Alan Lester

I agree, but especially with this:

Nigel Farage’s politics begin and end in the boozer A pubs-for-child-benefits swap is Reform UK’s latest innumerate wheeze — it is surprising how little scrutiny its pledges receive

Farage has already severely constrained on the UK economy with Brexit. A glimpse here of the unmitigated economic disaster his premiership would bring:
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

2/2 … that he thinks even the AI, engineering & medical research at Harvard is infected by “woke” ideology. Severing this research pipeline is like cutting of your arm because you’re hallucinating it’s a snake.

Pentagon ends academic ties with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will end all graduate-level military training, fellowships and certificate programs at the school.

1/2 So much of what the Trump administration does is staggeringly stupid that it’s easy to miss some of the most jaw-dropping acts of self harm. Pete Hegseth has so completely lobotomised himself …

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pentagon ends academic ties with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will end all graduate-level military training, fellowships and certificate programs at the school.

Unbelievable. Severing the USA’s defence ties with one of the world’s leading sources of cutting edge research is an act of self-sabotage that America’s enemies could only dream about.

Pentagon ends academic ties with Harvard over its 'woke ideology' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Epstein, Trump and How Europe Is Punching Technofascists in the Face Byline political columnist Heidi Siegmund Cuda investigates Europe’s big moves against big tech and the broligarchs in the wake of the Epstein scandal

Well worth reading to see how other European countries are now starting to rally against American techbro interference in our democracies.

www.bylinesupplement.com/p/epstein-tr...

Reform-run Kent council accused of fabricating £40m net zero savings Exclusive: Disclosures show figures cited by council leader rested on unfunded ideas listed briefly in budget papers

A foretaste of Reform in government: huge savings will be announced for projects that were never going to happen. As people get poorer and lose what remains of the state safety net, they’ll be told it’s all in their imagination. The Party has spoken.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

We've known it all along, thanks to proper investigative journalists like Carol Cadwalladr. A pity that other - so called - journalists have let it slide for so long. Still, at least it's reaching a broader audience at last. Let's hope it's the start of more such pieces to really bring it home.

I can’t stop thinking about this email bsky.app/profile/benc...

Was Epstein really a Russian spy? The evidence examined Files expose his links to the Kremlin through ambassadors, oligarchs and intelligence officers — plus his attempts to meet Putin

It’s good to see the @thetimes.com taking Epstein’s links with Putin’s regime seriously. Next step: it wasn’t just about compromising material & finance, but destabilising Western democracies using Bannon, Farage & the far right.

www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/art...

Tomorrow in Brighton. Conservatives are relentlessly attacking Project Spire, the Church of England Reparative justice, scheme, in the press and Parliament. They claim the Church got its history wrong. I’ll set out what expert historians know and show the objections are political, not historical.

Hang on, isn’t the whole point of Trump’s Truth Social account that the world can hear the President’s thoughts unmediated? Isn’t this direct access what makes him so refreshingly authentic? Now it appears it was his aides ventriloquising him all along?

Court battle over Picasso art exposes offshore finances of Farage’s billionaire Davos sponsor Exclusive: Sasan Ghandehari reluctant to share details of $10bn trust in row with Christie’s auction house

More revelations about the global elites funding Nigel Farage’s anti-global elite rhetoric.

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

NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast The US vice-president, JD Vance, was greeted by a chorus of boos during when he appeared at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday

How the cowed US media is doctoring reality on behalf of Trump’s generally despised administration.

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

This is a KEY point about Epstein, that reaches FAR beyond the UK and the US. It's the stealthy, far right, authoritarian manoeuvring that is stirring up trouble across countries, with an eye on the long-term. That's been the strategy in the US and Russia for decades, largely unseen until too late.

Global Takes on Trump | Podcast on RSS.com The advent of the second Trump presidency has already had seminal effects on global politics.In each episode, host Dr. Synne Dyvik will be joined by academics from across the University of Sussex Facu...

My colleagues in the Sussex School of Global Studies and I have been swapping insights into what on Earth is going on with Trump’s administration. You can listen in on Global Takes on Trump:

rss.com/podcasts/glo...

Epstein managed different networks. The UK media has rightly centred the powerful pedophile ring. It has maintained an uncanny silence about the global, anti-democratic, far right political network. Farage is up to his neck in it. If it weren’t for unprecedented double standards it’d be career over.

Dinner with Mr Brexit: Bannon’s European Revolution – Planned with Farage, Backed by Epstein Nigel Farage was the figurehead and his partner Laure Ferrari started it. Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were providing almost daily support

Epstein managed different networks. The UK media has rightly centred the powerful pedophile ring. It has maintained an uncanny silence about the global, anti-democratic, far right political network. Farage is up to his neck in it. If it weren’t for unprecedented double standards it’d be career over.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of democracy on this side of the Atlantic, and I’m not being hyperbolic.

Donald Trump signals US support for Chagos handover deal It comes after the US president suggested last month he could withdraw his support for the deal.

Oh dear, Farage & Badenoch will have to stir the s**t over the Chagos deal all over again.

Trump signals US support for Chagos handover deal www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Bumper crop of superb Studies in Imperialism books in paperback today.

Despite Kuenssberg’s rationale at the start it was pretty much as feared. The BBC doesn’t just reflect opinion, it also shapes it. If you give fascists a platform they will use it to spread the disinformation that fuels them.

If Starmer, who appointed Mandelson in what he thought Britain’s best interests, does turn out to be the first major political casualty of the Epstein files, while Trump & Farage, both actually in the files & neither with a scintilla of integrity, remain, it’ll be a travesty of natural justice.

Yes it was a shortcut arising from Starmer’s panic to find a Trump-Whisperer. He did it in what he saw as Britain’s interests, but it was short sighted and naive.

Of course the unprincipled Peter Mandelson has turned out to be the disastrous appointment many feared before Starmer appointed him Britain’s Trump-whisperer.
Yet, after Boris’ tenure as PM, it’ll still be a while before anyone takes lessons from the Tories on good judgement.

2/2 This quote indicates why. Other parties’ scandals happen when members fall short of the party’s values. Reform’s happen when they enact its core values. Racism is the party’s very essence. Scapegoating & punishing certain segments of the population is the totality of its programme.

Inside Reform: Laura Kuenssberg follows Farage's party as it experiences the glare of scrutiny The BBC has spent time interviewing senior figures and witnessing Reform's work at the largest council it runs.

1/2 The danger of this Laura Kuenssberg documentary on Reform is further sanitising & normalising it. A lesson from European history is that fascist parties should never be treated just like any other.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Strange that Chris Mason feels the need to say on the BBC News that “the government is keen to be seen to be acting” on the Mandelson revelations, when he could just have said “the government is acting”.

First lecture on the history behind Project Spire and the misinformation being wielded against it this Sunday 8th at St Luke’s Prestonville, Brighton, 1.30 pm.

All welcome.

Stephen Lawrence’s mother claims Daily Mail ‘pretended’ to support her Baroness Lawrence, who is suing Associated Newspapers, said she believed the newspaper ran its campaign seeking ‘credibility for supporting a black family’

It’s an indication of how the right wing has rehabilitated racism that, in the 2010s, the Daily Mail thought it would gain credibility by appearing to back a Black family seeking justice. Now it seeks credibility by being as overtly racist as possible.

www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...