Labour members will overwhelmingly choose Burnham over Starmer hence why an election will be pointless.
I disagree to an extent. Having an election where you get a very clear result can be a good thing. Gives validity.
I agree with Battery - Starmer will read the writing on the wall and bow out. He may do something mean-spirited on the way out like reduce the PM's salary or sell Chequers to reduce the national debt or something.
No he won't reduce the PMs salary or sell Chequers or anything of the sort. He'll bow out and say "it was the honour of my life".
The Labour left require only 80 MPs to put up one of their own, don't they ?
How unlikely is that ?
They didn't have anywhere close to that number before 2017, so did they have enough selected and elected in 2017 and 2019? (Mandelson did selections in 2024, so unlikely to have put many lefty candidates in.)
I would be surprised if there were 80 MPs willing to nominate a representative of the socialist campaign group. Even if there were 80 of them we already know that plenty are on the Burnham bandwagon - Clive Lewis for example.
So the camper van was listed as an "asset" in the accounts, valued at just over £80,000. It spent its final days in Dunfermline before being impounded.
One wonders if Johnston Carmichael, the former auditors hired Zippy, George and Bungle for a spot of auditing during the period in question.
Not sure that’s right. My recollection of the accounts was that there were about £80k of vehicles altogether. I went looking for the camper van but couldn’t find it in the accounts at all. Nor was there any clear evidence of how it was paid for. Which led me to speculate about a second set of accounts and slush funds of undeclared donations.
Can’t help thinking that this was far messier than the plea makes it.
Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400,000+ from the SNP whilst married to Sturgeon who happened to be First Minister, and had no knowledge of it pitching the SNP into internal divisions and recriminations
Labour in civil war, with Burnham looking to oust Starmer and the left thinking Burgon may be the answer
Reform and Restore at each other's throats and Farage under investigation over the £5 million gift or whatever
The Greens unable to decide whether to fight Makerfield
Indeed we seem to be left with the conservatives, lib dems, and plaid as the only parties without internal divisions
I'm sure the Conservatives will be divided again the next time they get a sniff of power.
The Conservatives are divided. They've divided themselves between the Conservative Party and Reform UK.
Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400,000+ from the SNP whilst married to Sturgeon who happened to be First Minister, and had no knowledge of it pitching the SNP into internal divisions and recriminations
Labour in civil war, with Burnham looking to oust Starmer and the left thinking Burgon may be the answer
Reform and Restore at each other's throats and Farage under investigation over the £5 million gift or whatever
The Greens unable to decide whether to fight Makerfield
Indeed we seem to be left with the conservatives, lib dems, and plaid as the only parties without internal divisions
"Labour in civil war"
More than just a little bit of wishcasting on your part there Big_G.
Well what would you call the party attempting to unseat yet another PM, this time less than 2 years from a landslide and now the left talking of Burgon
The left is not "talking of Burgon" - don't believe what you read. It may surprise folk (though it shouldn't), but most of us on the left of the Labour Party don't take Burgon remotely seriously. So much so that if he were up against, say, Streeting, I think most of us would vote for Streeting.
The fact that The Times political reporters see fit to run such dross is a good reminder that some things are better left hidden behind a paywall.
As for Big G's claim about "civil war", now that Burnham has found a potentially viable route to becoming PM and is pointing the way out of the morass that Starmer has got Labour into, in this neck of the woods the party on the ground is more united and with better morale than I've seen for a long while.
The party maybe but the general public just see division and disunity
You're looking in the wrong window, the Labour one is over the road, you're looking in to the Tory window about to crack apart
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't think Restore are going to do as well in the by-election as a lot of people seem to think.
I really hope they don't. For all the 'lols' of a split on the hard right benefiting Labour the thought of an outfit like that (message: Farage is too moderate) getting a big vote in a nothing out of the ordinary place like Makerfield would be incredibly worrying.
It would signify the digital reach and influence of Elon Musk.
Exactly. Which is baleful in the extreme (other than his rockets).
Labour members will overwhelmingly choose Burnham over Starmer hence why an election will be pointless.
I disagree to an extent. Having an election where you get a very clear result can be a good thing. Gives validity.
I agree with Battery - Starmer will read the writing on the wall and bow out. He may do something mean-spirited on the way out like reduce the PM's salary or sell Chequers to reduce the national debt or something.
No he won't reduce the PMs salary or sell Chequers or anything of the sort. He'll bow out and say "it was the honour of my life".
He should put the PM's salary up, if it is within his power, if for no reason other than to stop lots of other people in the country getting shit because they earn more than the PM.
My first thought when I saw Restore were claiming 18% support from canvas returns was the Survation poll showing them at 7% was probably about right.
When I did this sort of thing back in the day, I soon realised there were fools, damn fools and people who believed their own canvas returns.
It may be the quality of canvasser isn't what it is in the good old days but I well remember in 1997 the incredulity of Conservatives losing seats on huge swings yet their canvas numbers showed them holding on.
Canvassing is of course only about identifying your supporters but the art is knowing when someone who says they will support you is either lying or saying what they think you want to hear (the British public learnt how to do this long before Boris Johnson).
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
Oh it gets worse. Here's some of what's already on wiki:
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
So the camper van was listed as an "asset" in the accounts, valued at just over £80,000. It spent its final days in Dunfermline before being impounded.
One wonders if Johnston Carmichael, the former auditors hired Zippy, George and Bungle for a spot of auditing during the period in question.
Not sure that’s right. My recollection of the accounts was that there were about £80k of vehicles altogether. I went looking for the camper van but couldn’t find it in the accounts at all. Nor was there any clear evidence of how it was paid for. Which led me to speculate about a second set of accounts and slush funds of undeclared donations.
Can’t help thinking that this was far messier than the plea makes it.
Apologies, my source is below, I should have double checked
80k must be the total value of all vehicles? the camper van could be part this, given the media hysteria over it. I can't see how it can't be listed in the accounts if he used party money to pay for part of it.
Need to get on the desktop and have a proper look at this list. If he only used SNP funds as part of the purchase, who owned the rest of it? It seems to be the biggest ticket item on the list. Looks like there was a transaction of around 124.5k for the camper
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
When you say "massive shagger" do you mean sexual predator and misogynist?
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
Tomorrow 35 degrees in London, Wednesday 27th only 24 degrees.
So the camper van was listed as an "asset" in the accounts, valued at just over £80,000. It spent its final days in Dunfermline before being impounded.
My first thought when I saw Restore were claiming 18% support from canvas returns was the Survation poll showing them at 7% was probably about right.
When I did this sort of thing back in the day, I soon realised there were fools, damn fools and people who believed their own canvas returns.
It may be the quality of canvasser isn't what it is in the good old days but I well remember in 1997 the incredulity of Conservatives losing seats on huge swings yet their canvas numbers showed them holding on.
Canvassing is of course only about identifying your supporters but the art is knowing when someone who says they will support you is either lying or saying what they think you want to hear (the British public learnt how to do this long before Boris Johnson).
How many votes did Restore get in the locals in Makerfield?
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I can just about believe Sturgeon didn't know what her husband was up to on a "I have no curiosity" basis. But several people more directly involved in SNP governance should be facing some very difficult questions, in particular the former party treasurer
My first thought when I saw Restore were claiming 18% support from canvas returns was the Survation poll showing them at 7% was probably about right.
When I did this sort of thing back in the day, I soon realised there were fools, damn fools and people who believed their own canvas returns.
It may be the quality of canvasser isn't what it is in the good old days but I well remember in 1997 the incredulity of Conservatives losing seats on huge swings yet their canvas numbers showed them holding on.
Canvassing is of course only about identifying your supporters but the art is knowing when someone who says they will support you is either lying or saying what they think you want to hear (the British public learnt how to do this long before Boris Johnson).
How many votes did Restore get in the locals in Makerfield?
I don't know - they didn't stand any candidates unless Independents explcitly identified themselves as supporting Restore.
My first thought when I saw Restore were claiming 18% support from canvas returns was the Survation poll showing them at 7% was probably about right.
When I did this sort of thing back in the day, I soon realised there were fools, damn fools and people who believed their own canvas returns.
It may be the quality of canvasser isn't what it is in the good old days but I well remember in 1997 the incredulity of Conservatives losing seats on huge swings yet their canvas numbers showed them holding on.
Canvassing is of course only about identifying your supporters but the art is knowing when someone who says they will support you is either lying or saying what they think you want to hear (the British public learnt how to do this long before Boris Johnson).
How many votes did Restore get in the locals in Makerfield?
Another question to ask specifically of the SNP, not Mr Murrell, is where is the rest of the ring fenced 600k? Does it appear in the accounts? Murrell was only originally charged on the disappearance of around 459k
According to Rev Campbell, it has been "frittered away on other SNP s***"
I don't think Restore are going to do as well in the by-election as a lot of people seem to think.
I really hope they don't. For all the 'lols' of a split on the hard right benefiting Labour the thought of an outfit like that (message: Farage is too moderate) getting a big vote in a nothing out of the ordinary place like Makerfield would be incredibly worrying.
It would signify the digital reach and influence of Elon Musk.
Hello, P.B. Indeed, it would certainly be troubling if Musk could get that many people to vote for what are essentially an openly fascist party.
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400,000+ from the SNP whilst married to Sturgeon who happened to be First Minister, and had no knowledge of it pitching the SNP into internal divisions and recriminations
Labour in civil war, with Burnham looking to oust Starmer and the left thinking Burgon may be the answer
Reform and Restore at each other's throats and Farage under investigation over the £5 million gift or whatever
The Greens unable to decide whether to fight Makerfield
Indeed we seem to be left with the conservatives*, lib dems, and plaid as the only parties without internal divisions
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately told evangelical leader and Trump ally Mike Evans that he was ready to recognize Israel “today,” but that his father, King Salman, remained the obstacle.
So the camper van was listed as an "asset" in the accounts, valued at just over £80,000. It spent its final days in Dunfermline before being impounded.
One wonders if Johnston Carmichael, the former auditors hired Zippy, George and Bungle for a spot of auditing during the period in question.
Joanna Cherry KC (former SNP MP) is illuminating on how the SNP high-ups sought to take down anyone who was concerned about the party's finances. Many of these are still at the top, including Kirsten Oswald, just returned to Holyrood. and given a ministerial job by Swinney.
Murrell's decision to plead guilty means, of course, that there will not be a trial and he won't be cross-examined. The bodies will remain well and truly buried. He's a bit more loyal to the SNP than he appears.
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
Oh it gets worse. Here's some of what's already on wiki:
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
Some of those things are bad, but some are trumped up bilge.
'Facebook friends' doesn't indicate active participation in or even knowledge of their political campaigns, and if there were such information, it would be in this resume. I haven't got a clue what most of my Facebook friends are up to.
This - "[posts] focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing." - are these things not linked to immigration and policing? That's a fairly bizarre 'allegation'.
And I question the validity of any source that lists using Twitter to 'express support for Donald Trump' as automatically some sort of crime.
Whoever wrote the above is pretty far down their own rabbit hole I would suggest.
Nevertheless, he is a bit of a messy candidate to be sure.
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
Hottest May day on record is slightly more than "a couple of hot days".
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
He admitted: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am”
I very much fear that we are circling round the same plughole as the USA.
Farage and his cronies are just so obviously a bunch of bad 'uns, and its all in PLAIN SIGHT, just as it was (and is) with Trump. But, no-one cares.
Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.
Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”...
Martin said: “An aspiring prime minister has essentially claimed that Russia has launched an unprecedentedly aggressive intervention – a malicious intervention – in British politics, and he’s not produced a shred of evidence to support that claim.
“He’s made a serious foreign policy and national security allegation which if true would have massive implications for British policy towards Russia.
“It is a very, very serious thing to allege. It would be a national security issue. If it is true, the government should be in emergency session in COBR right now considering their response to the most serious Russian intervention in internal British affairs for years.”
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
Hottest May day on record is slightly more than "a couple of hot days".
Also saw talk of the hottest bank holiday ever- kind of makes sense, given that late August is in the very early hints of autumn.
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
It's a bit too late for that now isn't it? Nigel already owns and runs the party, not sure there's any amount of vetting in the world that can make him squeaky clean.
Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400,000+ from the SNP whilst married to Sturgeon who happened to be First Minister, and had no knowledge of it pitching the SNP into internal divisions and recriminations
Labour in civil war, with Burnham looking to oust Starmer and the left thinking Burgon may be the answer
Reform and Restore at each other's throats and Farage under investigation over the £5 million gift or whatever
The Greens unable to decide whether to fight Makerfield
Indeed we seem to be left with the conservatives, lib dems, and plaid as the only parties without internal divisions
"Labour in civil war"
More than just a little bit of wishcasting on your part there Big_G.
The Tories have given up.
Half of them have given up. The question is whether the remainder can make a go of it and rebuild.
I think the most likely scenario on the right is a medium term revival of the Conservatives after Reform have been tried and maybe found out, possibly some time in the early 2030s.
But that implies that the Conservatives should avoid being part of the Reform led coalition that the current polling suggests is possible, and I doubt they could avoid that temptation if the alternative is a lefty government.
But of course, in today's volatile climate, who really knows?
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
Well, they'd have been bored of listening to her speak from her daily COVID briefings, so she was doing them a favour really.
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
He admitted: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am”
He's clearly very anti-abortion - maybe fanciful but perhaps a personal experience?
Abortion has exploded in recent years. Kenyon isn't the person to say it (and nor am I), and a woman must always have the right to choose, but abortion as contraception is a pretty grisly concept.
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
He admitted: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am”
Sorrynotsorry, as the young people say.
In a way, it highlights how talented Nigel Farage is as a purveyor of socially reactionary comments. He knows how to flash an ankle of fash; most of his rivals on the right insist on dropping their trousers completely.
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
I don't think we've heard the end of this one yet.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately told evangelical leader and Trump ally Mike Evans that he was ready to recognize Israel “today,” but that his father, King Salman, remained the obstacle.
So... King Salman accidentally falls down a flight of stairs, under a bus (driven by a newly enfranchised-but-shortly-to-be-executed woman), then into an elaborate demonstration set up of lawn mower technology at the 'Prince Mohammed Lawn Mower Tech Expo'? Then the prince assumes the throne and entirely forgets about recognising Israel?
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
Oh it gets worse. Here's some of what's already on wiki:
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
Some of those things are bad, but some are trumped up bilge.
'Facebook friends' doesn't indicate active participation in or even knowledge of their political campaigns, and if there were such information, it would be in this resume. I haven't got a clue what most of my Facebook friends are up to.
This - "[posts] focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing." - are these things not linked to immigration and policing? That's a fairly bizarre 'allegation'.
And I question the validity of any source that lists using Twitter to 'express support for Donald Trump' as automatically some sort of crime.
Whoever wrote the above is pretty far down their own rabbit hole I would suggest.
Nevertheless, he is a bit of a messy candidate to be sure.
"Messy candidate"? Yeah, right.
First Goodwin, then this guy. Both seriously weird, and the very best Reform can find to contest massive by-elections.
The sad fact is that Reform have, basically, attracted a whole army of opportunists and wingnuts who, hitherto, would never have found a berth in a serious political party. But things have decayed to the point that there is, apparently, a not inconsiderable chance that they could end up in Govt. We have seen this in the USA - which is how lowlifes and nutcases like Lutnick, Witkoff and RFK are running the administration. We need to wake up.
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
When you say "massive shagger" do you mean sexual predator and misogynist?
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
So the camper van was listed as an "asset" in the accounts, valued at just over £80,000. It spent its final days in Dunfermline before being impounded.
One wonders if Johnston Carmichael, the former auditors hired Zippy, George and Bungle for a spot of auditing during the period in question.
Joanna Cherry KC (former SNP MP) is illuminating on how the SNP high-ups sought to take down anyone who was concerned about the party's finances. Many of these are still at the top, including Kirsten Oswald, just returned to Holyrood. and given a ministerial job by Swinney.
Murrell's decision to plead guilty means, of course, that there will not be a trial and he won't be cross-examined. The bodies will remain well and truly buried. He's a bit more loyal to the SNP than he appears.
Cherry of course resigned from the SNP NEC back in 2021 as she didn't feel there was proper scrutiny and transparency within the party leadership.
It was Sturgeon's party, you either bowed down to her tune or you were out. Oswald clearly on team Sturgeon.
The most incriminating thing against Sturgeon so far is the leaked video of her during covid time (2021?) telling party members not to worry themselves about the party finances.
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
Well, they'd have been bored of listening to her speak from her daily COVID briefings, so she was doing them a favour really.
I'd say its the cops own fault. If they had given her a lectern, she would still be speaking now
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately told evangelical leader and Trump ally Mike Evans that he was ready to recognize Israel “today,” but that his father, King Salman, remained the obstacle.
I can just about believe Sturgeon didn't know what her husband was up to on a "I have no curiosity" basis. But several people more directly involved in SNP governance should be facing some very difficult questions, in particular the former party treasurer
Start pulling on that thread and you'd possibly end up wondering if there were some data protection/GDPR questions to be asked about repurposing information gathered during #indyref for party-political membership and voter targetting drives at the election afterwards. I should be entirely clear that of course there were none. Not a single question or breach of even the whiff of the spirit of the law.
A mad socialist on Reddit sums up the comparison well.
Farage is a political snake with zero values other than what benefits himself the most. He will co-opt what ever issue he needs to build himself more power.
Lowe is a zealot. He genuinely believes in the things he is saying, and if he somehow gets the power to implement the vision, he will do it regardless of any negative consequences for himself.
Both are incredibly dangerous. It would be a disaster for the country if either of them get to be in charge.
Perhaps someone has already raised this point, but I can't help wondering whether others in the SNP had reason to be suspicious of Murrell. And, if so, what they did about it.
(In my experience, some of those doing the actual work almost always know when something is wrong in an organization.)
Reform have basically this next election to try and if they fail that’s it for Farage I think
If they fail, then he'll be LOTO. I'm sure he'd have great fun throwing proverbial rotten fruit at Mr Entitled of Manchester every Wednesday lunchtime.
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
Oh it gets worse. Here's some of what's already on wiki:
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
Some of those things are bad, but some are trumped up bilge.
'Facebook friends' doesn't indicate active participation in or even knowledge of their political campaigns, and if there were such information, it would be in this resume. I haven't got a clue what most of my Facebook friends are up to.
This - "[posts] focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing." - are these things not linked to immigration and policing? That's a fairly bizarre 'allegation'.
And I question the validity of any source that lists using Twitter to 'express support for Donald Trump' as automatically some sort of crime.
Whoever wrote the above is pretty far down their own rabbit hole I would suggest.
Nevertheless, he is a bit of a messy candidate to be sure.
"Messy candidate"? Yeah, right.
First Goodwin, then this guy. Both seriously weird, and the very best Reform can find to contest massive by-elections.
The sad fact is that Reform have, basically, attracted a whole army of opportunists and wingnuts who, hitherto, would never have found a berth in a serious political party. But things have decayed to the point that there is, apparently, a not inconsiderable chance that they could end up in Govt. We have seen this in the USA - which is how lowlifes and nutcases like Lutnick, Witkoff and RFK are running the administration. We need to wake up.
Not 'the very best' that Reform could find in this case - the very best most local that they could find.
Anyway. We now know a lot (hopefully everything) about the plumber. None of it is remotely enough to finish him, so let's see how he deals with it.
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
Hottest May day on record is slightly more than "a couple of hot days".
Also saw talk of the hottest bank holiday ever- kind of makes sense, given that late August is in the very early hints of autumn.
While obviously I am not cheerleading climate change - after what feels like a long, long wait for shorts weather - today has been just lovely. If it were to stay like this until late August I would not complain.
A mad socialist on Reddit sums up the comparison well.
Farage is a political snake with zero values other than what benefits himself the most. He will co-opt what ever issue he needs to build himself more power.
Lowe is a zealot. He genuinely believes in the things he is saying, and if he somehow gets the power to implement the vision, he will do it regardless of any negative consequences for himself.
Both are incredibly dangerous. It would be a disaster for the country if either of them get to be in charge.
Farage is much more in the Trump/Orban mould. Lowe as I often mention is more in the early Moseley mould, despite being quite a bit older. A rather self-regardimg and self-important, but also angry and resentful, posh fascist.
Perhaps someone has already raised this point, but I can't help wondering whether others in the SNP had reason to be suspicious of Murrell. And, if so, what they did about it.
(In my experience, some of those doing the actual work almost always know when something is wrong in an organization.)
I alluded to it in the header, I've worked/investigated these type of situations those people did know didn't think it was nefarious, it was something along the lines of the guilty are overworked and disorganised and allowances should be made.
One instance I dealt with somebody whose signed off someone's expenses without thinking about it because they were a good bloke, seemingly oblivious to the fact that person's expenses went from £5,000 a month (with receipts) to closer to £20,000 a month (without receipts).
What worries me more than a bit is that Burnham's strengths, as that piece points out so well are empathy, a willingness to listen and a desire to be seen to solve problems. His weaknesses are the detail, the hard choices that detail requires and the ability to prioritise.
What PM Burnham needs is what Cameron needed. Someone like Osborne who loves the detail, feels no need whatsoever to be nice to anyone and is willing to take almost endless flak to let his boss remain serene. Unfortunately people like that are rare and in politics almost unheard of. I don't see anyone like that in Labour. Miliband might be closest but unfortunately he is mad.
When I saw the plumber, not a family man, and also not terrible looking and with quite a plausible expression to him that probably makes female customers think 'I can tame him', it crossed my mind that he was probably a massive shagger and that it could be an issue. Let's hope comments about Carol Vorderman's southern hemisphere are as bad as it gets.
Oh it gets worse. Here's some of what's already on wiki:
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
Some of those things are bad, but some are trumped up bilge.
'Facebook friends' doesn't indicate active participation in or even knowledge of their political campaigns, and if there were such information, it would be in this resume. I haven't got a clue what most of my Facebook friends are up to.
This - "[posts] focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing." - are these things not linked to immigration and policing? That's a fairly bizarre 'allegation'.
And I question the validity of any source that lists using Twitter to 'express support for Donald Trump' as automatically some sort of crime.
Whoever wrote the above is pretty far down their own rabbit hole I would suggest.
Nevertheless, he is a bit of a messy candidate to be sure.
"Messy candidate"? Yeah, right.
First Goodwin, then this guy. Both seriously weird, and the very best Reform can find to contest massive by-elections.
The sad fact is that Reform have, basically, attracted a whole army of opportunists and wingnuts who, hitherto, would never have found a berth in a serious political party. But things have decayed to the point that there is, apparently, a not inconsiderable chance that they could end up in Govt. We have seen this in the USA - which is how lowlifes and nutcases like Lutnick, Witkoff and RFK are running the administration. We need to wake up.
Not 'the very best' that Reform could find in this case - the very best most local that they could find.
Anyway. We now know a lot (hopefully everything) about the plumber. None of it is remotely enough to finish him, so let's see how he deals with it.
Did Reform select a plumber purely because a plumber won the previous by-election?
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
I think that covers it.
Interesting claim from a Tory.
The Conservative Party vetting at least appears rather more fit for purpose than that of Reform.
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
There's no harm in having a degree of scepticism - the truth though is the warm/hot spells are becoming more frequent and more intense.
That doesn't mean we won't ever have a cold winter or a cold, wet summer but it's statistically more unlikely while the likelihood of any summer being hot and dry is greater so days like today won't necessarily become the norm but will be more common.
That's the insidious reality of climate change - not more heat all the time but more intense heat more often.
Do I think we will see 40c this summer somewhere in England? Yes, but if we don't this year, the chances are it will happen before 2030.
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
I think that covers it.
Interesting claim from a Tory.
The Conservative Party vetting at least appears rather more fit for purpose than that of Reform.
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
I think that covers it.
Interesting claim from a Tory.
The Conservative Party vetting at least appears rather more fit for purpose than that of Reform.
Want to make an "interesting counter-claim"?
Patrick Spencer is the obvious one.
Given who his father is, if he is found guilty, then there's a whole can of worms about to be opened.
Perhaps someone has already raised this point, but I can't help wondering whether others in the SNP had reason to be suspicious of Murrell. And, if so, what they did about it.
(In my experience, some of those doing the actual work almost always know when something is wrong in an organization.)
The Salmondites are now saying that Salmond knew Murrell had stolen money from the party in the last century and out of the kindness of his heart replaced the amount from his own money and covered it up. Given that Murrell subsequently became CEO of the SNP for most of Salmond’s leadership and all the time he was FM, I feel they may not have considered fully how that reflects on Salmond’s reputation. Of course the poor sod is deid and can neither confirm or deny this piece of flummery.
As expected, the merest hint of a possibility of an easing of tension in the Gulf and the oil price collapses.
WTI back to barely above $90 and Brent at just over $96.
For context, this time last year, Brent was trading at $64 so a 50% rise is still noteworthy and it seems whatever optimistic noises are coming out of Washington aren't quite being matched in Tehran.
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
He admitted: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am”
I very much fear that we are circling round the same plughole as the USA.
Farage and his cronies are just so obviously a bunch of bad 'uns, and its all in PLAIN SIGHT, just as it was (and is) with Trump. But, no-one cares.
Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.
Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”...
Martin said: “An aspiring prime minister has essentially claimed that Russia has launched an unprecedentedly aggressive intervention – a malicious intervention – in British politics, and he’s not produced a shred of evidence to support that claim.
“He’s made a serious foreign policy and national security allegation which if true would have massive implications for British policy towards Russia.
“It is a very, very serious thing to allege. It would be a national security issue. If it is true, the government should be in emergency session in COBR right now considering their response to the most serious Russian intervention in internal British affairs for years.”
Where do you get the 'no-one cares' bit from? About 70% of voters plan not to vote for Reform. The abomination of a candidate for Reform in Makerfield is very obviously embarrassing his own party, as well as the rest of us. Such polling data as there is from a Reform stronghold, Makerfield, is that Reform are not in the lead and other parties are squeezed so as to support the non-Reform candidate, Burnham, who could win. Lots of people care a lot. How much more evidence do you need?
Wednesday 3rd June is going to feel very cold compared to today, if you have a look at the forecast. Only 15 degrees in some places in the Midlands for example.
I don't know if you are a climate change denier or sceptic (you certainly write like one).
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
I'm a tiny bit sceptical of some of the exaggerations that are made on the subject, like every time we have a couple of hot days we're told this is evidence of climate change. I'm not a climate change denier overall.
Hottest May day on record is slightly more than "a couple of hot days".
Also saw talk of the hottest bank holiday ever- kind of makes sense, given that late August is in the very early hints of autumn.
While obviously I am not cheerleading climate change - after what feels like a long, long wait for shorts weather - today has been just lovely. If it were to stay like this until late August I would not complain.
Not sure what you’ve had in the north but deepest Wilts/Somerset border country has been officially too hot. Planted out beans and felt the need to water twice today and will need water everyday this week. It’s down to 24 deg inside and out now. That’s a perfect warm temp. Not 31 or 32 with unrelenting sun, which it was earlier. Friends poly tunnel was reading 47 dec C at 2 pm.
The issue is that Reform want to be seen as a serious party. So they really need to be serious about who they choose.
I could have told them not to choose Goodwin.
I'm on the record as having found Goodwin fairly unlikeable for a long time. But I don't think he did particularly badly in Gorton and Denton. The Tory and 'Advance UK' vote folded very well into the Reform vote, but the progressive and Muslim vote was too much. A cuddlier Reform candidate might have picked up a few more votes, but I still think would have lost.
Robert Ford @robfordmancs · 39m No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.
What worries me more than a bit is that Burnham's strengths, as that piece points out so well are empathy, a willingness to listen and a desire to be seen to solve problems. His weaknesses are the detail, the hard choices that detail requires and the ability to prioritise.
What PM Burnham needs is what Cameron needed. Someone like Osborne who loves the detail, feels no need whatsoever to be nice to anyone and is willing to take almost endless flak to let his boss remain serene. Unfortunately people like that are rare and in politics almost unheard of. I don't see anyone like that in Labour. Miliband might be closest but unfortunately he is mad.
Yes. Another point the article evidences is the lack of capacity to 'kill', and the need to be liked. I have no doubt about his desire to keep us out of a war if it is not in our interests to engage. But would he have the capacity to enter a war if it was?
Rachel Reeves has told ministers they need to start buying British and that she’s “disappointed” they keep giving contracts to foreign companies.
But she wants us to rejoin the EU which is where the rules that required us not to give domestic preference to our own manufacturers in competitive tendering came from, rules that only we seemed to take even vaguely seriously. If she wants domestic preference, and there are undoubtedly pluses and minuses in such policies, then she needs to change the law, not whinge about it.
Reform vetting is awful. Why not find somebody completely squeaky clean?
I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election, at least not in sufficient numbers to provide candidates for every seat for every party.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
"I don't think there are squeaky clean people who want to stand for election for Reform."
I think that covers it.
Interesting claim from a Tory.
The Conservative Party vetting at least appears rather more fit for purpose than that of Reform.
Want to make an "interesting counter-claim"?
Motes and beams...
The Consevatives went down to a historic defeat in 2024 because they were shite - and the voters wanted someone better. Starmer gets a massive majority on the back of that.
Ooops.
Reform appears to have no interest in implementing a higher public standard.
A mad socialist on Reddit sums up the comparison well.
Farage is a political snake with zero values other than what benefits himself the most. He will co-opt what ever issue he needs to build himself more power.
Lowe is a zealot. He genuinely believes in the things he is saying, and if he somehow gets the power to implement the vision, he will do it regardless of any negative consequences for himself.
Both are incredibly dangerous. It would be a disaster for the country if either of them get to be in charge.
Farage is a genuine enough reactionary right winger, I'd say.
Comments
Can’t help thinking that this was far messier than the plea makes it.
My first thought when I saw Restore were claiming 18% support from canvas returns was the Survation poll showing them at 7% was probably about right.
When I did this sort of thing back in the day, I soon realised there were fools, damn fools and people who believed their own canvas returns.
It may be the quality of canvasser isn't what it is in the good old days but I well remember in 1997 the incredulity of Conservatives losing seats on huge swings yet their canvas numbers showed them holding on.
Canvassing is of course only about identifying your supporters but the art is knowing when someone who says they will support you is either lying or saying what they think you want to hear (the British public learnt how to do this long before Boris Johnson).
"Kenyon has described abortion as a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and claimed that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[24][25][26]
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution"..... Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[32][29] reported he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[33]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][30] His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/11/snp-motorhome-treasurer-camper-van-douglas-chapman/
80k must be the total value of all vehicles? the camper van could be part this, given the media hysteria over it. I can't see how it can't be listed in the accounts if he used party money to pay for part of it.
Need to get on the desktop and have a proper look at this list. If he only used SNP funds as part of the purchase, who owned the rest of it? It seems to be the biggest ticket item on the list. Looks like there was a transaction of around 124.5k for the camper
Spring into summer is the clash of the airmasses - the cold and the warm. What we are now seeing is warm airmasses which are warmer than ever before while cold airmasses are either as cold or not quite as cold so we have huge variation in the weather.
The current synoptics would support a settled dry spell but the air within that seems to be heated far more than would have been with the case with a similar synoptic set up thirty to fifty years ago.
That's the paradox of a warming world - it's NOT always warmer but when the synoptics allow for warmth (air from the south for example), such air is warmer than it was and the surface temperatures respond accordingly. It may be this will be only charge we say this synoptic evolution this summer -I doubt it - and as we go to June and July, IF the same synoptics occur again, it's likely the resulting airmass will be hotter still as we saw in 2022.
https://manchestermill.co.uk/stop-looking-for-burnhamism-in-six-years-ive-never-found-it/
According to Rev Campbell, it has been "frittered away on other SNP s***"
Indeed, it would certainly be troubling if Musk could get that many people to vote for what are essentially an openly fascist party.
So pretty unlikely, I reckon.
But who is Lord Mountbatten?
* It's the way you tell 'em.
Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon previously claimed women “can’t drive” and get abortions for “vanity purposes” to “shag anyone they want”
He admitted: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately told evangelical leader and Trump ally Mike Evans that he was ready to recognize Israel “today,” but that his father, King Salman, remained the obstacle.
https://x.com/joannaccherry/status/2058851132147904796
Murrell's decision to plead guilty means, of course, that there will not be a trial and he won't be cross-examined. The bodies will remain well and truly buried. He's a bit more loyal to the SNP than he appears.
The purpose is not to find squeaky clean fascists, but rather to normalise racism and misogyny.
The political obsessives who do want to be elected have mostly egged each other on to say outrageous things on twitter.
'Facebook friends' doesn't indicate active participation in or even knowledge of their political campaigns, and if there were such information, it would be in this resume. I haven't got a clue what most of my Facebook friends are up to.
This - "[posts] focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing." - are these things not linked to immigration and policing? That's a fairly bizarre 'allegation'.
And I question the validity of any source that lists using Twitter to 'express support for Donald Trump' as automatically some sort of crime.
Whoever wrote the above is pretty far down their own rabbit hole I would suggest.
Nevertheless, he is a bit of a messy candidate to be sure.
Zak Crawley made 75 not out in the hit and giggle.
Farage and his cronies are just so obviously a bunch of bad 'uns, and its all in PLAIN SIGHT, just as it was (and is) with Trump. But, no-one cares.
The latest: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/25/nigel-farage-russian-hack-claim-disclosure-5m-gift
Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.
Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”...
Martin said: “An aspiring prime minister has essentially claimed that Russia has launched an unprecedentedly aggressive intervention – a malicious intervention – in British politics, and he’s not produced a shred of evidence to support that claim.
“He’s made a serious foreign policy and national security allegation which if true would have massive implications for British policy towards Russia.
“It is a very, very serious thing to allege. It would be a national security issue. If it is true, the government should be in emergency session in COBR right now considering their response to the most serious Russian intervention in internal British affairs for years.”
I think that covers it.
EXCL: Nicola Sturgeon refused to comment and sat in silence for hours during her police interview - despite publicly claiming to be "cooperating fully" with cops
But that implies that the Conservatives should avoid being part of the Reform led coalition that the current polling suggests is possible, and I doubt they could avoid that temptation if the alternative is a lefty government.
But of course, in today's volatile climate, who really knows?
Abortion has exploded in recent years. Kenyon isn't the person to say it (and nor am I), and a woman must always have the right to choose, but abortion as contraception is a pretty grisly concept.
In a way, it highlights how talented Nigel Farage is as a purveyor of socially reactionary comments. He knows how to flash an ankle of fash; most of his rivals on the right insist on dropping their trousers completely.
First Goodwin, then this guy. Both seriously weird, and the very best Reform can find to contest massive by-elections.
The sad fact is that Reform have, basically, attracted a whole army of opportunists and wingnuts who, hitherto, would never have found a berth in a serious political party. But things have decayed to the point that there is, apparently, a not inconsiderable chance that they could end up in Govt. We have seen this in the USA - which is how lowlifes and nutcases like Lutnick, Witkoff and RFK are running the administration. We need to wake up.
Edit: wonder what her solicitor's advice was..
It was Sturgeon's party, you either bowed down to her tune or you were out. Oswald clearly on team Sturgeon.
The most incriminating thing against Sturgeon so far is the leaked video of her during covid time (2021?) telling party members not to worry themselves about the party finances.
https://x.com/RestoreBritain_/status/2058994074749710359
A mad socialist on Reddit sums up the comparison well.
Farage is a political snake with zero values other than what benefits himself the most. He will co-opt what ever issue he needs to build himself more power.
Lowe is a zealot. He genuinely believes in the things he is saying, and if he somehow gets the power to implement the vision, he will do it regardless of any negative consequences for himself.
Both are incredibly dangerous. It would be a disaster for the country if either of them get to be in charge.
(In my experience, some of those doing the actual work almost always know when something is wrong in an organization.)
Anyway. We now know a lot (hopefully everything) about the plumber. None of it is remotely enough to finish him, so let's see how he deals with it.
A rather self-regardimg and self-important, but also angry and resentful, posh fascist.
One instance I dealt with somebody whose signed off someone's expenses without thinking about it because they were a good bloke, seemingly oblivious to the fact that person's expenses went from £5,000 a month (with receipts) to closer to £20,000 a month (without receipts).
What worries me more than a bit is that Burnham's strengths, as that piece points out so well are empathy, a willingness to listen and a desire to be seen to solve problems. His weaknesses are the detail, the hard choices that detail requires and the ability to prioritise.
What PM Burnham needs is what Cameron needed. Someone like Osborne who loves the detail, feels no need whatsoever to be nice to anyone and is willing to take almost endless flak to let his boss remain serene. Unfortunately people like that are rare and in politics almost unheard of. I don't see anyone like that in Labour. Miliband might be closest but unfortunately he is mad.
Want to make an "interesting counter-claim"?
That doesn't mean we won't ever have a cold winter or a cold, wet summer but it's statistically more unlikely while the likelihood of any summer being hot and dry is greater so days like today won't necessarily become the norm but will be more common.
That's the insidious reality of climate change - not more heat all the time but more intense heat more often.
Do I think we will see 40c this summer somewhere in England? Yes, but if we don't this year, the chances are it will happen before 2030.
Nigel Farage’s Russian hack claim ‘without any merit’, former NCSC chief says
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/25/nigel-farage-russian-hack-claim-disclosure-5m-gift
Thought, tbf, the words " 's Russian hack claim" in the headline are entirely unnecessary.
Given who his father is, if he is found guilty, then there's a whole can of worms about to be opened.
I could have told them not to choose Goodwin.
WTI back to barely above $90 and Brent at just over $96.
For context, this time last year, Brent was trading at $64 so a 50% rise is still noteworthy and it seems whatever optimistic noises are coming out of Washington aren't quite being matched in Tehran.
Our MP has written to Farage about it. I assume that Farage's response will be "So what?".
https://x.com/paulhutcheon/status/2058996836686344647?s=20
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/2059004747353292946?s=20
I can't see the article?
WTF!!!
Rachel Reeves has told ministers they need to start buying British and that she’s “disappointed” they keep giving contracts to foreign companies.
Robert Ford
@robfordmancs
·
39m
No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.
https://x.com/robfordmancs/status/2059002169567678884
If he refuses to hand them over we can take that as he lied about the Russian hack .
If he refuses to hand them over we can take that as he lied about the Russian hack .
Ooops.
Reform appears to have no interest in implementing a higher public standard.
Ooops.
https://x.com/BBCWorld/status/2058999441940447539
Netanyahu says Israel will intensify strikes against Hezbollah
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2059007548083106065
Huge explosions reported in Bandar Abbas Iran in the last moments.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/25/labour-giving-16-year-olds-vote/
So a random group of teenagers shows more sense than Her Majesty's Government.
Then again, the government in question is socialist, so maybe 10-year-olds would be a fairer match?