Is Elon Musk Planning to Buy the UK Election via Farage?

Dec 18, 2024 | Nigel Farage was not listening to the concerns of the people of Clacton this week but instead in America to meet with the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to discuss how the billionaire could help Reform UK get a bigger foothold in UK politics. This is very bad for ordinary people as I explain in this video, and what is also sad is how the media find the whole thing very entertaining.

THE TELEGRAPH:

Musk ready to bankroll Farage with ‘biggest donation in British political history’: US billionaire endorses Reform UK leader after Mar-a-Lago meeting with party treasurer Nick Candy »

THE GUARDIAN:

Elon Musk’s rumoured $100m donation may just fuel a fresh look at UK political funding: Though denied, the mere fact a foreign billionaire could chuck so much money at one party might just spur rule changes »

Elon Musk must be one of the most dangerous men on earth. He should keep out of this country’s politics. He’s doing enough damage in the USA without coming here to upset the apple cart. – © Mark Alexander

Keith Starmer Axes Winter Fuel Allowance Brings in Assisted Dying and Kisses Farages Ring

Dec 1, 2024

This country has become a joke! A very sick joke! – © Mark Alexander

'Tyrannical Police State': Elon Musk Taunts the UK's New Leader

Nov 26, 2024 | Elon Musk has labeled Britain a “tyrannical police state” while endorsing calls for a new election and boosting a video from a jailed far-right activist.

Musk Backs Calls for New General Election, Saying UK Is ‘Tyrannical Police State’

THE TELEGRAPH: Billionaire entrepreneur says ‘Britain has had enough’ as petition urging new vote surpasses two million signatures

X owner accused Starmer of going “full Stalin” amid the Government’s IHT raid on farmers | Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Elon Musk has appeared to back a petition calling for a fresh UK general election.

The petition, created at the end of last week, demands a rerun of the July 4 contest because of the Government “going back on its promises”. It has surpassed two million signatures.

Responding to a post marking one million signatures on the petition on Sunday night, Mr Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, wrote: “The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state.” » | Jack Maidment, Political Live Blog Editor | Monday, November 25, 2024

Our Freebie Führer: “Athoritarianism on Steroids”

Sep 19, 2024 | Independent Peer Baroness Claire Fox joins Talk’s Julia Hartley-Brewer to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. Baroness slams the Government for being "incapable" of understanding how ordinary people feel about issues like immigration, riots, and the winter fuel allowance, saying: “They got no political instincts!”

Aren’t we all sick to death by now of hearing about climate change, the green agenda, Net Zero, global warming, etc.? I do not deny that the planet is becoming warmer, but the big question is this: Can we do anything meaningful about it, especially at a price we can afford? And please don’t even get me started on that ridiculous word “sustainable”! Further, where the hell would we be without that tired cliché ‘smart’? Everything these days must be “smart”. We need smartphones, smart apps, smart thinking, smart food, smart cars, etc. Be smart, smart, smart! But how smart are we really? We see more obesity than we have ever seen, we see more slothful behaviour than we have ever seen, people in general are more badly dressed than they have ever been, and they are certainly more badly spoken. So, pray tell, how “smart” are we really? It seems to me that in our quest for ‘smartness’, we have become as dumb as a box of rocks! – © Mark Alexander

The Incredible Shrinking Man: Rishi Sunak’s Gut Reaction Is Always Wrong

THE GUARDIAN: The prime minister has chosen to pick a fight with the nurses – a battle he’s never going to win

Week after week, Sunak gets dismantled by Keir Starmer. Photograph: House of Commons/PA
Rishi Sunak is the incredible shrinking man. The more you see of him, the less there appears to be. When he became prime minister, he had the appearance of a moderately successful – if rather over-eager – tech bro, brought in to save the Conservative party from itself. But that was a chimera. Because Rish! isn’t even that successful. He’s a politician with the fatal flaw of not being very good at politics. A man unable to convince others that he inhabits their world. Now he’s just a ball of need. Desperate to be liked, but unable to make an emotional connection with voters.

To be fair, Sunak has the odds stacked against him. It’s not entirely his fault the Tories voted for Liz Truss rather than him. Though imagine how useless the Conservative membership must think him to be if they went full on Trussterfuck. It’s not his fault that Putin invaded Ukraine. But he has to take the blame for the Tories’ record of 13 years in government when it’s hard to think of anything that works better now than it did in 2010.

And it’s a unique talent to make every bad situation worse. His gut reaction is almost always the wrong one. Take the strikes. Everyone knows the endgame. The unions and the government get around a table and agree a compromise. Everyone except Rish!. He has chosen to pick a fight with the nurses and paramedics. A battle he’s never going to win, because almost the entire country has already picked a side. And it’s not with the government. When nurses pay has been eroded over such a long period – some are using food banks to get by – and their union calls for strike action for the first time in its history, then a stand has to be taken. » | John Crace | Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Rishi Sunak is like an overgrown 6th former! In actual fact, he’s a tw*t (supply your vowel of choice), to boot. After the pandemic, knowing how important nurses and other medical staff were to us, nobody in his right mind would pick a fight with essential workers such as these. Especially when the prime minister is so liberal with funds for CEOs of energy companies, and their henchmen, refusing to tax them to the full extent. Are CEOs of energy companies more essential to the economy than nurses? I repeat: What a tw*t!

FFS, pay the nurses and other medical staff a decent living wage/salary! You, Sir, are a disgrace! Anybody who has any decency is on the side of the nurses. Decent people are NOT, and cannot be, on your side. Redistribute the wealth of the nation fairly and equitably. Stop favouring those who have robbed the nation blind! – © Mark Alexander

Double Down News: Sadists Now Control the Government

Nov 16, 2022 | THIS is How Democracy ENDS

Liz Truss' Ex-colleague Says She's Been Humiliated, and Labour Could Let Him Back into Politics

Rory Stewart is a former Conservative international development secretary, a host of 'The Rest is Politics' podcast and the CEO of charity Give Directly.

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are not up to their jobs. The Conservatives are no longer up to the job of governing this country, either. They have been in power for far too long. They are stale. We need change in this country.

Brexit was a very stupid idea. We should never have left the EU. It was national suicide. We shot ourselves in the foot. We are Europeans. Our destiny is in Europe. We need to return to the European Union asap. The adolescents have had their time in the spotlight; now it is time for the grown-ups to take control again. – © Mark Alexander

Major Donation to U.K. Conservative Party Was Flagged Over Russia Concerns

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The cash was part of a fund-raising blitz that helped propel Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s party to victory in 2019. Records track $630,225 to a Russian bank account.

Ehud Sheleg in London in 2018. Mr. Sheleg is suspected of channeling money to the Conservatives from a Russian bank account belonging to his father-in-law. | Tereza Červeňová
LONDON — One of the biggest donors to Britain’s Conservative Party is suspected of secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party from a Russian account, according to a bank alert filed to Britain’s national law enforcement agency.

The donation, of $630,225, was made in February 2018 in the name of Ehud Sheleg, a wealthy London art dealer who was most recently the Conservative Party’s treasurer. The money was part of a fund-raising blitz that helped propel Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his party to a landslide victory in the 2019 general election.

But documents filed with the authorities last year and reviewed by The New York Times say that the money originated in a Russian account of Mr. Sheleg’s father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, who was once a senior politician in the previous pro-Kremlin government of Ukraine. He now owns real estate and hotel businesses in Crimea and Russia. » | Jane Bradley | Thursday, May 12, 2022

‘Levelling Up’ Has Been Tried Before – So Where Did We Go Wrong?

THE GUARDIAN: Michael Gove’s strategy faces myriad obstacles, as I found to my cost when I tried to tackle regional inequalities

It is now more than 50 years since I first wrestled with the restructuring of local government. After the Conservatives won the 1970 general election, I was sidekick to Peter Walker, secretary of state for the newly created Department of the Environment, and our attempts to change things faced entrenched resistance.

It would be understandable, therefore, if I were to say that I know where the bodies are buried. Michael Gove’s new white paper on “levelling up” makes it clear that, far from being buried, the bodies are alive and very much kicking.

In the white paper, Gove has proposed cautious, evolutionary moves towards greater devolution, achieved by agreement. I cannot criticise him for this. Time and again I faced the same pressures, and was able to persuade colleagues to accept only partial and gradual shifts in the status quo.

The objections came from all directions. The Treasury wants to maintain its tenacious grip on expenditure. The Whitehall barons fight to preserve their functional powers. Local councillors resist the abolition of their jobs, and members of parliament are deeply suspicious of change that creates local figures more powerful than them and deprives them of the foot soldiers they need to hold their seats. » | Michael Heseltine * | Thursday, February 3, 2022

* Lord Heseltine is a former Conservative deputy prime minister and environment secretary

Boris Johnson veut «niveler par le haut» l’Angleterre : Le projet de rééquilibrage économique, en faveur des régions défavorisées d’Angleterre, a été présenté mercredi. Mais l’objectif est avant tout politique. »

Das grosse Brexit-Versprechen: Wie Boris Johnson die englische Provinz aufpäppeln will: Zwei Jahre nach seinem grossen Wahlsieg versucht Boris Johnson die neu gewonnenen Tory-Wähler im englischen Norden bei Laune zu halten. Doch seine Strategie zum Ausgleich der historisch gewachsenen regionalen Ungleichheiten enthält wenig kurzfristige Massnahmen und bloss beschränkte finanzielle Feuerkraft. »

UK Urged to Suspend ‘Golden Visas’ after Fast Tracking of Russian Millionaires

THE OBSERVER: Liberal Democrat peer accuses Home Office of ‘selling residency’

Ministers face calls this weekend to publish an investigation into how more than 700 Russian millionaires were fast-tracked for British residency via a “golden visa” scheme exposed for lax checks on illicit funds.

The government said six months ago that it was finalising its report into tier 1 investor visas granted to the super-rich from several countries, including Russia, China and Kazakhstan, because of concerns over “dirty money”. It now faces calls to suspend the golden visa programme until the review is published.

Under the scheme, launched in 2008, applicants provide a minimum investment of £2m in exchange for the right to live in Britain. They can later apply for full citizenship and a passport.

The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace has tabled an amendment to the nationality and borders bill in the House of Lords, requiring the scheme to be halted until the review is published.

He said: “It’s claimed we are a great global country, but we are behaving like Cyprus and Malta by selling residency.” » | Jon Ungoed-Thomas | Sunday, January 30, 2022

There's a Sickness at the Heart of British Democracy & It's Called Corruption

Apr 23, 2021 • The Grace Blakeley Guide to the Cameron & Greensill Scandal

North Shropshire Byelection: Liberal Democrats Win Former Safe Tory Seat in Blow to Johnson

THE GUARDIAN: Helen Morgan wins seat the Conservatives have held for almost 200 years in a byelection called after environment secretary Owen Paterson resigned

The Liberal Democrats have won a stunning victory in the North Shropshire byelection, taking what had previously been a safe Conservative seat by a margin of nearly 6,000 votes, and capping a disastrous few weeks for Boris Johnson.

Helen Morgan, the Lib Dem candidate, won 17,957 votes, ahead of the Conservatives’ Neil Shastri-Hurst, on 12,032, a majority of 5,925. Labour’s Ben Wood was third, with 3,686 votes. Turnout was 46.3%.

The calamitous collapse in Conservative support – a 34% swing in a seat where they had a near-23,000 majority in 2019 – will prompt significant jitters among many Tory MPs, and is likely to raise questions about Johnson’s future.

It was a swing even greater than the 25% seen last June when the Lib Dems won the Chesham and Amersham byelection.

North Shropshire was seen as a notably greater challenge for the party, given it is a largely rural and strongly pro-Brexit constituency, one which has been Tory for all but two of the past 189 years, from 1904 to 1906. Morgan fought the seat in 2019 and came third, with 10% support. With video » | Peter Walker Political correspondent | Friday, December 17, 2021

At last, some good news! A drubbing for BoJo, the corrupt clown! Get these Brexit-loving, anti-EU Tories out of office! Kick them into the long grass! They belong to a bygone age and they are destroying this once proud nation. They are unpatriotic, over-privileged chancers! – © Mark

Tories lose North Shropshire seat they held for nearly 200 years: The Conservatives have lost the North Shropshire seat they held for nearly 200 years to the Liberal Democrats in a by-election blow to Boris Johnson. »

Royaume-Uni: le parti de Boris Johnson largement battu lors d'une législative partielle : La candidate du parti libéral démocrate Helen Morgan s'est imposée avec près de 6.000 voix d'avance dans ce fief conservateur. Un camouflet pour le premier ministre britannique. »

Schlappe für Boris Johnson und die Tories: Wie sehr der britische Premier nach einigen Affären um seine Partei und Regierung im Stimmungstief steckt, zeigt die Neubesetzung eines Parlamentssitzes. Eine Liberaldemokratin erobert den sonst stramm konservativen Wahlkreis. »

Britain’s Conservatives Lose ‘Safe’ Seat, Dealing Blow to Boris Johnson »

Debakel für Boris Johnson: Die Tories verlieren einen Wahlkreis nach über 200 Jahren an die Liberaldemokraten »

North Shropshire byelection earthquake delivers unhappy Christmas for Boris Johnson: Analysis: PM’s aides will be alarmed by the outcome and his MPs will be wondering: if the Tories can lose such a safe seat, what does it mean for them? »

Au Royaume-Uni, le parti de Boris Johnson sévèrement battu dans une législative partielle : Le LibDem, parti europhile, l’emporte dans le North Shropshire, une circonscription rurale normalement acquise aux conservateurs. »

'One more strike and Boris is OUT': Christmas nightmare for 'failed' PM as he faces Tory meltdown after by-election 'earthquake' saw 23,000 majority in true-blue, Brexit-backing North Shropshire routed by Lib Dems: Tories turn on Boris Johnson after 'earthquake' by-election defeat in previously rock-solid North Shropshire / MPs say result a 'referendum' on PM and warning he will face a leadership challenge unless things improve / Owen Paterson held seat with a huge 23,000 majority in 2019 and it was strongly Leave in 2016 referendum / But in a stunning turnaround Lib Dem Helen Morgan was elected to heap more pressure on the Prime Minister »

Johnson Faces Trust Crisis as Sleaze Shatters Faith in MPs

THE OBSERVER: Poll reveals huge public cynicism, with just 5% of respondents believing politicians work for public good

Boris Johnson campaigning in the North Shropshire byelection, which was called following the resignation of Owen Paterson. Photograph: Andrew Parsons CCHQ/Parsons Media
Trust in politicians to act in the national interest rather than for themselves has fallen dramatically since Boris Johnson became prime minister, according to figures contained in a disturbing new study into the state of British democracy.

The polling data from YouGov for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a particularly sharp fall in trust in the few weeks since the Owen Paterson scandal triggered a rash of Tory sleaze scandals.

In 2014, when David Cameron was prime minister, 48% of voters believed politicians were “out merely for themselves” as opposed to their country or party. This had increased to 57% by May 2021 after nearly two years of Johnson in No 10, and leapt to 63% last week in the wake of the Paterson affair. In the same poll, just 5% of voters thought politicians were in the job primarily for the good of their country.

While the polls have asked about politicians of all colours, the main opposition parties now believe the Tories are particularly vulnerable on questions of trust and sleaze, offering them a chance to break through. » | Toby Helm and Michael Savage | Saturday, November 4, 2021

Why trust politicians? How UK voters lost faith in our leaders: More people than ever before feel disaffected by our political system. But what are the reasons for this and what risks does it pose? »

One thing is for sure: history will not be kind to Boris Johnson. In years to come, pages in the history books describing his administration will be stamped with the words ‘sleaze and corruption’. In addition, the chapters written on Brexit will be stamped almost certainly with the following words: sleazy, corrupt, undemocratic, ‘financed by foreigners’.

Johnson’s apparent victory is but an illusion. One day, it will be shown to have been pyrrhic. – © Mark

Learn from the Test and Trace Debacle. It Shows How the Tories Enrich Their Friends

THE GUARDIAN: Calling the government’s spending wasteful, as Labour has, merely plays into the hands of the right

Just as 19th-century oil barons competed to make their millions from liquid gold, today vast sums are to be made by drilling deep into the British state.’ Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP
It’s 33 years since Margaret Thatcher inaugurated the modern rightwing Eurosceptic movement, declaring in Bruges that “we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level”. Given the Brexit cause was so inextricably tied with deregulation, tax cuts and a retreat from public spending, there is something of an irony that, less than two years since our withdrawal from the EU, British companies find themselves tied up with red tape at our borders, average taxes have reached their highest levels since the 1950s, and the size of the state has been brought to levels “not seen in normal times” since the early Thatcherite era, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Some commentators have even declared the contents of Rishi Sunak’s red box to be a “Labour budget”, while ITV’s Robert Peston labels Boris Johnson “an arch-Keynesian”. Such an analysis belies a common misconception: that a leftwing approach to the economy is defined by statism, and that an enlarged state is incompatible with the Tory creed. This fundamentally misunderstands the real ideological battleground, which is over whose interests the state serves rather than its absolute size. » | Owen Jones | Friday, October 29, 2021

They Might Have Got More Brexit Sense Out of Frosty the Snowman

THE GUARDIAN: The UK’s chief negotiator with the EU did his best to prove why he isn’t really up to the job

You win some, you lose some. We’re still nowhere near finding out if the government has a coherent plan for tackling social care – only late on Monday the prime minister cancelled a meeting with Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock due to take place on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the issue. So we can probably assume not. But we are a little better informed as to why the negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol have started to unravel badly. And that’s because every time he speaks, the UK’s lead Brexit negotiator, David Frost, doesn’t seem to be quite as bright as he would like us all to believe.

Tuesday’s appearance before the foreign affairs select committee was a case in point. Having established his credentials as being rather more important than a minister for Europe, Lord Frost then did his best to prove why he wasn’t really up to the job. He got off to a bad start by saying that the decision not to fully accredit the EU ambassador to the UK had been “over-interpreted” and that petty point scoring had been the last thing on the government’s mind. For some reason, the EU had seen it differently and taken offence. » | John Crace | Tuesday, June 22, 2021

John Bercow Defects to Labour with Withering Attack on Johnson

THE OBSERVER: Former Speaker says party has become reactionary and xenophobic under its current leadership

John Bercow, the former Tory MP and Speaker of the House of Commons, today delivers an extraordinary broadside against Boris Johnson and the Conservative party as he announces he has switched his political allegiance to Labour.

In an explosive interview with the Observer, Bercow says he regards today’s Conservative party as “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”.

Bercow, who stepped down as Speaker in 2019 after 10 years, says he joined the Labour party a few weeks ago because he now shares its values and sees it is as the only means to removing the current Tory government from office.

“I am motivated by support for equality, social justice and internationalism. That is the Labour brand,” he said. “The conclusion I have reached is that this government needs to be replaced. The reality is that the Labour party is the only vehicle that can achieve that objective. There is no other credible option.” » | Toby Helm, Political editor | Saturday, June 19, 2021

Lib Dems Can Topple Tory ‘Blue Wall’ in South of England, Says Leader

THE GUARDIAN: After Sarah Green’s Chesham and Amersham victory, Ed Davey says Conservative MPs will be worried

The Liberal Democrats have said they can topple the Conservatives’ “blue wall” in the south of England after storming to victory in the Chesham and Amersham byelection, taking a seat that had been solidly Tory for almost 50 years.

In a result that exceeded even the expectations of party activists, the Lib Dems’ Sarah Green overturned a 16,000 Conservative majority to take the seat by just over 8,000 votes, a swing of 25%.

Boris Johnson conceded that the result in Chesham and Amersham was “disappointing” but rejected the idea it shows he is alienating voters in the south of England. » | Peter Walker, Heather Stewart and Haroon Siddique | Friday, June 18, 2021

Lib Dems’ byelection victory suggests trouble for Tories in ‘blue wall’ »

Chesham and Amersham has shaken Tory MPs’ faith in Boris Johnson »

What the loss of a Conservative seat tells us about England’s changing middle class »

Lib Dems Win Chesham and Amersham Byelection in Stunning Upset

THE GUARDIAN: Sarah Green takes formerly safe Buckinghamshire seat despite senior Tories’ canvassing

The Liberal Democrats have pulled off an extraordinary victory in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Chesham and Amersham, taking the formerly safe seat from the Tories in a byelection.

In a shock result, Lib Dem Sarah Green secured 21,517 votes, leaving the Conservative Peter Fleet trailing with 13,489, and giving the Lib Dems a majority of 8,028.

The contest was called after the death of the local MP Cheryl Gillan, who had represented the constituency since 1992 and held it in 2019 with a majority of 16,223.

Ed Davey’s party will hope the surprise win shows that a swath of seats across the home counties could now be within their grasp at the next general election. » | Heather Stewart | Friday, June 18, 2021

Owen Jones Meets Sayeeda Warsi | 'Islamophobia Is Britain’s Bigotry Blind Spot'

Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi is one the most outspoken critics of Islamophobia in her own party. I met her to talk about what she calls ‘Britain's bigotry blind spot’ and the consequences it has for Muslim communities around the country. She has some damning criticism for the way her party has dealt with the racism in its ranks and fears what will happen if Michael Gove, one of the current favourites to replace Theresa May, becomes prime minister.