers wanting to have families, investment in the housing stock etc etc? Are we not acting directly against several important public policies? They are stupid taxes and have become ever more so as we try to penalise those with more than one property.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/15/little-godzilla-bangkok-reckons-with-its-giant-lizard-boom-aoe
Farage could be caught bang to rights evading tax and it wouldn’t matter. We’ve had a decade of Trump as a case study of how this works.
We should know by now that these people move in a different political context. It’s not about what you do or don’t do, it’s about whom you hate. If the people you hate are the same people your target voters hate, then you’re home and dry.
https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1967359070421319681
If Ms Ferrari did indeed use family money to buy a house then surely she would have to have proven to her solicitor the source of funds? It should be easy for her to kill the story if so, as the evidence is at hand.
Yep, as i suggested yesterday. He cant affird the questions or allow HMKs guest to be embarrassed by the questions.
Of course no presser would open its own questions
Farage isn't a minister, so the code doesn't apply. And it's his party, so he can't be sacked from that. But even if it doesn't bring him down, or meaningfully dent his ratings, public knowledge is in general a good thing.
Do not misunderstand me, the new government is giving it a cracking go at being even worse. But it is hard to understand how anything other than misplaced brand loyalty is keeping the Tories in double figures in the polls.
So presumably someone else did. Farage wouldn't lie surely?
Labour's fall is due to a bad hand being played badly, sure. But the Reform rise is mostly because the official opposition have not only failed to exploit that, they have lost even more support since 2024 to Farage.
If not then this story is going nowhere.
https://x.com/RepDonBacon/status/1966971101051056547?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Look again.
I've not commented on the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk thus far. I wonder if, like the murder of Martin Luther King Junior in 1968, it will become a long running tale of conspiracy theories and dubious individuals.
As for Kirk, it is a terrible tragedy for his family and especially his children and that's the fundamental of all this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yg0g18989o
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/29/nigel-farage-anas-sarwar-obsessed-race-hamilton-byelection
Politics is theatre as has often been said but comedy isn't easy to get right, it's all in the, er, timing, I'm told.
Nonetheless, whether we voted for him and are suffering a severe case of buyers' remorse or not, the Prime Minister does, to a degree, represent this country on the world stage and it should be a positive image for the country rather than a source of cheap laughs (probably not all that cheap).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2860098/I-m-not-wealthy-insists-Farage-Ukip-leader-says-poorest-man-politics-despite-earning-79-000-year-having-chauffeur.html
Like Mandelson, we should be paying a lot of attention as to where he has got his money from.
Oh.
When the country is a joke I find it easy to laugh. Other senses of humour are available.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/reform-uk-support-anas-sarwar-labour-9x579ghlf
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24760407.nigel-farages-reform-will-back-anas-sarwar-next-first-minister/
Spend time with oligarchs and a multi-millionaire might feel poor.
See Cameron with Greensill and Boris generally as other examples.
There are still unaccountable pockets of London like that too, mostly along the Thames estuary.
Lord Gove, who, apparently held several positions in the Conservative administrations from 2010-24 (it's too early), has told the Independent Commission on Community Cohesion (chaired jointly by Sadiq Javid and Jon Cruddas) the Cameron Government was wrong to remove or water down the ASBOs of the Blair Government just to satisfy civil libertarians.
Once we get past this mea culpa, we then get this piece of wisdom from the former MP for what is now the Liberal Democrat stronghold of Surrey Heath:
He also emphasised the need for civic participation, but said this would be “very, very difficult for the state or its agencies to encourage”.
“The more that lads and dads are going to football together. The more that people are going to places of worship and joining in the activities around that, the better overall.
“But you can’t make people love football, you can’t enforce good parenting, you can’t make people want to take part in a rich civic life if they don’t want to.
“And there are bigger social trends which are encouraging atomisation so that the 11-year-old who might have been going to watch QPR 20 or 30 years ago is now more likely to be playing Fifa at home.”
He said the “right mix” of shops on high streets was key to encouraging a sense of community, adding that “people feel that high streets that have, again, vape shops, Turkish barbers, charity shops and voids in particular are a problem”.
Our politics is a reflection of our life and the way we live and those who marched on the "Unite the Kingdom" protest weren't just a bunch of knuckleheaded racists (undoubtedly there were some) but people desperate to claim or reclaim a sense of identity, of belonging, even of purpose. When you don't recognise the place in which you live and you don't understand the world in which you're living, it's natural to become frustrated and angry.
You might argue (and I'd have some sympathy) an element of this is romanticised nostalgia much as "back to basics" was 30+ years go but the truth is people need to feel comfortable with the world and their place in it. Rapid technological and socio-economic change has happened before and people have protested against it (often violently) and this is another phase. We can't uninvent mobile phones, the Internet, supermarkets or online gaming any more than we can the internal combustion engine - it's about how people, society and politics adapt to change rather than trying to turn the clock back.
Optically, I can see it looks like an unusual arrangement and unusual arrangements always invite questions, though.
The political problem with the change is that most people don’t move house very often, and so would just see the CT bill go up.
Since the Spring Kemi has lost some of the 2024 Tory vote to Reform and there has also been some movement from Labour to the LDs and Greens
It's current market value is circa £500,000 whereas applying inflation only it would be just over £100,000
Two or three generations ago our equivalents would perhaps have gone to the pub every evening to see the same dozen people - its still the world shown at the Queen Vic, Woolpack and Rovers Return - now we come here and talk to people from around the country.
His gift is that he speaks directly to them in language they get and that lands well, when compared to the stilted politician-speak they get from everyone else.
I expect that to go in Reeves statement in November
The Clacton MP has denied avoiding more than £44,000 in additional stamp duty on the purchase of the constituency home by putting it in his partner Laure Ferrari's name, saying that she bought it with her own funds.
He suggested that she was able to afford to buy the four-bedroom home, which was bought without a mortgage, because she comes from a wealthy French family.
However, the BBC has examined French property and company records and has been unable to find evidence that Ferrari's parents have the means to give their daughter a significant contribution towards the purchase of the home.
Swapping anecdote for anecdote, my daughter has way more play dates than I did at that age, and it’s hard to walk down our street without bumping into someone for a chat (though more so for my wife).
Even if true that would mean the wealth change is:
Farage -£885k
Girlfriend +£885k
So Farage would be risking a £885k financial loss in order to avoid paying £44k in tax.
Which would be more financial reckless than a Reform manifesto.