Kate

Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission 👏

When Labour came to power in 1997, a staggering 283,866 people were waiting 6 months or more for an operation.

By 2007 the number was down to 199.

Just one astonishing fact I came across while recording this and it's a reminder that government really can change things - for the better.

What a moment.

We talking about misogyny?

Let's start here.

Not sure if Man United owner Jim Ratcliffe will see this being as he literally migrated to Monaco to avoid paying tax in the UK, but we wanted to put this up outside the stadium anyway….

📍 Old Trafford, Matt Busby Way

YouTube video by LBC James O'Brien introduces 'The Farage Files'

The Farage Files: Week One

@mrjamesob.bsky.social and Henry Riley have been scrutinising Reform UK with a fine-tooth comb, uncovering a massive 22 stories.

youtu.be/fyNKDMxg2bM

The local MP for East Thanet has reacted with fury to a tweet by Reform UK’s Cabinet Member for Economic Development threatening to pull funding from Margate’s Turner Contemporary Gallery in an act of ‘naked retribution’ for holding his council to account. This week, Polly Billington MP revealed Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosures showing that Reform UK’s claim they had saved Kent taxpayers £39.5 million by cancelling net zero projects was not supported by council documentation. But instead of admitting the false figures and committing to stop using them, Cllr David Wimble – who is responsible for funding for the gallery – tweeted, “perhaps we could pull funding for her lovely turner contemporary?... Polly suck it up.” The Turner has contributed more than £100 million to the economy of Thanet, and has welcomed more than 4.8 million visitors since it was opened.

A pretty bleak threat from the Reform party on Kent county council...

Reform threatens to pull funding for Margate’s Turner Gallery as ‘naked retribution for local MP exposing Kent savings lies' - via Polly Billington MP

YouTube video by LBC ‘Who will he blame for this?': Five Reform news stories uncovered | LBC

A shamefully valid exercise.

Henry Riley takes @mrjamesob.bsky.social through five poorly covered stories concerning Nigel Farage's Reform which the media would already have highlighted if it applied the same level of scrutiny to Farage’s party as it does to Labour.
youtu.be/2XkeIZJDwuA?...

Says the gazillionaire who loves Britain so much he became tax resident in Monaco so he didn't have to contribute to Britain's resources. Physician, heal thyself.

Toby Young, Matthew Elliott, Daniel Moylan, Claire Fox, Daniel Hannan, Michael Gove, Therese Coffey (a Brexit convert), Paul Goodman, John Moynihan, Ruth Lea, Stewart Jackson, Michael Hintze, Charles Moore, David Frost, Theo Agnew; & now John Redwood.

Rewarded for the Brexit calamity with peerages.

Nurses’ families fear being torn apart in UK immigration crackdown, survey says Exclusive: Most people in charity’s study say they worry about being separated from relatives under Mahmood plans

3 in 5 fear family separation

absolutely monstrous

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Funny, I thought he was all in favour of free speech & forever criticising Europe for restricting it.
Obviously there must be 2 kinds of free speech:
* the kind where people agree with him (allowed)
* the kind where people disagree with him (not allowed)

One of the maddest elements of Brexit - and there are *many* - is the rewards that continue to be lavished on the blithering idiots who sold it & continue to be proved wrong about everything every day…

It is so embarrassing that it has taken nearly a decade for a British minister to say this, a statement of the absolute bloody obvious

Given how much Nigel Farage hates working from home, it would be nice to see him turn up at his workplace a bit more regularly

When he was a Tory politician (you remember, just after he was binned as a Labour one) female colleagues were free to express their disgust at his blatant misogyny. “Lee is an odious sexist,” was Anna Soubry’s irrefutable conclusion. I wonder what his current colleagues will have to say…

it will really be something if the Epstein Files unseat a British Prime Minster who isn't in them, and not the American President who was Epstein's best friend.

A calculation website told me that today I have lived exactly the same amount of years and days that my mother lived. Assuming I wake up tomorrow morning, I will begin a day she never experienced. That makes me feel far weirder than actually getting old.

If Morgan McSweeney doesn't march out of the front door of 10 Downing Street with a brown cardboard box then he's a coward.

This! Labour’s leadership is being talked about as if it’s some kind of poisoned chalice.

In reality it’s a chance to take over the first term of a government with a huge majority. It’s the political opportunity of a lifetime.

The Daily Telegraph currently owned by a private equity vehicle RedBird IMI - based in the UAE and led by Italian American Gerry Cardinale and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Patriotic news. For patriotic people. Who don't want to pay taxes.

If we become a society of super-rich oligarchs and an underfunded state, it is the super-rich oligarchs that get to decide what to fund, what research to do - and what research not to do. They will set societal priorities.

Since #bbclaurak is trending, let’s remind ourselves that ONE MONTH ago, the BBC invited Mandelson on for a soft-ball interview on her show. While HIS CLIENT , Palantir’s Louis Moseley appeared as a pundit

Both, as I wrote at time, were ‘abject failures of journalism’
1/

"Starmer didn't pick Mandelson in spite of his Epstein connections… He picked him because of them."

Would he have made the same choice if Kamala Harris had won?

"Absolutely not", says @lewisgoodall.com.

the perils of being a commentator

This is a political piece, but it has lessons for all writers in how to craft a story that really lands with readers. The focus, the intelligence and the skill stand out a mile in the current pathetic crop of writing on Reform.

'Brexit is Just the Beginning' Of course it wasn't just Trump who was mentioned in the Epstein files but Farage too, whose name crops up no fewer than 21 times. Although there is no suggestion of a direct relationship between the Reform leader and Epstein, he is clearly a figure of significant interest both to the late paedophile and those around them. As Byline Times' Executive Editor Peter Jukes set out brilliantly this week, Farage was viewed by Epstein and his friend Steve Bannon as a pivotal figure in their 'movement' to destabilise Europe.

As he reports: "Across the recently released messages and emails, [Epstein] treats Britain's vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 as both a political realignment and a trading opportunity - something to be shorted financially and leveraged geopolitically. As he writes to Peter Thiel about the chaos caused by the referendum, 'Brexit is just the beginning.'" Interestingly Bannon also told Epstein that he was planning to meet Farage as part of his bid to topple Theresa May, in order to secure the Europe destabilising Brexit both men were so keen to secure.

It is genuinely insane/deeply disingenuous to be calling for the PM’s resignation while red-carpeting Farage into No10. If you’re serious about calling out abuses of power and the undermining of democracy through political corruption, you investigate and expose all of this 👇 too.

I knew Matt Goodwin promoted the far right Great Replacement Theory but until @huwcdavies.bsky.social pointed it out, I didn't realise he'd actually interviewed the originator of the theory on his GB News show and plugged it like he's PT Barnum. A vote for Goodwin is a vote for white nationalism

So the Epstein scandal is about politics? Silly me for thinking it’s about the mass abuse of women and girls | Marina Hyde Obsessing over individual players and political chaos leaves less time to focus on the misogyny. And that’s for the best, isn’t it guys, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

Marina Hyde is so good.
"We’re talking about anything but the things that most need to be reckoned with. ... The frenzied and remorseless focus on political fallout – and not the male-on-female debasement that is the entire heart of this story, and always has been – is weird, isn’t it?"