What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
Possibly. But the siting of the plant will be controversial. There's already a rebellion brewing across the Highlands about renewables infrastructure. One to watch.
Not just the Highlands - the Borders too, and the coastal fringes.
Mix of possibilities of course.
As an example of the comedy - the farmer I know who is putting in a battery to back his solar array is still getting grief from the local Greens. They are very upset they can't seem to stop him, under planning law - but they are trying everything. Given that it's a couple of ISO containers, and not visible unless you are on his property (trees), I am try to work out the objection.
He does say that they seem upset by his idea to sell 'leecy directly to the tenants of the small business centre he created out of the old stable yard.
WTF is their problem ?
The fact that they're communists not greens would seem to be about the size of it.
I’m not sure why Middlesex are allowed to play as the county doesn’t exist.
Crisis club Middlesex begin plan to move away from Lord’s
Exclusive: County take step towards private ownership amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive
Middlesex have taken the first step towards private ownership to fund a new home away from Lord’s.
The crisis-plagued county have told members they are actively exploring demutualisation after being plunged into fresh turmoil amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive.
Andrew Cornish was absent from a meeting with members on Tuesday at which the club began a formal consultation over becoming just the fourth first-class county to go private.
Chairman Richard Sykes told Telegraph Sport that Cornish was “on a leave of absence”, adding: “The Cricket Regulator is involved and I can’t say more than that.”
The investigation into Cornish, who has denied any wrongdoing, is unrelated to demutualisation. But the timing could hardly be worse for the 161-year-old club as they look to join Durham, Northamptonshire and Hampshire in becoming privately owned.
As tenants of Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s, Middlesex are unique among the 18 counties as they do not own their home ground. This means they are unable to make money through non-cricket activities such as conferencing and events.
They play at a series of outgrounds such as Merchant Taylors’ School, Richmond and Radlett, but have long sought a “home away from home” to provide stability and generate income. Sykes believes the only way to raise the funds for this is via demutualisation.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
Sure. But what about calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils because of their race? Was that an accepted norm at your school?
Is 'calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils' what happened, or has the story developed further in your head?
No, on the pages of the national press.
You can choose to believe it or not, but you can't debunk the story by saying it's a figment of kinablu's imagination.
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands have pulled out of the Eurovision Song Contest because Israel has been confirmed to be taking part in 2026.
However, it looks to me like the push against Israel has almost entirely failed. Other than perhaps Iceland, other nations don't seem to be leaning toward a boycott, and 5 countries pulling out isn't enough to jeopardise the contest's viability.
8 countries voted to make it a secret ballot over the new voting rules*, there was no vote on Israel continuing to participate.
.*"Among them, we'll see professional juries return to Semi-Finals with expanded, more diverse panels, including young jurors aged 18–25. The voting cap for viewers voting at home will be halved for 2026, encouraging fans to spread support across more entries. Enhanced technical safeguards will also be introduced, to detect and block coordinated or fraudulent voting activity. And stronger limits on promotion will be implemented to curb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns."
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
Sure. But what about calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils because of their race? Was that an accepted norm at your school?
Not sure, never participated in any, to busy getting bullied for being poor.
Ah yes. We had some of that. I remember jokes about famines also. And bullying of the mentally handicapped. It was no hotbed of enlightenment. None of which ameliorates to me the specific revelations about Farage. But what matters is what people who might vote for Reform think. Would that include you perchance?
What I think is that people are desperate. And what Farage said 50 years ago might lower the Reform ceiling a bit. But if you want to stop Farage getting into number 10, your best bet is:
Get rid of Starmer and reset.
Get someone in with a plan and half decent communication skills.
Much as it pains me to say as a right winger, do not be afraid to move left.
Maybe, but all the polling shows that big tax increases to fund increased welfare in the Budget was extremely unpopular.
If Labour does move left, what is it actually going to do?
Even higher taxes and even more welfare for sure - but that won't be popular.
So what else that will be popular? And note a new leader will be running out of time to implement anything that needs Primary Legislation. The original top priorities of renters rights and employment rights will both have taken half the Parliament to actually introduce. If Starmer is forced out in May 2026 and a new leader takes office in September 2026 then anything requiring Primary Legislation is barely going to be actually implemented pre General Election.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
I get it. Corbyn says/likes something anti-semitic and unwilling to apologise = unfit to be leader or MP,
Farage says "Gas 'em all" and refuses to apologise = glorious patriot standing up against multiculturism.
No mate. If Farage was on about gassing Jews he was an outlier even for the times I grew up in. But my experience is that overt racism did not recede till the late 80s/early 90s. I mean am i misremembering or were not Everton fans chanting proudly about no blacks in the team in the 80s?
Such overt racism did persist in football fan circles, but that what was very much an issue in itself. There was a recognition that behaviour on the terraces was not tolerated elsewhere.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
Is that a joke? If you see the Black and White Minstrels as in any way comparable to intimidation of Jewish and black students then I can only think you share many of the problems currently affecting Farage.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
Sure. But what about calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils because of their race? Was that an accepted norm at your school?
Not sure, never participated in any, to busy getting bullied for being poor.
Ah yes. We had some of that. I remember jokes about famines also. And bullying of the mentally handicapped. It was no hotbed of enlightenment. None of which ameliorates to me the specific revelations about Farage. But what matters is what people who might vote for Reform think. Would that include you perchance?
What I think is that people are desperate. And what Farage said 50 years ago might lower the Reform ceiling a bit. But if you want to stop Farage getting into number 10, your best bet is:
Get rid of Starmer and reset.
Get someone in with a plan and half decent communication skills.
Much as it pains me to say as a right winger, do not be afraid to move left.
Prior polling suggests that it’s Farage’s connections to the wealthy elite that do him most harm.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
Is that a joke? If you see the Black and White Minstrels as in any way comparable to intimidation of Jewish and black students then I can only think you share many of the problems currently affecting Farage.
The black and white minstrels was pretty dodgy though. I can see why Farage would think the BBC has gone downhill since its heyday.
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands have pulled out of the Eurovision Song Contest because Israel has been confirmed to be taking part in 2026.
However, it looks to me like the push against Israel has almost entirely failed. Other than perhaps Iceland, other nations don't seem to be leaning toward a boycott, and 5 countries pulling out isn't enough to jeopardise the contest's viability.
8 countries voted to make it a secret ballot over the new voting rules*, there was no vote on Israel continuing to participate.
.*"Among them, we'll see professional juries return to Semi-Finals with expanded, more diverse panels, including young jurors aged 18–25. The voting cap for viewers voting at home will be halved for 2026, encouraging fans to spread support across more entries. Enhanced technical safeguards will also be introduced, to detect and block coordinated or fraudulent voting activity. And stronger limits on promotion will be implemented to curb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns."
I am sure there will be enthusiastic astroturfing again. The interesting bit is the re-introduction of restructured juries into the semi-finals. Is the fix in to stop Israel at the SF?
Israel winning and hosting in 2027 would likely be existential for eurovision.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
Truss has moved beyond party politics as a national treasure so it won't have any consequences for Kemi.
"National Treasure" is now my favourite way to think of her. I'm picturing adverts in Sunday supplements for expensive ceramics with her proud face on them. Maybe some AI generated text about cheese or the blob. Or both! Possibly printed the right way up - your luck depending.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
He does often seem to suggest the past was better though. Which... oh, hang on.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
What might hurt Farage isn’t the schooldays allegations themselves (I think enough people tend to be willing to give people a pass for their behaviour at school), but his rather prickly, thin-skinned reaction to them. Another example of him rather forgetting that he isn’t Donald Trump and probably can’t get away with tantrums in the same way as his idol.
I hesitate to predict a Reform collapse - I think it is still very plausible they’ll continue to poll well all parliament - but Farage is his own worst enemy and it’s not inconceivable that he ends up torpedoing his own chances. More of this whingey stuff won’t help him.
He’s definitely not handling it well. He should row in behind Kemi. A supporting role to a non white woman could rehabilitate him at the same time as helping his politics into power. I don’t doubt Farage is a reasonably liberal bloke these days, and wouldn’t have any truck with the stuff he is reported to have said in the 70s, but I think he did say it and I that it will do for him as far as being PM is concerned
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
It all went wrong when we had a female Prime Minister.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
Is that a joke? If you see the Black and White Minstrels as in any way comparable to intimidation of Jewish and black students then I can only think you share many of the problems currently affecting Farage.
The black and white minstrels was pretty dodgy though. I can see why Farage would think the BBC has gone downhill since its heyday.
If that wasn't to your taste, you could turn over to ITV for Love Thy Neighbour.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
Is that a joke? If you see the Black and White Minstrels as in any way comparable to intimidation of Jewish and black students then I can only think you share many of the problems currently affecting Farage.
The black and white minstrels was pretty dodgy though. I can see why Farage would think the BBC has gone downhill since its heyday.
If that wasn't to your taste, you could turn over to ITV for Love Thy Neighbour.
I’m not sure why Middlesex are allowed to play as the county doesn’t exist.
Crisis club Middlesex begin plan to move away from Lord’s
Exclusive: County take step towards private ownership amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive
Middlesex have taken the first step towards private ownership to fund a new home away from Lord’s.
The crisis-plagued county have told members they are actively exploring demutualisation after being plunged into fresh turmoil amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive.
Andrew Cornish was absent from a meeting with members on Tuesday at which the club began a formal consultation over becoming just the fourth first-class county to go private.
Chairman Richard Sykes told Telegraph Sport that Cornish was “on a leave of absence”, adding: “The Cricket Regulator is involved and I can’t say more than that.”
The investigation into Cornish, who has denied any wrongdoing, is unrelated to demutualisation. But the timing could hardly be worse for the 161-year-old club as they look to join Durham, Northamptonshire and Hampshire in becoming privately owned.
As tenants of Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s, Middlesex are unique among the 18 counties as they do not own their home ground. This means they are unable to make money through non-cricket activities such as conferencing and events.
They play at a series of outgrounds such as Merchant Taylors’ School, Richmond and Radlett, but have long sought a “home away from home” to provide stability and generate income. Sykes believes the only way to raise the funds for this is via demutualisation.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
What might hurt Farage isn’t the schooldays allegations themselves (I think enough people tend to be willing to give people a pass for their behaviour at school), but his rather prickly, thin-skinned reaction to them. Another example of him rather forgetting that he isn’t Donald Trump and probably can’t get away with tantrums in the same way as his idol.
I hesitate to predict a Reform collapse - I think it is still very plausible they’ll continue to poll well all parliament - but Farage is his own worst enemy and it’s not inconceivable that he ends up torpedoing his own chances. More of this whingey stuff won’t help him.
He’s definitely not handling it well. He should row in behind Kemi. A supporting role to a non white woman could rehabilitate him at the same time as helping his politics into power. I don’t doubt Farage is a reasonably liberal bloke these days, and wouldn’t have any truck with the stuff he is reported to have said in the 70s, but I think he did say it and I that it will do for him as far as being PM is concerned
What struck me about this wasn't his views. No surprise tbh.
Rather, it was the malice and cruelty of his reported conduct towards those vulnerable kids at school. Authentically Trumpian.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
What's doing for Farage, to the extent anything gets through the teflon, is not his teenage racism, it's his complete inability to say, "I did some horrible things when I was younger. I apologise to the people I hurt."
Well obviously because a. he still believes it, b. he’d lose some of his core support if he disavowed it.
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
I don't think Farage can simultaneously say, the past is another country and also say, I did nothing wrong. The past can stay in the past, but Farage has to keep it there by showing he's a different person now.
And also that Britain was a better place when racist "banter" was normal.
It all went wrong when we had a female Prime Minister.
FOUR UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY-STYLE drones breached a no-fly zone and flew towards the flight path of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane at sea near Dublin Airport late on Monday night, The Journal has learned.
The plane landed, slightly ahead of schedule, just moments before the incident happened at about 11pm. The drones reached the location where Zelenskyy’s plane was expected to be at the exact moment it had been due to pass.
The drones then orbited above an Irish Navy vessel that had secretly been deployed in the Irish Sea for the Zelenskyy visit.
Sources have said that the drones took off from the north-east of Dublin, possibly near Howth, and flew for up to two hours.
@Cyclefree, @DavidL, @kyf_100 and @NigelB, you have all voiced strong opinions on the matter of trans, two of you from the gender-critical direction, two from the pro-trans direction. May I ask all four of you to inspect the third draft, point out mistakes, and list arguments pro and con? Please note that you are being invited in as discussants not pre-readers: I might not change the article in response to your remarks, but I will write up your responses and put them in two appendices.
Please also note the following
The article is not finished. It's now around 1,933 words not including the appendices and still doesn't include the intervention from the European Commissioner, so it still needs sorting out and about a week's more work
The sources from the appendices will be transplanted to the main body before publication
I hold the Widdecombe position on trans: namely, those who have gone all the way surgically/hormonally and can reasonably function as the opposite sex should be allowed to be legally considered as the opposite sex. I therefore strongly disapprove of the conclusions I have come to. But it is my best guess as to the state of play regarding the original question.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
Sure. But what about calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils because of their race? Was that an accepted norm at your school?
Is 'calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils' what happened, or has the story developed further in your head?
No, on the pages of the national press.
You can choose to believe it or not, but you can't debunk the story by saying it's a figment of kinablu's imagination.
Of course people would have forgiven Farage's racism fifty years later if he has shown the slightest sign of having changed. But he hasn't. It was clearly a path he went down and one which he's amplified until he's arrived at the creature we see before us now. If voters appreciate his consistency so be it. But no more excuses.
@Cyclefree, @DavidL, @kyf_100 and @NigelB, you have all voiced strong opinions on the matter of trans, two of you from the gender-critical direction, two from the pro-trans direction. May I ask all four of you to inspect the third draft, point out mistakes, and list arguments pro and con? Please note that you are being invited in as discussants not pre-readers: I might not change the article in response to your remarks, but I will write up your responses and put them in two appendices.
Please also note the following
The article is not finished. It's now around 1,933 words not including the appendices and still doesn't include the intervention from the European Commissioner, so it still needs sorting out and about a week's more work
The sources from the appendices will be transplanted to the main body before publication
I hold the Widdecombe position on trans: namely, those who have gone all the way surgically/hormonally and can reasonably function as the opposite sex should be allowed to be legally considered as the opposite sex. I therefore strongly disapprove of the conclusions I have come to. But it is my best guess as to the state of play regarding the original question.
Brave viewcode. You will let me know when the Trans stop screaming, won't you?
Difficult to make out, but am i right in thinking 2 of the 4 Labour seats are in Scotland?
Yep, Red Morningside (prop: Mr I. Murray) and Lothian East, which has for a long time been safe sheep but not LD country even before rustic Berwickshire was cut off. Prop:John Home Robertson etc., now Mr Alexander D.
While Farage is expert at whataboutery, straw men, rephrasing, non apologies and so on, I just draw attention to what, it is alleged, comes from the actual time when he was at school, written in 1981 by a teacher to the head. It includes these words:
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This master stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect. Yet another colleague described how, at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs.”
As contemporaneous evidence from decades before people knew he might be PM it is, if authentic (and Michael Crick says it is) it is of greater evidential value than all the (I have no doubt generally reliable) accounts from memories years later.
How important it is is a separate question. But I think Reform and Farage are troubled by this.
The point is Farage was about 14 or 15 at the time, while the BBC, run by fully grown adults, was showing the Black and White Minstrel Show during the same period.
It's not much of a point, though, is it.
Isn't it?
That's what I said, didn't I?
Yes and you’re wrong. It’s perfectly valid point to make.
Societal cultural norms change over time. What’s acceptable now won’t be in a decade. The further you go back the more the change.
I'm NF's age. It wasn't any sort of cultural norm in the 70s to taunt and bully Jewish people about Nazi atrocities. He's flapping around desperately and dishonestly.
Indeed. I'd go further. I'm older, and this notion that racist, or sexist, 'banter' was socially acceptable in the 70s and 80s just isn't true. Of course such banter existed, but both had been challenged since the mid-1960s by anti-racist and feminist groups and, though there remained much to do, such banter wasn't the norm any more, and its proponents were on the back foot, certainly by the mid-to-late 1970s.
I rather suspect one of Farage's problems is that he perceived the banter of the posh-heads at Dulwich College (and subsequently in the City) as the norm.
Well it was completely acceptable in my local comprehensive. No Hitler love, but great hilarity around the Ethiopia famine for example. Shocking looking back, but Pretending this stuff was not going on is revisionist bullshit.
Sure. But what about calculated persistent malevolent bullying of individual pupils because of their race? Was that an accepted norm at your school?
Not sure, never participated in any, to busy getting bullied for being poor.
Ah yes. We had some of that. I remember jokes about famines also. And bullying of the mentally handicapped. It was no hotbed of enlightenment. None of which ameliorates to me the specific revelations about Farage. But what matters is what people who might vote for Reform think. Would that include you perchance?
What I think is that people are desperate. And what Farage said 50 years ago might lower the Reform ceiling a bit. But if you want to stop Farage getting into number 10, your best bet is:
Get rid of Starmer and reset.
Get someone in with a plan and half decent communication skills.
Much as it pains me to say as a right winger, do not be afraid to move left.
Ok. But that wasn't my question. I'm interested in what potential PB Reform voters make of it and I sense you might be one. No worries if you don't wish to confirm or deny.
Delighted to welcome my friend, President Putin to India. Looking forward to our interactions later this evening and tomorrow. India-Russia friendship is a time tested one that has greatly benefitted our people.
Delighted to welcome my friend, President Putin to India. Looking forward to our interactions later this evening and tomorrow. India-Russia friendship is a time tested one that has greatly benefitted our people.
Delighted to welcome my friend, President Putin to India. Looking forward to our interactions later this evening and tomorrow. India-Russia friendship is a time tested one that has greatly benefitted our people.
Possibly. But the siting of the plant will be controversial. There's already a rebellion brewing across the Highlands about renewables infrastructure. One to watch.
Not just the Highlands - the Borders too, and the coastal fringes.
Mix of possibilities of course.
As an example of the comedy - the farmer I know who is putting in a battery to back his solar array is still getting grief from the local Greens. They are very upset they can't seem to stop him, under planning law - but they are trying everything. Given that it's a couple of ISO containers, and not visible unless you are on his property (trees), I am try to work out the objection.
He does say that they seem upset by his idea to sell 'leecy directly to the tenants of the small business centre he created out of the old stable yard.
WTF is their problem ?
Greens, like 75% of everyone in the rural areas, hate solar farms and related infrastructure, because NIMBYism is more powerful than any other ideology.
If the election played out like that FON poll then fair enough, Reform would deserve their shot at power and with a large majority. But I can't help but think that it would be bad for general parliamentary opposition in this country if the rest of the parties all ended up with those similar kind of 40-80 seats.
If the election played out like that FON poll then fair enough, Reform would deserve their shot at power and with a large majority. But I can't help but think that it would be bad for general parliamentary opposition in this country if the rest of the parties all ended up with those similar kind of 40-80 seats.
We would soon have net emigration with that coterie of clowns in charge.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Trump's bandaged and discolored hand was visible today during an event where he again at times struggled to keep his eyes open (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Trump's bandaged and discolored hand was visible today during an event where he again at times struggled to keep his eyes open (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
If anyone is interested, I have written a Chrome plugin that scans any web page for any discussion about trans. If it find it, it sends the offending sections to the OpenAI API and asks it to rewrite it, so it is now about trains, and particularly about Deltics, but it retains the original style and ... oomph ... of the original author.
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
If anyone is interested, I have written a Chrome plugin that scans any web page for any discussion about trans. If it find it, it sends the offending sections to the OpenAI API and asks it to rewrite it, so it is now about trains, and particularly about Deltics, but it retains the original style and ... oomph ... of the original author.
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
It is completely seamless, so usually other than the existence of the 'em' dash, you will have no idea that trans was ever mentioned at all.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Trump's bandaged and discolored hand was visible today during an event where he again at times struggled to keep his eyes open (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Delighted to welcome my friend, President Putin to India. Looking forward to our interactions later this evening and tomorrow. India-Russia friendship is a time tested one that has greatly benefitted our people.
If anyone is interested, I have written a Chrome plugin that scans any web page for any discussion about trans. If it find it, it sends the offending sections to the OpenAI API and asks it to rewrite it, so it is now about trains, and particularly about Deltics, but it retains the original style and ... oomph ... of the original author.
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
It's already editing my posts. But I think it might be making them worse. Thinking of pulling a train tonight.
If anyone is interested, I have written a Chrome plugin that scans any web page for any discussion about trans. If it find it, it sends the offending sections to the OpenAI API and asks it to rewrite it, so it is now about trains, and particularly about Deltics, but it retains the original style and ... oomph ... of the original author.
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
What about Queen Guinevere of the King Arthur class or Queen of the Belgians of the Prince of Wales class. Were they trans trains?
If anyone is interested, I have written a Chrome plugin that scans any web page for any discussion about trans. If it find it, it sends the offending sections to the OpenAI API and asks it to rewrite it, so it is now about trains, and particularly about Deltics, but it retains the original style and ... oomph ... of the original author.
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
What about Queen Guinevere of the King Arthur class or Queen of the Belgians of the Prince of Wales class. Were they trans trains?
Jenrick I can't see defecting to Farage, his ego is too big to be competing to be Farage's no 2 with Tice. Jenrick could be a successor to Farage as leader of the populist right in the long term but he will stay in the Tories for now
Comments
What the witnesses, and the written reports from the time all show, is that he was an outlier in his year group: a notable racist, enough to elicit repeated comment at the time.
Decades beforehand Wodehouse created Roderick Spode. That sort of character was also an outlier even back then. The idea we were all fascists in the 70s is nonsense.
If Labour does move left, what is it actually going to do?
Even higher taxes and even more welfare for sure - but that won't be popular.
So what else that will be popular? And note a new leader will be running out of time to implement anything that needs Primary Legislation. The original top priorities of renters rights and employment rights will both have taken half the Parliament to actually introduce. If Starmer is forced out in May 2026 and a new leader takes office in September 2026 then anything requiring Primary Legislation is barely going to be actually implemented pre General Election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcMd1F1acSo
Israel winning and hosting in 2027 would likely be existential for eurovision.
I loved it and The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/love-thy-neighbour
Oh, not that one? Even so ...
I haven't seen it, and don't intend to, but some of the episode descriptions seem, well, edgy.
POLL | Labour drop to just **14%**
➡️ REF: 31% (-)
🔵 CON: 20% (+2)
🟢 GRN: 18% (+1)
🔴 LAB: 14% (-1)
🟠 LD: 11% (-1)
Via FindoutnowUK, 3 Dec (+/- vs 26 Nov), see https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1996601733305291097#m
Seat estimate | Labour wipeout
➡️ REF: 360 (+355)
🟢 GRN: 79 (+75)
🟠 LD: 72 (-)
🔵 CON: 48 (-73)
🟡 SNP: 45 (+36)
🏴 PLAID: 7 (+3)
🔴 LAB: 4 (-407)
Based on FindoutnowUK poll, 3 Dec (+/- vs GE24)
Rather, it was the malice and cruelty of his reported conduct towards those vulnerable kids at school. Authentically Trumpian.
Interestingly, Sunak gets to keep his seat though.
InteractivePolls
@IAPolls2022
📊 2028 CA Democratic Primary
Gavin Newsom: 36% (+13)
Pete Buttigieg: 16% (-1)
A. Ocasio-Cortez: 13% (+4)
Kamala Harris: 9% (-2)
J.B. Pritzker: 4% (+2)
Josh Shapiro: 3% (-1)
Gretchen Whitmer: 2% (new)
Andy Beshear: 2% (-3)
Cory Booker: 2% (-1)
Amy Klobuchar: 1%
---
Someone else: 15%
Undecided: 11%
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1996547040642314455
We need a poll for S Carolina.
Please also note the following
Delighted to welcome my friend, President Putin to India. Looking forward to our interactions later this evening and tomorrow. India-Russia friendship is a time tested one that has greatly benefitted our people.
@atrupar
·
1h
Trump's bandaged and discolored hand was visible today during an event where he again at times struggled to keep his eyes open (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1996674486079275096
I reckon it will make the Web a more fun place to visit.
‘Don’t worry Mr President, it looks entirely natural.’
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pulling+a+train
News conference tally:
Mentions of Jan 6 or motive: 0
Mentions of Dan Bongino’s birthday: 1
https://x.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1996657223913951657
https://bsky.app/profile/ejfagan.com/post/3m76ssj2osk2s