The Farage Bunggate (Bungate?) story seems to be picking up a bit of momentum with the Sunday Times story of some more undeclared things. NF has been pretty astute in avoiding talking about the £5m unless he has too. It has lead to some interesting social media clips but he still seemed likely to be riding it out. These new allegations may be more damaging (coming from the ultra socialist Sunday Times) and the downside of the low profile strategy seems to be having Robert Jenrick defending his honour.
I predict a parliamentary finding that he has broken the rules and NF basically adopting an anti-establishment stance saying that he is being badly treated because he represents the people. I also suspect a chunk of the people lapping this up.
I also suspect Burnham is going to be a lot harder to take cheap shots at than Starmer. The next few months could be exciting.
Exciting for political geeks, perhaps; for those of us who were long ago bored with endless Westminster naval gazing and would like the government to concentrate on, you know, governing… Maybe not so much.
To qualify my use of exciting – I think there is potentially a battle for just that. One which could enable the government to govern rather than have to deal with the politics of holding on to power. For some good to actually come out of Westminster.
I’d like to see Labour under Burnham not only be highly competent at getting on with actually governing, thus genuinely improving people’s lives, but also making any affiliation with or sympathy for Reform about as embarrassing or socially acceptable as drink driving, for example.
Couldn’t agree more but sadly I’ll give it 6 months and the traditional Labour in fighting and back biting well recommence. It’s what they do.
I wish I could share your optimism. I fear I will be reminding you of it in six months time after Chancellor Ed Miliband has triggered a Sterling and bond market crisis and Burnham is well on the way to joining Starmer on the back benches.
If only Lizz Truss were still in power, an economic catastrophe could be averted, that sort of thing?
Exciting? Perhaps not. Necessary? Absolutely. £5m “gifts” from offshore crypto kings to men who expect to be PM deserve full scrutiny. Reform, and in particular their highly opaque funding, have been getting an easy ride for way too long. Politics isn’t just about who governs – it’s about who else wants to, and why.
NF? National Front?
Complete coincidence I would think.
Complete coincidence is true, but he was very happy that he shared the initials according to a pupil of the school that farage was at.
Pure coincidence that it stands for Nasty F*cker too, I would think.
These cnuts always walk into a punch eventually. Just want it to happen to President Gobshite.
Honest Bob will be guest hosting the James O’Brien show this coming Thursday. Maybe someone can ring in to commend him for approving funding for his fellow Conservative MPs constituency as that MP approved funds for Honest Bob?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/11/robert-jenrick-admits-approving-funds-for-town-in-jake-berrys-constituency
As well as for his commendable work in approving Richard Desmond’s housing project, coincidentally after a large donation to Conservative Party funds.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-06-11/housing-secretary-robert-jenrick-accused-of-unlawfully-approving-tory-donor-s-bid-to-build-1-500-houses
Not forgetting his estimable work in dissuading small children from finding respite from trauma through painting over cartoon murals in asylum reception centres.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66132158
I can’t think why he ended up in the Reform Party. Maybe he confused it with the Tory Reform Group, where he may have started his peregrination rightwards since his early days as an MP? Early days helpfully enabled during his election campaign by possibly excessively generous local funding.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35562697
What a credit to his Party.
An Announcement incoming at 2pm today…
It’ll be one of the following:
a) I am stepping back as leader of Reform because the lefty woke media is relentless in its persecution of a doughty patriot. I am launching a new political movement, Revive.
b) I have seen the error of my ways and I repent unreservedly. I have donated £5 million to Greta Thunberg to work towards a greener planet.
c) I have converted to Islam. Allah Akbar.
d) The relentless persecution of my family by the media and the establishment is the worst that anyone’s ever had to suffer ever, so my £5m and I are off to the US.
e)I mean seriously, can you blame me? Have you seen Clacton? I went there once. Jesus.
I managed to watch the first five minutes before my lunch started to repeat on me then I turned him off.
The best thing about Farage being on the telly is you can turn him off.
f) I have done the decent thing and taken a long walk off Clacton pier.
The people of Clacton can judge his actions. I can see a single independent candidate standing against him. That would be good.
Wonder if Martin Bell’s busy.
So he’s resigned from a job for which he hadn’t been challenged in order to stand for it again?
I am sure Clacton’s constituents will turn out in their droves to support the most conscientious and committed Member of Parliament they have ever had.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, tbh. As was pointed out to me, Farage’s reason is to stop a parliamentary enquiry which wouldn’t apply if he wasn’t an MP (he likes doing things to avoid scrutiny by not being an MP). A supporter on the locals newspaper site newspaper FB page said that it would be ‘very difficult’ for parliament to resume an enquiry should Farage be returned because his electorate would have deemed him innocent. This overlooks the fact that his voters might just not care, and that their opinion wouldn’t be equivalent to the findings of an enquiry.
According to the BBC, if he wins the by-election, the investigations will resume. I think his strategy os to style it out – whatever the establishment rules are, the people have spoken and judge me fit for office.
Quote from The Grauniad
“Losing Farage would be Reform’s equivalent of that moment when the lights come on at the end of the night in a sticky-carpeted local nightclub, and the beer goggles abruptly come off.”
Rather like Trump, I’d prefer he was ignored rather than the press reporting every word he utters.
Who is paying for this by election?
If Farage wins, he will still face the enquiries, one of which is allegedly criminal. There could be a second by election.
I think the cheque is being written by Ego but it will be cashed by the tax payer.
I hope everyone steps aside and lets Count Binface have a run at him. Seeing as he’s a Count, he must be establishment.
Word has reached him: https://x.com/countbinface/status/2074513701286162752?s=61&t=7XtWkkEa5fF9gsOU_Ok6wg
Edit – now it’s looking like it might happen. Badenoch says the Tories won’t stand, Starmer calls it a stunt. The best thing that could happen is for the other parties to stand aside and leave Farage campaigning against Binface. For a man with no sense of humour it would be excruciating.
That’s exactly what I want to happen. No major parties, no minority parties, no independent candidates, no other novelty candidates, just Farage and Binface.
That would be hilarious, and I’m prepared to duck out of a football/Test match to watch every single minute of it!
Preferably no Binface either. Toad of Toad Hall would either have to withdraw or be re-elected and that would mean the investigations would continue.
I don’t suppose he would try and wriggle out of it by claiming that the “gifts” were made before his first term and therefore don’t count? Anything is possible in Farage World.
It seems highly likely that a range of other non-entity parties will stand. An anti-sleaze Martin Bell style candidate might crystalize the non Nigel vote if it’s someone recognizable but Martin Lewis has already said no.
I don’t think it matters. Farage will win and claim he has a mandate and the investigation will re-commence, the tax payer down about £250k because Reform know full well their offer to fund the election can’t be accepted.
Meanwhile, the £5m “gift” was referred to the National Crime Agency as it was flagged as potential money laundering back in May. It’s another strand in the net that seems to be developing around him, and it’s pretty clear they are worried.
As some of the vox pops on Sky and BBC showed last night, there’s still support for him. Many just waive the issue away with talk of brown envelopes and how “they are all at it”. The irony of the brown envelope references given the crypto source of the money is painful. Either way, Reform need to sway undecided voters in swing seats and this of scrutiny isn’t going to help.
In the meantime I’m sure we’ll hear endlessly about the conspiracy against Nigel, and how the focus should be on the government. Good luck with that.
If he loses I would bet that Question Time would still invite him on as a guest panellist about once a month.
With Count Binface? That’d be interesting.
No, they clearly have already have an arrangement with the ghastly Yusuf to appear at least once a month and wind everyone up.
Newsnight have a similar arrangement with Layla Cunningham, who appears on the programme, it seems, about once a fortnight.
Last night she managed to make Fraser Nelson look like a bit of a lefty.
Ha!
Fraser used to be my boss. A strange cove.
Ooh tell us more.
A measure of where things have got to is that it fell to Nelson to call out Danny Kruger’s misinformation and gaslighting on Radio 4 earlier today.
And this too – he takes on the frankly deranged Leila Cunningham
I had mixed feelings about him – we clashed a few times (once over an especially egregious Rod Liddle column, me “It’s a load of bigoted bollocks” him “Rod’s an artist!” but away from politics, he was a decent and considerate boss.
I thought it was nice of the BBC to live stream his highly distorted retrospective with no fact check or filter. But they do love him, don’t they. They should have let GB News run it and reported the key bits, with context, at the arse end of the news.
What, no Mason or Kuenssberg?
It was a party political broadcast basically. Shame on the BBC
How it should be:
“And that’s Tibbles the cat, reunited safely with Brenda and Gav. What a lovely story.
And finally tonight, gentleman politician Nigel Farage has announced [rising inflection] he will resign from Parliament!
Now, Phil, what does the weather have in store for us tomorrow?”
I’m loving the potential for Count Binface to beat NF. That would be genuinely exciting.
I know who I’d trust to sort the bin collection.
NF would be useless – he’s already full of crap.
Hopefully he’ll be bin juice after this.
I would love to see sub-editors around the UK having an excuse to use the headline “FARAGE – OUT FOR THE COUNT!”
Maybe the dolphin will return.
Controversial satirical You Tube site the Crewkerne Gazette is all over this. Dr Who ( Jacob Rees-Mogg) travels back from a dystopian 2046. A Labour / Green government is in power, elected by former Reform voters appalled at the mess Farage has made of the county. The Doctor and sidekick Steve Marriott ( yes, that one) time travel to 2026 in a bid to get Count Binface to thwart Farage.
( NB the Crewkerne Gazette is controversial because it’s run by a man jailed for hate crimes and extreme right wing views. His views appear to have changed over time and perhaps as a result of the Prevent programme. In any event, his current work regularly pillories Farage and Lowe, as well as the Greens and Burnham, but he seems to be a fan of Kemi Badenoch).
The perfect British summer hatrick:
England win WC
Fery wins Wimbledon
Binface cleans up in Clacton
I supect that Scots, Irish and Welsh won’t be thrilled if the first comes to pass. And a Fery victory might stir up both the class warriors and the he’s not really British mob.
Probably right about the first one.
I just checked, Fery moved to London when he was 1 month old. He’s British
‘He’s French’ is trending on Twitter, which is pretty daft in the circumstances. Mind you, I’m sure lots of England fans would be glad to have Erling Haaland on the team and without checking I suppose he is eligible.
Haaland was born in Leeds (to Norwegian parents) – age 3 he moved to the land of t’fjords
He is now. Appeared for France as a 12 year old. Who knows, might ultimately opt to be American, given his time at Stanford. Meanwhile, Michael Olise turns out to be French.
Speaking as a Scot, I couldn’t give a monkey’s funky either way…
For any of those three?
No – only the first one, as per Ernie’s comment.
Robert Jenrick standing in for James O’Brien on LBC this morning was absolutely bonkers. Some of the callers were gold.
All hotting up now I’m Claction, with Farage and Binface being joined by a Monster Raving Looney and not one but two foxes.
Piers Corbyn too, or so I’ve read. An ever-expanding list of candidates and the sanest one is still a man who dresses as a bin.
Not Freddy and Ferdie Fox alas.
Count Binface has been holding his own magnificently on the news shows over the past few days. He seems to have the measure of both the willing to keep the joke going but inane journalists and the po-faced serious ones. Particularly that twat on Newsnight.
He’s going to have to keep coming up with new material pretty much constantly though or he will wear thin, as clever as he is.
I’m in the South East of England and I hate humidity so the past few weeks have been physically grim. I’ve been as grumpy as arseholes But I honked like a seal with laughter at the coordinated pincer movement ‘Fuck You’ from the parliamentary parties when they told Farage ‘yeah, crack on by yourself mate’. You can imagine the faces at Reform HQ.
Tee and furthermore Hee
Crikey. In more Reform Party news, it appears Ann Widdecombe’s death is now being investigated as a murder.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyv0zd3em5qo#:~:text=Man%2C%2026%2C%20arrested%20on%20suspicion,was%20announced%20on%20Friday%20morning.
Well I won’t miss the nasty old hag for one minute but I’d rather nature had taken its natural course.
Bad-tempered ex-Tory with cut glass accent, who put everyone’s backs up. found murdered in a rural West Country village?
I shouldn’t trivialise what is an awful and brutal attack, (no matter my opinion of the woman), but it does have all the makings of a classic Agatha Christie mystery.
It’s been some time since the news was announced but it’s strange no senior member of her last political party has stepped forth to pay tribute to the old pregnant-woman-chainer-upper.
What was her last political party? I heard many tributes yesterday from across the political spectrum.
She had horrendous political views, but completely appalling and dreadful that an elderly, fairly defenceless woman is bludgeoned to death in her own home where she had presumably previously always felt safe.
She was a member of reform (served as it’s immigration and justice secretary) and farage has paid tribute to her.
I’ll say no more.
I won’t celebrate her passing nor will I mourn her death. That’s about the long and the short of it for me.
Jenrick has the demeanour of the second tier bully. The soft spoken nasty weasel that stands just to one side and slightly behind the stronger and more vocal spiteful turds.
I’ve known a few and he is most certainly one. May his own scandal engulf him in short order.