If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
It might be worth the gamble to get 5 years on his own manifesto versus 2.5 years without a direct mandate.
This isn't a presidency. We can't keep having GEs every five minutes.
It's because it's not a presidency that we can have a GE whenever the PM feels it in his waters.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
He could - if he has a good win and ends up high on his own supply. I don't think the public would take to it that well.
Say Burnham takes over this summer. What problem does he solve by going for an early election? If he does nothing ha has a huge majority and the best part of three years until he is forced to go to the electorate. So why do it? The only thing he would gain is a sense of legitimacy and who gives a stuff about that? Starmers claims he has a mandate because of the huge majority but it was won on about 35 percent of the vote. Doesn't matter - it's votes in parliament that count.
So I simply cannot see him going before 2028 (if leading in the polls) or 2029 if behind.
The sceptics case for going early is that Burnham in fact is going to face the identical difficulties as everyone else in governing. Though he will be better than Starmer at narrative, generalised spiritual uplift, punchy points and evoking a wartime spirit of all in it together as we soak the rich, he can't alter the laws of economic gravity, he can't alter the unbalanced migration that has already happened, he can't magically stop the boats, and he can't get Labour MPs to cease thinking magically about welfare and spending, and I don't think he can stop borrowing money we can't afford to pay interest we can't afford on debt we can't afford.
So he may as well get 5 years now, as Micawber like, something may turn up, if he can beat Reform before the bailiffs turn up in Downing Street.
I pause because I wonder if there are a number of things that could be kicked off now so they can be implemented in 2029/30. So that after an election in 2027 their impact is forgotten before the 2031/2 election
On the latest Labour mad idea, Lilico points out that supermarkets have frequently been investigated for keeping prices too low - thereby hammering suppliers and farmers.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
Not "as much as". Electing Reform in Makerfield would not give Starmer a bloody nose. It would be a vote to keep the status quo for the next 3 years. In these unique circumstances, Burnham is the insurgent, Reform is not.
Holding a byelection in Makerfield basically is punching Starmer on the nose at this point. If Burnham wins, SKS get booted out by Burnham, if Reform win, SKS is pretty much certain to be booted out by the cabinet anyway. It's the very definition of lose/lose from SKS's point of view.
The real question to voters is that given SKS gets the boot either way, how much do they want to smack AB in the face - and it does have to be said, Weathervane Andy seems pretty punchable to me.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
Plus the polling suggests that people see Burnham as a reset.
On the latest Labour mad idea, Lilico points out that supermarkets have frequently been investigated for keeping prices too low - thereby hammering suppliers and farmers.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I would vote Lib Dem and wash my hands of the whole business.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
Very interesting to hear you were taught betting at school. Normally they don't even teach them budgeting, so I've heard.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
I don't think the facts matter because it's a vibe policy. That being Things Aint What They Used To Be. The party name - 'Restore' - sets the tone.
They can also bank on their target voters not understanding whatever the topic is. That's particularly true of the energy landscape, where tbf I'd say most voters, not just their targets, aren't very clued up. You can chalk me down in that company in fact. But I know enough to recognise total bollocks.
Best case scenario if any of the anti-renewables lot get into power is that the policy ends up like Livingstone's pledge to bring back bus conductors. As I recall there were a couple, briefly, I even saw one in the wild, but they didn't last long as Livingstone bowed to reality.
But my worry is that they're serious and they'll end up doing things to get in the way of renewables like Trump is doing in the US.
Yes. We talked optimism v pessimism yesterday, didn't we, and I'd be joining you on the right hand side of that if these characters somehow manage to get the keys. I'm including all the 'Re' outfits in that. We must resist it. We don't want to reclaim or restore anything, thank you very much. We want to progress. It’s so important they don't win. I should be doing more about the threat than just posting on here really. Although tbf I have just made a extracurricular donation to the Labour Macca campaign.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
Very interesting to hear you were taught betting at school. Normally they don't even teach them budgeting, so I've heard.
I learnt the imperial measures for weights. But that was more self study.
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
There have been several investigations over the decades about supermarket pricing, including one I worked on, and they've all found that, in general, the sector is ferociously competitive and operates on pretty tight margins.
If Reeves really wanted to cut prices, she would of course look at the huge problems that government in general, and her interventions in particular, have caused, starting with a ridiculously high minimum wage and huge increases in payroll taxes.
But, as always, if she understood anything about business or economics, she wouldn't be a socialist.
She's surprisingly popular with the bond markets for a socialist.
No, they hate her. Together with QT, that's why the UK has much higher bond yields than comparable developed countries- she doesn't have the first idea how to let the economy grow over the medium to long term.
Although perhaps some of her possible successors are seen as just as incompetent, but even more catastrophically socialist.
Bond markets not trusting UK not due to Truss, Brexit, Sunak, Trump, Iran, Tariffs then just all on Rachel
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
The closest has to be a vote for Reform. If they win it would strengthen Starmer's position because he could go on the attack against his enemies for instigating the by-election.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
Very interesting to hear you were taught betting at school. Normally they don't even teach them budgeting, so I've heard.
I learnt the imperial measures for weights. But that was more self study.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
FIFA have totally screwed the pooch on the pricing, and many of the tickets have been acquired by American touts who think there’s going to be a market to watch Cameroon play Moldova* in the group stage at $5,000 a ticket in an 80,000 seater stadium.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
FIFA have totally screwed the pooch on the pricing, and many of the tickets have been acquired by American touts who think there’s going to be a market to watch Cameroon play Moldova* in the group stage at $5,000 a ticket in an 80,000 seater stadium.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
I'd go to see Cameroon play Moldova iff the Moldovan Eurovision entry was the half-time act.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I would vote Lib Dem and wash my hands of the whole business.
I was somewhat surprised that Ed Davey led at PMQs on the Ebola crisis and why we were reducing foreign aid
I am not at all sure that is on voters lists at present as horrible as it is
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
That’s because the £5 million bung was simple.
Someone gave Nigel 5 Bernies. Now that’s going to the authorities to work out if that is wrong or not. Once you’ve written that, what else is there.
With the stamp duty thing, it was the attempted coverup and excuses that kept the story going. Everyday a fresh piece of the puzzle. Note that once the excuses, rebuttals etc ended, the story dropped off the news until the recent HMRC response.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I would vote Lib Dem and wash my hands of the whole business.
I was somewhat surprised that Ed Davey led at PMQs on the Ebola crisis and why we were reducing foreign aid
I am not at all sure that is on voters lists at present as horrible as it is
The Restore anti renewables policy is based on the idea that Wind is costing us more, in part because when there is too much electricity being produced we pay them to switch off.
However it is actually cheaper and easier to cut wind generation than nuclear because Nuclear is too expensive to use for balancing due to the restarting issue, it is best to run continuously. Balancing can be done easier with wind.
However if we went gas and expanded nuclear then we would need to use gas for balancing and that would work out much more expensive than using wind.
Take it with pinch of salt because I used AI but the relative balancing figure are £380m wind v £1.08bn for gas!
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
That’s because the £5 million bung was simple.
Someone gave Nigel 5 Bernies. Now that’s going to the authorities to work out if that is wrong or not. Once you’ve written that, what else is there.
With the stamp duty thing, it was the attempted coverup and excuses that kept the story going. Everyday a fresh piece of the puzzle. Note that once the excuses, rebuttals etc ended, the story dropped off the news until the recent HMRC response.
Have you not been following the news? We've had multiple stories about the £5 million.
* initial stories around Farage getting £5 million and him talking about his security * stories around Farage later defending himself in an interview and giving a somewhat different explanation of the donation, a reward for years of campaigning for Brexit * stories around whether the money was used to buy his house * Farage/Reform say the house was bought with I'm a Celebrity money * FT works out that the house wasn't bought with I'm a Celebrity money * Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards opening an investigation
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
And nor should there be - by-elections should not be used to settle the internal differences of the Labour Party.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
That’s because the £5 million bung was simple.
Someone gave Nigel 5 Bernies. Now that’s going to the authorities to work out if that is wrong or not. Once you’ve written that, what else is there.
With the stamp duty thing, it was the attempted coverup and excuses that kept the story going. Everyday a fresh piece of the puzzle. Note that once the excuses, rebuttals etc ended, the story dropped off the news until the recent HMRC response.
The similarity is uncanny Rayner was accused by Parliamentary Standards officials of erroneously documenting a house purchase which could entail an additional £40k tax bill. Nigel, after some barstewards dobbed him in to the media was accused by Parliamentary Standards officials on erroneously not documenting a £5m bung which could entail an in excess of £2.5m not to mention some activities which could be close to breaching many electoral finance guidelines.
In the meantime Rayner was quite justifiably forced to stand down. I am assuming Nigey is considering his options.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
In theory yes Starmer can stand. But in practice the 'mo' behind AB if he wins here will sweep him to #10 - either unopposed or after beating Streeting.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
Yes, listening to #PMQs I thought him rather demob happy. For him the war will soon be over.
Perhaps that was always his role. To make Labour electable then hand over. A sort of defensive midfielder who regains the ball then passes to a more creative striker.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
Do we think he will be able to trouser, Cameron, May, Boris and Truss levels of post PM after dinner speaking engagement dosh?
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
Do we think he will be able to trouser, Cameron, May, Boris and Truss levels of post PM after dinner speaking engagement dosh?
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
And nor should there be - by-elections should not be used to settle the internal differences of the Labour Party.
No, fair enough, I'm not saying there can or should be. It's just another quirk of this unique by-election that occurred to me.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
Yes, listening to #PMQs I thought him rather demob happy. For him the war will soon be over.
Perhaps that was always his role. To make Labour electable then hand over. A sort of defensive midfielder who regains the ball then passes to a more creative striker.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
I think that Starmer made the personal decision not to carry on until the next election, just before the Kings Speech.
The evidence is the way he performed in response to Kemi Badenoch calling her a little ray of sunshine etc. He was so relaxed and human. The stress had gone. He was transformed.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
Not surprised by this research. Slightly shocked it's been published in the Guardian though!
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
"Living Longer, Better – the Oxford Longevity Project’s first Age-less report – was co-authored by an interdisciplinary panel of UK-based experts in medicine, physiology, ageing and education policy. It was sponsored by Oxford Healthspan.
The report’s authors, Sir Christopher Ball, Sir Muir Gray, Dr Paul Ch’en, Leslie Kenny and Prof Denis Noble, present the figure of 80% as a conservative estimate.
Ball, a 91-year-old former Parachute regiment officer who intends to reach 100, said: “Some have gone higher and said it’s approaching 90%. But I think 80% seems about fair.”"
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
It's enough to make all people of good faith weep tears of frustration and despair.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
I don't think that Starmer has given up. He probably calculated that he might either have been unable to block Burnham or that if he had then it would have absolutely trashed his remaining credibility within the party, enough to ensure a leadership challenge then materialised and succeeded. He's probably calculated that Makerfield is no shoo in and that if he acts graciously towards accommodating Burnham but Burnham loses his stock will be higher and enough to see off a challenge from one of the other challengers for now. That would buy him a bit of time to turn around the polls which in turn would allow him carry on in the medium term.
It is quite surreal that a serving UK PM should be relying on his party's candidate to lose a by-election in order to help his own survival prospects, but that is where we are at, I think. .
Not surprised by this research. Slightly shocked it's been published in the Guardian though!
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
And nor should there be - by-elections should not be used to settle the internal differences of the Labour Party.
And national referendums on EU membership should not be used to settle the internal differences of the Conservative Party. But we are where we are.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
In theory yes Starmer can stand. But in practice the 'mo' behind AB if he wins here will sweep him to #10 - either unopposed or after beating Streeting.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
Lots of people's views do not have a candidate choice in lots of elections, particularly in FPTP elections. This is not unusual.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
But tbf it was different with Major. He won a GE and then did his full term before losing fair and square in another GE.
SKS has done the first of those (bigtime) but is being denied the rest. He has a right to feel aggrieved.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
In theory yes Starmer can stand. But in practice the 'mo' behind AB if he wins here will sweep him to #10 - either unopposed or after beating Streeting.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
Lots of people's views do not have a candidate choice in lots of elections, particularly in FPTP elections. This is not unusual.
Yes but what's unusual is having no avenue to express support for the government.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
One is a rich person freely giving money to a slightly less rich person, because he agrees with that person's political views.
The other is a member of the actual government directly ripping off the tax-payer by failing to pay tax that was due, then lying about the advice she was given in various incoherent ways.
I'm completely unsurprised that the Rayner thing cut through more - it's fingers in the till stuff, and the public really doesn't like that. Nothing Farage has done has caused the taxpayer to lose out on a penny (indeed, he's probably paid a fortune in stamp duty!). The worst he can be accused of is not declaring his donations properly, which is a problem which has afflicted politicians of many different stripes over the years.
Does anyone know anything about "Bet Goodwin"? Are they anything to do with that Reform chap?
I ask because Oddschecker has them offering 13/5 odds on Burnham to be next PM, at a time when every other betting company has Burnham in a range from 4/5 down to 8/15 on. Quite bizarre if 13/5 is actually being offered.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
But tbf it was different with Major. He won a GE and then did his full term before losing fair and square in another GE.
SKS has done the first of those (bigtime) but is being denied the rest. He has a right to feel aggrieved.
Yes John Major had a good gig out of a very bad situation. He could have had a very short premiership, yet won an election against the odds and ran a full term and then lost an election he knew full well he was going to lose so no disappointment. I imagine he is one of the few PMs in modern history who wasn't disappointed in the end even though he lost.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
One is a rich person freely giving money to a slightly less rich person, because he agrees with that person's political views.
The other is a member of the actual government directly ripping off the tax-payer by failing to pay tax that was due, then lying about the advice she was given in various incoherent ways.
I'm completely unsurprised that the Rayner thing cut through more - it's fingers in the till stuff, and the public really doesn't like that. Nothing Farage has done has caused the taxpayer to lose out on a penny (indeed, he's probably paid a fortune in stamp duty!). The worst he can be accused of is not declaring his donations properly, which is a problem which has afflicted politicians of many different stripes over the years.
The thing that made the Rayner situation worse was she tried to throw her advisers under the bus and blame them. Fortunately they had the receipts. She’s a piece of work.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
I don't see how his IACGMOOH fee of £1.4m hasn't been taxed as income?
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
But tbf it was different with Major. He won a GE and then did his full term before losing fair and square in another GE.
SKS has done the first of those (bigtime) but is being denied the rest. He has a right to feel aggrieved.
Difference: Major saw off his detractors until the election.
Not so sure Starmer will achieve that. He can feel as aggrieved as he likes. But not with any justification.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
One is a rich person freely giving money to a slightly less rich person, because he agrees with that person's political views.
The other is a member of the actual government directly ripping off the tax-payer by failing to pay tax that was due, then lying about the advice she was given in various incoherent ways.
I'm completely unsurprised that the Rayner thing cut through more - it's fingers in the till stuff, and the public really doesn't like that. Nothing Farage has done has caused the taxpayer to lose out on a penny (indeed, he's probably paid a fortune in stamp duty!). The worst he can be accused of is not declaring his donations properly, which is a problem which has afflicted politicians of many different stripes over the years.
There's more to it than that. If Farage funded his girlfriends purchase of the Clacton house then he should be liable to the stamp duty supplement for second homes, similar to Rayner. Except, as we kbow Rayner was only having an interest in the second home for a few months until her son reached the age of 18. Farage presumably has a longer term interest.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
In theory yes Starmer can stand. But in practice the 'mo' behind AB if he wins here will sweep him to #10 - either unopposed or after beating Streeting.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
Lots of people's views do not have a candidate choice in lots of elections, particularly in FPTP elections. This is not unusual.
Yes but what's unusual is having no avenue to express support for the government.
Well, I can think of some examples...
2018 West Tyrone by-election, 2013 Mid Ulster by-election, etc. 2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election Tatton in the 1997 general election arguably Every time a sitting Speaker has contested a general election
And there have been plenty of by-elections where the party of government has clearly not been in the running, although there was a candidate available.
Does anyone know anything about "Bet Goodwin"? Are they anything to do with that Reform chap?
I ask because Oddschecker has them offering 13/5 odds on Burnham to be next PM, at a time when every other betting company has Burnham in a range from 4/5 down to 8/15 on. Quite bizarre if 13/5 is actually being offered.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
I don't think that Starmer has given up. He probably calculated that he might either have been unable to block Burnham or that if he had then it would have absolutely trashed his remaining credibility within the party, enough to ensure a leadership challenge then materialised and succeeded. He's probably calculated that Makerfield is no shoo in and that if he acts graciously towards accommodating Burnham but Burnham loses his stock will be higher and enough to see off a challenge from one of the other challengers for now. That would buy him a bit of time to turn around the polls which in turn would allow him carry on in the medium term.
It is quite surreal that a serving UK PM should be relying on his party's candidate to lose a by-election in order to help his own survival prospects, but that is where we are at, I think. .
No, I think he is gone either way.
If Burnham wins then I expect Starmer to rapidly resign and an effective Burnham coronation.
If Labour under Starmer are so unpopular that even Burnham can't hold Makerfield, then the clamour will turn to who else can lead the Party and someone else will be needed.
The writing is on the wall either way.
The one thing that Starmer can do now is retire with a modicum of dignity and not be dragged out kicking and screaming.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
I don't think that Starmer has given up. He probably calculated that he might either have been unable to block Burnham or that if he had then it would have absolutely trashed his remaining credibility within the party, enough to ensure a leadership challenge then materialised and succeeded. He's probably calculated that Makerfield is no shoo in and that if he acts graciously towards accommodating Burnham but Burnham loses his stock will be higher and enough to see off a challenge from one of the other challengers for now. That would buy him a bit of time to turn around the polls which in turn would allow him carry on in the medium term.
It is quite surreal that a serving UK PM should be relying on his party's candidate to lose a by-election in order to help his own survival prospects, but that is where we are at, I think. .
No, I think he is gone either way.
If Burnham wins then I expect Starmer to rapidly resign and an effective Burnham coronation.
If Labour under Starmer are so unpopular that even Burnham can't hold Makerfield, then the clamour will turn to who else can lead the Party and someone else will be needed.
The writing is on the wall either way.
The one thing that Starmer can do now is retire with a modicum of dignity and not be dragged out kicking and screaming.
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
I think Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. There was no attempt by the NEC or Starmer to obstruct Burnham.
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
Yes, no choice. He didn't have the political capital to block it a 2nd time.
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
May I suggest he knows it is the end of his Premiership and maybe it is a burden removed as he can get back to his family and watching Arsenal
A nice thought. But no I don't think he views it as a burden removed.
For him personally, it would be better if he views it the way John Major did. Rather than eating him the way it did Brown.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
But tbf it was different with Major. He won a GE and then did his full term before losing fair and square in another GE.
SKS has done the first of those (bigtime) but is being denied the rest. He has a right to feel aggrieved.
Yes John Major had a good gig out of a very bad situation. He could have had a very short premiership, yet won an election against the odds and ran a full term and then lost an election he knew full well he was going to lose so no disappointment. I imagine he is one of the few PMs in modern history who wasn't disappointed in the end even though he lost.
"There are tides in the affairs of man ... etc"
Then off to the Oval.
A lovely exit which fitted nicely into what was for so many a lovely day.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
And Reform are rolling in it.
I find it remarkable that Rayner's stamp duty created considerably more interest than Nigel's £5m cash gift, his two questionable house purchases, and a £13m donation to his Reform organisation and all it would appear from a single Thai based crypto billionaire whose company Farage has spoken very highly of. Of course I am making no connection.
One is a rich person freely giving money to a slightly less rich person, because he agrees with that person's political views.
The other is a member of the actual government directly ripping off the tax-payer by failing to pay tax that was due, then lying about the advice she was given in various incoherent ways.
I'm completely unsurprised that the Rayner thing cut through more - it's fingers in the till stuff, and the public really doesn't like that. Nothing Farage has done has caused the taxpayer to lose out on a penny (indeed, he's probably paid a fortune in stamp duty!). The worst he can be accused of is not declaring his donations properly, which is a problem which has afflicted politicians of many different stripes over the years.
Name a UK politician who has failed to declare a donation of similar size.
Or even can you name a UK politician who has failed to declare a donation of a fifth as much?
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
FIFA have totally screwed the pooch on the pricing, and many of the tickets have been acquired by American touts who think there’s going to be a market to watch Cameroon play Moldova* in the group stage at $5,000 a ticket in an 80,000 seater stadium.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
I don't see how his IACGMOOH fee of £1.4m hasn't been taxed as income?
Presumably it would be taxed as dividends when he withdraws it from the media company?
Not surprised by this research. Slightly shocked it's been published in the Guardian though!
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
"Living Longer, Better – the Oxford Longevity Project’s first Age-less report – was co-authored by an interdisciplinary panel of UK-based experts in medicine, physiology, ageing and education policy. It was sponsored by Oxford Healthspan.
The report’s authors, Sir Christopher Ball, Sir Muir Gray, Dr Paul Ch’en, Leslie Kenny and Prof Denis Noble, present the figure of 80% as a conservative estimate.
Ball, a 91-year-old former Parachute regiment officer who intends to reach 100, said: “Some have gone higher and said it’s approaching 90%. But I think 80% seems about fair.”"
A fairly simple formula, but one that will have PB regulars clutching their pearls:
"The report’s recommendations include avoiding processed foods, abstaining entirely from alcohol, prioritising sleep, not eating after 6.30pm, and cultivating what it calls “a not-meat mindset”.
On alcohol, it takes a position more forthright than current government guidance. “Alcohol is toxic, don’t drink it,” said Ball. “The report bravely says so – whereas the government is afraid to tell the public the truth.”"
As John Mortimer once wisely opined "no pleasure is worth forgoing for an extra three years in the geriatric ward"
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
I don't see how his IACGMOOH fee of £1.4m hasn't been taxed as income?
Presumably it would be taxed as dividends when he withdraws it from the media company?
Yes and the cumulative rate when taken as company tax and dividend tax is designed to be similar. Leaving it in the company until it is liquidated would give a lower rate.
Not surprised by this research. Slightly shocked it's been published in the Guardian though!
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
"Living Longer, Better – the Oxford Longevity Project’s first Age-less report – was co-authored by an interdisciplinary panel of UK-based experts in medicine, physiology, ageing and education policy. It was sponsored by Oxford Healthspan.
The report’s authors, Sir Christopher Ball, Sir Muir Gray, Dr Paul Ch’en, Leslie Kenny and Prof Denis Noble, present the figure of 80% as a conservative estimate.
Ball, a 91-year-old former Parachute regiment officer who intends to reach 100, said: “Some have gone higher and said it’s approaching 90%. But I think 80% seems about fair.”"
A fairly simple formula, but one that will have PB regulars clutching their pearls:
"The report’s recommendations include avoiding processed foods, abstaining entirely from alcohol, prioritising sleep, not eating after 6.30pm, and cultivating what it calls “a not-meat mindset”.
On alcohol, it takes a position more forthright than current government guidance. “Alcohol is toxic, don’t drink it,” said Ball. “The report bravely says so – whereas the government is afraid to tell the public the truth.”"
As John Mortimer once wisely opined "no pleasure is worth forgoing for an extra three years in the geriatric ward"
Some of this is good advice, some is OTT nannying.
Surprisingly, I find the good advice fits with the changes I don't mind doing and the nannying covers the changes I don't want to do.
Not surprised by this research. Slightly shocked it's been published in the Guardian though!
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
"Living Longer, Better – the Oxford Longevity Project’s first Age-less report – was co-authored by an interdisciplinary panel of UK-based experts in medicine, physiology, ageing and education policy. It was sponsored by Oxford Healthspan.
The report’s authors, Sir Christopher Ball, Sir Muir Gray, Dr Paul Ch’en, Leslie Kenny and Prof Denis Noble, present the figure of 80% as a conservative estimate.
Ball, a 91-year-old former Parachute regiment officer who intends to reach 100, said: “Some have gone higher and said it’s approaching 90%. But I think 80% seems about fair.”"
A fairly simple formula, but one that will have PB regulars clutching their pearls:
"The report’s recommendations include avoiding processed foods, abstaining entirely from alcohol, prioritising sleep, not eating after 6.30pm, and cultivating what it calls “a not-meat mindset”.
On alcohol, it takes a position more forthright than current government guidance. “Alcohol is toxic, don’t drink it,” said Ball. “The report bravely says so – whereas the government is afraid to tell the public the truth.”"
As John Mortimer once wisely opined "no pleasure is worth forgoing for an extra three years in the geriatric ward"
"whereas the government is afraid to forego the tax from the public..."
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
In democracy the losing side means losing. Because someone has to win.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
Yes but you know what I mean. There's no vote available to express the 'I want to stick with Starmer' opinion.
There are.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
In theory yes Starmer can stand. But in practice the 'mo' behind AB if he wins here will sweep him to #10 - either unopposed or after beating Streeting.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
Lots of people's views do not have a candidate choice in lots of elections, particularly in FPTP elections. This is not unusual.
Yes but what's unusual is having no avenue to express support for the government.
Well, I can think of some examples...
2018 West Tyrone by-election, 2013 Mid Ulster by-election, etc. 2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election Tatton in the 1997 general election arguably Every time a sitting Speaker has contested a general election
And there have been plenty of by-elections where the party of government has clearly not been in the running, although there was a candidate available.
There you go - unusual!
Govt party bound to lose doesn't count. You can still vote them. NI is different kettle. Speaker isn't a contest. The DD vanity affair has elements, yes. As does Bell in his white suit.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Farage is often bad under pressure and gives stupid answers.
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
FIFA have totally screwed the pooch on the pricing, and many of the tickets have been acquired by American touts who think there’s going to be a market to watch Cameroon play Moldova* in the group stage at $5,000 a ticket in an 80,000 seater stadium.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
I read earlier that of the 7 games in Boston (5 group including 2 Scotland and 1 England, and 2 knock out games) only 34 000 tickets have been sold, so less than 5 000 per match, with less than a month to go.
My semi-final seats in St Petersburg 2018 were £120 each as I recall, and the stadium sold out, albeit I think a lot went to locals at a better price.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
FIFA have totally screwed the pooch on the pricing, and many of the tickets have been acquired by American touts who think there’s going to be a market to watch Cameroon play Moldova* in the group stage at $5,000 a ticket in an 80,000 seater stadium.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
Watching the ticket touts absolutely lose their arses would be as much fun as watching England in the final!
There’s 104 matches, and the stadia are all 80k capacity, so somewhere around 8m tickets in total. Plenty of ways to get absolutely screwed if you have hundreds of tix to get rid of, for matches that very few people have travelled to from the competitor nations outside very organised tour groups.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
I think you take the Northern line, but it is outside zone 2.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Farage is often bad under pressure and gives stupid answers.
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
Yep. he could just say 'I make a lot of money, as is clear from my HofC declarations and I can afford to buy a £1.4m house with cash so no I did not dip into the £5m gift'
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
I think you take the Northern line, but it is outside zone 2.
It's probably on the Edgware branch. I've never been past Brent Cross.
How the Labour Governments used the Distribution of Industry Act between 1945 to 1950 and 1964 to 70 and 74 to 79 to kill Birmingham through the prism of BSA and Austin It is is really, really good and explains how Birmingham was destroyed by a belief that Development Areas and New Towns were the future and as Birmingham was at full employment it could take de-investment. The Board of Trade de-invested in Birmingham killing BSA, and towards the end Austin-Rover and of course the city.
How the Labour Governments used the Distribution of Industry Act between 1945 to 1950 and 1964 to 70 and 74 to 79 to kill Birmingham through the prism of BSA and Austin It is is really, really good and explains how Birmingham was destroyed by a belief that Development Areas and New Towns were the future and as Birmingham was at full employment it could take de-investment. The Board of Trade de-invested in Birmingham killing BSA, and towards the end Austin-Rover and of course the city.
I've been talking about this on PB for years, although it never appeared that anyone was interested. In the early 1960s Birmingham and Coventry were the wealthiest cities in the country and a lot of people in London were very annoyed by that fact, so they did everything they could to mess things up for the West Midlands.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Farage is often bad under pressure and gives stupid answers.
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
Yep. he could just say 'I make a lot of money, as is clear from my HofC declarations and I can afford to buy a £1.4m house with cash so no I did not dip into the £5m gift'
One way of spotting a lie is that it's overly specific and detailed.
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
How the Labour Governments used the Distribution of Industry Act between 1945 to 1950 and 1964 to 70 and 74 to 79 to kill Birmingham through the prism of BSA and Austin It is is really, really good and explains how Birmingham was destroyed by a belief that Development Areas and New Towns were the future and as Birmingham was at full employment it could take de-investment. The Board of Trade de-invested in Birmingham killing BSA, and towards the end Austin-Rover and of course the city.
I've been talking about this on PB for years, although it never appeared that anyone was interested. In the early 1960s Birmingham and Coventry were the wealthiest cities in the country and a lot of people in London were very annoyed by that fact, so they did everything they could to mess things up for the West Midlands.
It is a good story, although it is very much focused from a partisan perspective. Although it pinpoints a single element which I think can be laid at the door of successive Labour Governments, it was not the only mistake that not only killed industrial Birmingham but industrial Britain.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
Why can’t I flag this as trolling?
Are the decommissioning costs included in this? I say this as someone who has supplied the nuclear industry and I certainly don’t want the goods back.
How the Labour Governments used the Distribution of Industry Act between 1945 to 1950 and 1964 to 70 and 74 to 79 to kill Birmingham through the prism of BSA and Austin It is is really, really good and explains how Birmingham was destroyed by a belief that Development Areas and New Towns were the future and as Birmingham was at full employment it could take de-investment. The Board of Trade de-invested in Birmingham killing BSA, and towards the end Austin-Rover and of course the city.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Farage is often bad under pressure and gives stupid answers.
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
Yep. he could just say 'I make a lot of money, as is clear from my HofC declarations and I can afford to buy a £1.4m house with cash so no I did not dip into the £5m gift'
One way of spotting a lie is that it's overly specific and detailed.
I thought of a very very rough and ready way to look at his profits, by working back from his Corporation Tax liability. This really is a dubious calculation but a really rough ballpark (and which could be wildly out) it looks like the profit was around £700k the year before jungle, £1.8m in the jungle year and £1.4m after the jungle year. But take those figure with a huge pinch of salt.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
I don't agree that Nige's financial question marks have had no impact. A number of people here responded to the initial reporting of the £5 million saying that nothing would stick because Farage is Trump-like in shrugging off such matters, while others bemoaned that it wasn't getting sufficient attention from the media.
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
If Farage faces a recall petition and there's then a by-election in Clacton, there's a chance for a Conservative or an independent win. Are there any betting markets on "will the Conservatives win a by-election" or similar?
Farage has claimed he has paid for the Surrey house out of his Jungle fee. The FT state this fee went into his company and hasn't been withdrawn.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
From the FT article:
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
Thanks for that @bondegezou . I was looking at 2024 and 2025 not 2023. I can now see the cash in hand went up £1,409k. Obviously if it was going into his company tax wouldn't be paid on the receipt at that time, but Corporation tax later. His liabilities increased significantly and the note on that shows the increase was due to the increased Corporation Tax liability as you would expect.
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Farage is often bad under pressure and gives stupid answers.
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
Yep. he could just say 'I make a lot of money, as is clear from my HofC declarations and I can afford to buy a £1.4m house with cash so no I did not dip into the £5m gift'
One way of spotting a lie is that it's overly specific and detailed.
I thought of a very very rough and ready way to look at his profits, by working back from his Corporation Tax liability. This really is a dubious calculation but a really rough ballpark (and which could be wildly out) it looks like the profit was around £700k the year before jungle, £1.8m in the jungle year and £1.4m after the jungle year. But take those figure with a huge pinch of salt.
Which raises the further question. Why does a man with such an income need £5 million for "security"?
An interesting transport project which has been approved for the Hope Valley in teh Peak District.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
I may be wrong, but I suspect this will just mean loads of empty buses cloging up the roads - I think that's been the fate of most similar initiatives.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
I'd recommend the presentation. They are very intentional about calling it "Mini Switzerland" (obvs the name is modelled on the Mini Holland active travel projects in London under Boris Johnson, rather than say "linked timetable project", as there is intended to be adoption of a number of ways Swiss Transport is run, and because Hope Valley is isolated with Sheffield at one end and GM at the other it is a good place to try. Plus there is upside as perhaps 1/3 of the population in those cities do not have motor vehicles.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
Me? I don't even know where Derbyshire is. I'm a North Londoner. Events outside zone 6 baffle and confuse me.
Comments
There might not be many such people given he is the most despised UK politician since the end of the Bronze Age but what about those residents of Makerfield who rate Keir Starmer and prefer him as PM to Andy Burnham? Eg Labour people, or others, who think he's doing a good job and wish him to carry on and serve his full term.
They are essentially disenfranchised here, aren't they?
He has welcomed his own political assasin.
The real question to voters is that given SKS gets the boot either way, how much do they want to smack AB in the face - and it does have to be said, Weathervane Andy seems pretty punchable to me.
That’s not being disenfranchised.
Everyone gets a punt at it. But winning is… winning.
They'll be counting the pimples on the shower floor with their kit.
"Hope Valley Mini Switzerland".
It's a 3 year experiment in integrated rural transport, coordinating Bus / Rail timetables as happens across Switzerland, and integrating ticketing. A slice of London or Manchester practice in a rural area. The process was that a former director of TFL, senior Manager in Chiltern Railways had an idea, developed the concept, advertised for areas interested, asked for Govt approval, and received it.
He knows how to do things, as it took little more than a year
It has measured ("as long as use of private cars is not restricted") support from the Ref UK head of Derbyshire County Council.
A video presentation:
https://youtu.be/L7CisqbxSjY?t=676
BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwywvrpv3xzo
Give it up Kemi it's absolute bullcrap
Well, a few weeks on, the story has very much not gone away, with numerous follow-up stories. Farage has appeared rattled and has been hiding from the media precisely when Reform need their best campaigner visible. There is probably much more to come. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating and will report: it is hard to imagine that he won't be critical of Farage's choices. The question is only how critical. The plausible end of the range of likely options include Farage being suspended from Parliament for long enough to trigger a recall petition.
Very few things shift the polls, so I don't know if this will. Nor am I brave enough to predict it will definitely be a key point in the Makerfield campaign. But I definitely wouldn't conclude it's not an issue and Farage has gotten away with it.
Add on the hotels pisstaking and block bookings, and host cities playing very silly buggers with travel and parking, and it’s not difficult to see an awful lot of schoolkids on standby to fill the empty seats.
Burnham getting elected doesn’t mean he gets the job.
Then he has to mount a challenge - get enough MPs to back him. Then the members of the party. And ultimately back to the MPs to decide they will have him as PM (nominal after the Labour internal election, but that’s there)
After all that is when the King gives him the job.
In the very likely leadership challenge, the option to vote for Starmer will be there. Unless he decides nit to run. As I understand it it’s automatic that he’s on the leadership election, if he wants it.
I am not at all sure that is on voters lists at present as horrible as it is
I'm impressed with his composure in public actually. It's a pretty gruesome situation he's in.
Someone gave Nigel 5 Bernies. Now that’s going to the authorities to work out if that is wrong or not. Once you’ve written that, what else is there.
With the stamp duty thing, it was the attempted coverup and excuses that kept the story going. Everyday a fresh piece of the puzzle. Note that once the excuses, rebuttals etc ended, the story dropped off the news until the recent HMRC response.
Meanwhile, I hope everyone knows who cut US ebola funding? Elon Musk and his DOGE: https://www.wired.com/story/how-trumps-aid-cuts-are-fueling-the-ebola-outbreak/ and https://www.newsweek.com/did-trump-and-doge-cut-ebola-funding-what-we-know-as-outbreak-surges-11969867
However it is actually cheaper and easier to cut wind generation than nuclear because Nuclear is too expensive to use for balancing due to the restarting issue, it is best to run continuously. Balancing can be done easier with wind.
However if we went gas and expanded nuclear then we would need to use gas for balancing and that would work out much more expensive than using wind.
Take it with pinch of salt because I used AI but the relative balancing figure are £380m wind v £1.08bn for gas!
Peter.
* initial stories around Farage getting £5 million and him talking about his security
* stories around Farage later defending himself in an interview and giving a somewhat different explanation of the donation, a reward for years of campaigning for Brexit
* stories around whether the money was used to buy his house
* Farage/Reform say the house was bought with I'm a Celebrity money
* FT works out that the house wasn't bought with I'm a Celebrity money
* Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards opening an investigation
In the meantime Rayner was quite justifiably forced to stand down. I am assuming Nigey is considering his options.
So how would a hypothetical Me vote in Makerfield to show support for Keir Starmer?
Can't do Labour because that's a vote against him. Can't do any opposition party because ditto. Abstain? Achieves nothing.
I suppose all I could do is spoil my ballot by writing "I WANT KEIR TO STAY" across it.
If a few thousand do that it might have some cut-through.
Perhaps that was always his role. To make Labour electable then hand over. A sort of defensive midfielder who regains the ball then passes to a more creative striker.
The evidence is the way he performed in response to Kemi Badenoch calling her a little ray of sunshine etc. He was so relaxed and human. The stress had gone. He was transformed.
I have looked up his companies. He is only a shareholder in 3. 2 are Reform companies and the other is Thorn in their side Ltd
This company does not need an audit and can submit reduced accounts, which does not include a P&L and there is no information on dividends or salary required or presented.
So this begs the question:
a) How does the FT know the money went into his company and hasn't since been taken out. The cash in bank has only gone up £260k so he may have taken a dividend or salary and of course the latest accounts haven't been filed yet and won't be for sometime.
b) Why did Farage say the Jungle earnings paid for his Surrey house? After all he has lots of other earnings and are they all via his company or charged directly by him? Him stating that seemed like a hostage to fortune. He can no doubt afford the £1.4m without the £5m bung and probably with cash, if he took a big enough dividend, or used any money he kept from gigs that doesn't go through his company and is in his personal account.
I'm not getting where the FT or Farage are coming from with this. I don't understand what the FT think they have on him and I don't understand his defence.
"At least 80% responsibility for ill health in old age down to individual, study says
UK report argues people have greater control over longevity than widely understood, but others say claim is simplistic"
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/20/responsibility-ill-health-old-age-oxford-longevity-project-study
"Living Longer, Better – the Oxford Longevity Project’s first Age-less report – was co-authored by an interdisciplinary panel of UK-based experts in medicine, physiology, ageing and education policy. It was sponsored by Oxford Healthspan.
The report’s authors, Sir Christopher Ball, Sir Muir Gray, Dr Paul Ch’en, Leslie Kenny and Prof Denis Noble, present the figure of 80% as a conservative estimate.
Ball, a 91-year-old former Parachute regiment officer who intends to reach 100, said: “Some have gone higher and said it’s approaching 90%. But I think 80% seems about fair.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/20/responsibility-ill-health-old-age-oxford-longevity-project-study
"Priced in" ... oh really.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
Not to mention Liz Truss’s descent into whatever it is that she has descended to.
That said, making the bus timetable work with the train times seems like common sense 101, which is presumably why we don't generally do it.
It is quite surreal that a serving UK PM should be relying on his party's candidate to lose a by-election in order to help his own survival prospects, but that is where we are at, I think.
.
But tbf it was different with Major. He won a GE and then did his full term before losing fair and square in another GE.
SKS has done the first of those (bigtime) but is being denied the rest. He has a right to feel aggrieved.
Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC [...] that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax [...]
The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.
The company’s cash position increased from £1.7mn to £2mn between May 2024 and May 2025.
So, you can see the I'm a Celebrity money going into his personal media company's accounts in the 2023/4 year, and you can see the money is still there after the house is bought. Therefore, the money wasn't taken out at the time. Now, it is possible that the company had some other, unknown income of the same size which explains those figures, but it's unlikely.
"I LOVE OUR COUNTRY...AND ONE OF THE THINGS I LOVE IS GOOD MANNERS"
Chancellor Rachel Reeves confronts an angry heckler moments ago in a petrol station in Leeds
The other is a member of the actual government directly ripping off the tax-payer by failing to pay tax that was due, then lying about the advice she was given in various incoherent ways.
I'm completely unsurprised that the Rayner thing cut through more - it's fingers in the till stuff, and the public really doesn't like that. Nothing Farage has done has caused the taxpayer to lose out on a penny (indeed, he's probably paid a fortune in stamp duty!). The worst he can be accused of is not declaring his donations properly, which is a problem which has afflicted politicians of many different stripes over the years.
I ask because Oddschecker has them offering 13/5 odds on Burnham to be next PM, at a time when every other betting company has Burnham in a range from 4/5 down to 8/15 on. Quite bizarre if 13/5 is actually being offered.
Not so sure Starmer will achieve that. He can feel as aggrieved as he likes. But not with any justification.
2018 West Tyrone by-election, 2013 Mid Ulster by-election, etc.
2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election
Tatton in the 1997 general election arguably
Every time a sitting Speaker has contested a general election
And there have been plenty of by-elections where the party of government has clearly not been in the running, although there was a candidate available.
If Burnham wins then I expect Starmer to rapidly resign and an effective Burnham coronation.
If Labour under Starmer are so unpopular that even Burnham can't hold Makerfield, then the clamour will turn to who else can lead the Party and someone else will be needed.
The writing is on the wall either way.
The one thing that Starmer can do now is retire with a modicum of dignity and not be dragged out kicking and screaming.
If Burnham wins then I expect Starmer to rapidly resign and an effective Burnham coronation.
If Labour under Starmer are so unpopular that even Burnham can't hold Makerfield, then the clamour will turn to who else can lead the Party and someone else will be needed.
The writing is on the wall either way.
The one thing that Starmer can do now is retire with a modicum of dignity and not be dragged out kicking and screaming.
Then off to the Oval.
A lovely exit which fitted nicely into what was for so many a lovely day.
Or even can you name a UK politician who has failed to declare a donation of a fifth as much?
In Toronto there is a law restricting resale price to the original listed price:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/1t5n7ug/toronto_world_cup_tickets_now_officially_cannot/#lightbox
"The report’s recommendations include avoiding processed foods, abstaining entirely from alcohol, prioritising sleep, not eating after 6.30pm, and cultivating what it calls “a not-meat mindset”.
On alcohol, it takes a position more forthright than current government guidance. “Alcohol is toxic, don’t drink it,” said Ball. “The report bravely says so – whereas the government is afraid to tell the public the truth.”"
As John Mortimer once wisely opined "no pleasure is worth forgoing for an extra three years in the geriatric ward"
Makerfield council confirm election to take place on Thursday 18th June
Surprisingly, I find the good advice fits with the changes I don't mind doing and the nannying covers the changes I don't want to do.
Men bullying a woman is not a good look
OK so that does look to be a bit of a coincidence, but what you don't know is whether Farage's company actually earns £1 - £1.5m every year and pays it out to him as a dividend every year (so it looks pretty neutral without the benefit of a P/L) which isn't unreasonable, but in the Jungle year the earns were £2.5 - £3m, but still only £1 - £1.5m were paid out in dividends.
However that begs the question as to why Farage said he bought the house with the Jungle earnings if he only used his normal dividend earnings.
So I conclude:
The FT might be onto to something, but only because Farage has given a stupid answer. The FT has no idea (I assume) what he takes in dividends normally
Govt party bound to lose doesn't count. You can still vote them. NI is different kettle. Speaker isn't a contest. The DD vanity affair has elements, yes. As does Bell in his white suit.
But nothing quite like this one.
Swiss methods they are embracing aiui include the bus waiting if the train is a few minutes wait, an hourly timetable throughout the day (extra services).
One interesting challenge is that according to someone at the online presentation who lives in Sheffield and walks in the Peaks often Sunday buses hardly exists in Derbyshire (it's the other end from me, so I don't know in detail; @bondegezou might know more).
I guess the question is whether Farage is just bad under pressure and gives stupid answers, or whether he's hiding something, which is causing him to give stupid answers. If the truth is unpalatable, he felt he needed to come up with a lie?
My semi-final seats in St Petersburg 2018 were £120 each as I recall, and the stadium sold out, albeit I think a lot went to locals at a better price.
There’s 104 matches, and the stadia are all 80k capacity, so somewhere around 8m tickets in total. Plenty of ways to get absolutely screwed if you have hundreds of tix to get rid of, for matches that very few people have travelled to from the competitor nations outside very organised tour groups.
How the Labour Governments used the Distribution of Industry Act between 1945 to 1950 and 1964 to 70 and 74 to 79 to kill Birmingham through the prism of BSA and Austin It is is really, really good and explains how Birmingham was destroyed by a belief that Development Areas and New Towns were the future and as Birmingham was at full employment it could take de-investment. The Board of Trade de-invested in Birmingham killing BSA, and towards the end Austin-Rover and of course the city.
https://youtu.be/PgBkikcTITM?si=bqk4J5MLPHlMEkMp
The eyes of the entire nation, and its fate on Hindley and Stubshaw Cross.
What a time to be alive!
Though it is clear that you need to visit ad enjoy Derbyshire, the county with a bit of everything.
I enjoyed the film for what it was.
Are the decommissioning costs included in this? I say this as someone who has supplied the nuclear industry and I certainly don’t want the goods back.
Why does a man with such an income need £5 million for "security"?