At a few minutes past six on Friday morning, in a leisure centre on the Essex coast, the returning officer reached the bottom of a ballot paper roughly a metre long and announced a number that deserves more attention than it is likely to receive. Nigel Farage, 22,239 votes. The commentary had settled into its […]
The numbers are not in dispute, whatever the spin. Andy Burnham took Makerfield with 54.8% of the vote and a majority of 9,231, on a turnout of 58.7%, the highest at any parliamentary by-election in almost seven years. Labour’s lead over Reform, 13 points at the general election, widened to 20. A seat Reform UK […]
I am writing this from Cardiff Bay, in the Pierhead Building, that glorious riot of Flemish Gothic terracotta and Doulton tiles, all scarlet and cream, that once housed the administrative heart of the old Bute Docks. It is a building that knows what confidence looks like. Outside its windows squats the Senedd itself, a monument […]
In a spirit of amused devilment, I took part in the first great March by the ‘remaniacs’, as it entered Trafalgar Square and went down Whitehall. Led by Eddie Izzard, Peter Tatchell and Madeleina Kay (the so-called ‘Super EU’ girl) and her dog on Sept 16, 2016. At the time I was amazed that they […]
In a move intended to signal Reform UK’s maturation from insurgent force to serious contender, Nigel Farage has unveiled the beginnings of his shadow front bench. At the heart of this announcement are three key figures: Farage himself as the guiding force, Robert Jenrick as Shadow Chancellor and Richard Tice retaining his dual role as […]
Peering tentatively into 2026, the UK’s business landscape is fraught with uncertainty, but one trend stands out: the remarkable ascent of Reform UK in the eyes of boardrooms. A groundbreaking report from Bradshaw Advisory, where I serve as a senior adviser, polls over 500 business directors and reveals a seismic shift in sentiment. Far from […]
The Institute for Government was sceptical, to say the least, in its initial response to Pat McFadden’s bonfire of the quangos. As it stated, ‘the number of bodies is the wrong measure of success’, given that it is ‘an easy metric on which the media can focus’, but which can ‘create an illusion that major […]
For years, the Remainiacs and their cheerleaders in the establishment – academe, unions, the media and celebrity circles – have relentlessly attacked Brexit as a wasteland, barren of benefits. They’ve mocked it with gimmicky books featuring blank pages, jocularly symbolising, they claim, the absence of any tangible gains. Well-funded think tanks, like the Tony Blair […]
The UK stands on the precipice of an economic disaster that could define a generation. By Q3 and Q4 of 2026, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the beating heart of Britain’s economy, face a collapse in sentiment and viability that threatens to ripple through jobs, communities and the political landscape. This isn’t scaremongering; it’s a […]
Not content on confounding the Prime Minister over traditional nuts and bolts welfare policies, Nigel Farage and Reform UK have now made a pitch at the other end of the political ideas marketplace. They have just released a piece of draft legislation to make the UK the world’s leading digital currency hub. Among the better known […]
Runcorn and Helsby, a constituency tucked away in Cheshire, has been a Labour stronghold since 1983. It’s the 16th safest Labour seat in the country, a redoubt of red in an ever-shifting political landscape. But don’t let the numbers fool you, there’s trouble brewing, and it’s got Reform UK’s fingerprints all over it. More interestingly, […]
Kemi Badenoch seems to think she has lobbed a grenade into the sanctimonious eco-consensus, but it may be a dud. The UK’s 2050 Net Zero target, she says, is kaput. ‘Impossible,’ she called it, without bankrupting the nation or slashing living standards to levels that’d make a medieval serf wince. Cue the predictable wailing from […]
Well, isn’t it a glorious mess? Reform UK, that band of Brexit zealots and populist muckrakers, has picked the perfect moment to start clawing its own eyes out. Just as the spotlight begged for their next act, Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe – two men who’ve made careers out of thumbing their noses at the […]
According to recent polling by Ipsos Mori, “almost 4 in 10 say the rules have gone too far and now cause more harm than good and that we need to learn to live with the virus”. Although we read reports of wide support for restrictions, a cursory glance at the world around us – rather […]
If Ukip is about anything, it is ensuring the UK gets the clean Brexit the party campaigned for over 25 hard years. At every point during that time, and particularly over the last 10 years, professional politicians and their fellow travellers in the media have attempted to destabilise it – first by accusing Ukip of […]
Bono, multimillionaire Rock god and all round right-thinking chap is out there breaking all the rules again. As a purveyor of monster selling slices of rock he is one of the industry’s great speakers and rebels. And he is rebelling again. He has announced in the pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) — Germany’s […]
The World Cup is now a warm and distant memory, but the new league season is upon us. Sadly there is an outstanding problem in the world of football that no amount on pitch pyrotechnics can dispel. In 1948, in the aftermath of the most devastating war in human history, the Olympic Games, that symbol […]
