As mentioned here last time, I complained to the BBC about “the endless slavish and unquestioning coverage” given to Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

Now the BBC has got back to me. Or, rather, to myself and every other similarly displeased person. To us all has been sent a dollop of corporate dung-speak from which there rises an unpleasant smell. I have attached the reply to the end of my last blog.

Short version (with a slick of added cynicism): we are right, you are wrong, and while we’re happy to hear what you have to stay, you’re still wrong and we all love Nigel round here.

Two points the BBC makes seem worth raising here.

First point. The BBC says the coverage is right because Reform UK has been “making the political weather”.

Well, it’s making the political weather because you keep puffing a gale up its sorry arse. Many elements contribute to the political weather, but the BBC endlessly banging on about one party above all others must be the biggest factor.

Also, ‘political weather’ is just lazy shorthand for Nigel Farage making a lot of noise and the BBC reporting every belligerent bellow, usually without accompanying analysis into the aforementioned noise.

Second point: “We give careful consideration to ensuring any story concerning Mr Farage and Reform UK are given proportionate and appropriate coverage on our networks and online.”

And yet other parties hardly get a look in. Oh, apart from the Labour government, which frequently is given a kicking by the weaselly Chris Mason, political editor (apparently).

The BBC has traditionally been considered left-wing by those on the right, and right-wing by those on the left. Sadly, as the corporation now appears to be run by right-wingers that argument has surely been settled.

But whatever view you take, it would be healthier if politicians of all persuasions had no influence on the BBC. For self-serving reasons, Boris Johnson felt the BBC was too left-wing, so he ‘fixed’ that – in part creating the one-sided BBC we now have.

As most media in this country is right-wing, the BBC should be neutral to balance the scales, rather than acting like a second cousin to the Daily Telegraph.

Incidentally, the BBC seemed less keen on reporting how Nigel Farage was taken down a peg or two in the US where he’d gone to plead for help with “the really awful authoritarian situation the UK has sunk into” on free speech. For his troubles he was called a ‘Putin-loving free speech impostor’ during a congressional hearing.

Breaking off for a moment to bang my head on the nearest brick wall (ouch!), that’ll be the US as run by a dictatorial president (“Maybe people like dictators”) who wants to control the universities, the media, the museums, history, the arts, who sends troops into Democrat-run cities to ‘solve’ crime problems that don’t exist, who has masked thugs arresting people on the street, and bundling them away.

Yeah, sure, but we’re the ones with an “authoritarian situation”.

Farage took time off from Parliament to badmouth Britain in this way. He’s the strangest patriot you ever did meet, but then his only true loyalty is to himself.

Oh, and this country is so authoritarian that an opposition politician can be paid a fortune to appear on a TV station where he is free to spout whatever rubbish he likes (with a favourable tax arrangement, too, reportedly).

Ouch! I’ve just banged my head again.

I WAS sorry to see the resignation of Angela Rayner, mainly because, whether you like her or not, she is an authentic Labour politician with a true story to tell.

The Guardian editorial on her departure contains the curious observation that: “If a minister takes the hit early and with contrition, they may be able to rebuild their career once public anger cools”.

Well, maybe – but the embers of that ‘public anger’ were mostly blown on by the Daily Telegraph, which incidentally now calls Nigel Farage “Britain’s next prime minister” at every mention.

Sadly, the posh boy element of the media hate what Rayner represents as a working-class woman who rose from a tough background in Stockport to become deputy prime minister. She had been held to standards that never attached to Tory ministers of recent times, as shown in this reminder here.

Image taken from Threads/Instagram

But I don’t understand why she didn’t seek official advice on whether she needed to pay more stamp duty. Worth adding, though, that her personal situation is quite complicated thanks to a previous family home being made into a trust for her disabled son. And that flat she bought in Hove is said to be the only property she owns.

IT MUST be time for a coffee after all that. Although not from Costa, as buckets of vaguely coffee-tainted milkshake are not to my taste. Something stronger, please.

According to a report in the Observer last weekend, Costa Coffee is underperforming against the artisan coffee shops popping up all over the place.

I always favour local coffee shops over the big brands, especially as in York there are so many good ones to choose from.

Anyway, Costa is owned by Coca-Cola, which shelled out £3.9bn for the dubious privilege in 2018. According to that Observer story, the company’s chief executive reportedly told analysts that Costa “had not quite delivered” and was “not where we wanted it to be from an investment hypothesis point of view”.

I have read that statement more than once and can find no possible meaning, even after an extra coffee.

Incidentally, should you spurn Costa in favour of Starbucks, it’s worth knowing that CEO Brian Niccol made “6,666 times more than the company’s median employee in 2024”. The figure is as quoted by Professor Robert Reich at Berkeley.

That’s Starbucks crossed off the list, too.

How the Telegraph reported Farage’s Taliban idea…

What unlikely connection exists between the Taliban and the journalists of Nottinghamshire Live? Well, Reform UK suggested doing a deal with the former but won’t talk to the latter.

To set this in context, Nigel Farage flourished his latest mass deportation plan at a press conference in Oxford on Tuesday, pledging to send back “absolutely everyone” arriving in the UK on small boats, including women and children. By yesterday he’d already stepped back from that after being accused of ugly and destructive rhetoric (to be fair, the only sort he knows).

Paying the Taliban to accept migrants was one of his suggestions – a gruesome scheme that could have seen people who’d fled the Taliban being returned to Afghanistan to face extreme danger, or worse. And the British taxpayer would have to pay the Taliban. Unsurprisingly, the Taliban said they could work with this, while everyone just else put their head in their hands.

When a reporter at the first conference asked Farage if he was bothered about women and children being sent back to Afghanistan, the spluttering little man said he was more concerned about the social unrest on our streets, and the safety of women at the hands of migrants.

Ah, yes – the social unrest Farage has exaggerated wildly and also conjured up with his endless divisiveness, his confected, opportunistic outrage. His – oh, God, his horrible bloody everything. The hatred, the grievance, the sucking up to Trump; yes, the lot, every squalid shred.

And he’d like to deport your rights, too.

Farage wishes to abolish the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), brushing aside assorted securities so that if elected (heaven forbid) he could do whatever he wished without legal restraint.

Oh, and he and his American billionaire petrol-powered chums and right-wing backers would also then, according to entirely believable concerns, like to abolish the state pension and the minimum wage, along with paid holiday and sick leave, start fracking everywhere, loosen our gun laws, and eviscerate what’s left of the NHS, leaving us with an unaffordable US-style insurance system instead.

Oh, you lot are always saying mean things like that about our Nigel, the Reform UK followers will complain, while struggling to squeeze into their new Reform UK football tops (honestly, I’ve not made that last bit up) before shinning up a lamppost with a St George’s flag.

Well, yes, we are – and so we should.

Farage needs to be exposed to full scrutiny, rather than the easy ride he so often receives, where the screens and the pages are emptied so that he can spew out his latest racist bilge. He has never run anything aside from assorted political parties made in his own image; and he has never worked in government; mostly just on making himself very rich.

One retort for Labour would be to remind everyone about Brexit, that cause of so many of the country’s ills – including the so-called small boat crisis, brought about in large part by Brexit, as owned by Mr N Farage.

Slogans aren’t everything, but a cutting one would help, something distilled from: ‘Don’t buy anything from this man – remember what happened last time he knocked on your door.’

I only hope Farage has peaked too soon. And just wish the media would say, oh, do pipe down Nigel and come back in four years when there’s actually an election.

Apologies to those journalists from Nottingham, who’ve been left hanging around since the first paragraph. What’s happened is that Reform UK’s councillors in the area are refusing to speak to the local media and will not invite the journalists to cover county council events.

Reform UK, locally and nationally, do hate being held to account. As the website writes: “Nottinghamshire Live and its historic Nottingham Post newspaper, which has been delivering news to the city and county since 1878, has essentially been told it is no longer allowed to scrutinise those running one of the biggest authorities in our area.”

Of course, if you’re weary of seeing Farage everywhere, I suggest a visit his constituency in Clacton on Sea. He’s never to be found there.

Although an admirer of the BBC, I have made my first complaint to the corporation. You will not be surprised to learn it’s about Nigel Farage, whose every squeak is amplified by the BBC into an uncritical chorus.

Here is the wording of my complaint, under the heading: Endless pushing of Nigel Farage:

“As a longtime fan of the BBC I am mortified by the endless slavish and unquestioning coverage you give to Nigel Farage. His every utterance is promoted, including his remarks today about a ‘scourge’ of immigration. You appear to be pushing Reform UK without offering balancing views. Not good enough.”

Stronger words are available, but those were mine.

Footnote:

Since this blog post was published, the BBC has replied as below:

Dear Audience Member
Thank you for getting in touch with us about our recent news coverage of Reform UK.

BBC News is committed to providing our audiences with fair and impartial coverage of all relevant political parties. Whenever we invite representatives of any political party to take part in our coverage, we are careful to ensure that views are appropriately challenged and analysed, over an appropriate period of time. Our Editorial Guidelines make it clear that: “Evidence of past electoral support and current electoral support should be taken into account in making judgements about appropriate levels of coverage and prominence.”

Traditional voting patterns across Britain have been shifting, providing a challenge to established political parties, especially Labour and the Conservatives. At the 2017 general election, those two parties combined won more than 80% of the vote – at last year’s general election, that figure was well below 60%. Current opinion polls put their combined support at nearer 40% across Great Britain.

During the last year or so, Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) appear to have been the main beneficiary of this shift. Our assessments of “past electoral support” include both representation (ie how many MPs are elected) and also vote-share (ie how many people actually vote for a party overall). Although they have four MPs currently, Reform UK won more than four million votes in the 2024 general election, making them the third largest party in terms of vote share (more than 14%), behind Labour and the Conservatives, but ahead of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless returned more than 70 MPs.

In the 2025 English local elections in May, Reform UK won a majority of ten councils plus two Mayoral contests, securing more votes across England than any other party (an estimated national share of above 30%). On the same day, Reform UK won a parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, with nearly 39% of the vote in that constituency.

Assessing “current electoral support” includes an obligation to take into account legitimate opinion polls, especially where there are robust and consistent trends (as measured by voting intention polls conducted by members of the British Polling Council). All such surveys fully conducted since the May elections (a total of more than 90 consecutive polls) indicate that Reform UK are ahead of all other parties across Britain; during August, the party’s polling average across 17 opinion polls, from a range of companies, increased to 30%, ahead of Labour (21%), the Conservatives (18%), the Liberal Democrats (14%) and the Green Party (9%).

Recently, Reform UK announced its immigration strategy and we considered many people who had voted for the party (or say they intend voting for it) would be interested in seeing the proposals. However, BBC News hasn’t simply reported on the strategy, we have also provided political analysis, scrutinised its spokespeople and heard from many individuals and parties across the political spectrum, including the government, providing a wide range of views on the issue.

With regards to Nigel Farage, he is an elected MP and leader of a political party with clear evidence of significant electoral support. Many political analysts across the media, with different political perspectives, report that Reform UK are “making the political weather” – in other words, the reactions and policies of the other political parties can only be properly understood in the context of knowing what is happening with Reform UK and its increased level of support.

We give careful consideration to ensuring any story concerning Mr Farage and Reform UK are given proportionate and appropriate coverage on our networks and online. We thank you for taking the time to get in touch, and your comments have been passed along to senior news editors.

 

A long time ago, we used to watch Play For Today on the TV, my mother and me. The pioneering drama series, which ran from 1970 to 1984, is being revived – and hurrah for that. Perhaps oddly, though, it will run on Channel 5 rather than the BBC.

The BBC must have been too busy trying to serve up a half-baked season of MasterChef featuring two presenters it had just sacked; oh, and making sure its news departments mention Nigel Farage in every other bulletin.

My mother would have been perhaps in her 40s when we watched Play For Today. Now she is 93 and in hospital after a fall.

We visited her earlier in the week. At one point, the woman in the next bed had the curtains pulled round while talking to an occupational therapist about going home.

A series of questions gauged the suitability of where she lived, how many stairs there were, if she had a bath or a shower, and so forth. Then she was asked if she smoked, and if she did how many cigarettes in a day. “As many as I can possibly get my hands on,” she said as her wheezy laugh rose from behind those curtains.

What a line, a real-life exchange worthy of a TV dramatist.

Play For Today dates from an age when British television was not afraid of serious drama. With fewer channels and few distractions, the box then had a broad reach; and it was a box, not a panoramic glass canvas hung from the wall.

While there is undeniably much more choice today, it’s a fragmented TV universe with too much on in too many places; and too many companies wanting a slice of what you don’t have (money, attention).

Play For Today, still recalled as one of the most influential British television series, was known for exploring thorny societal issues. It began so long ago that I’d not even started at university.

Actors who appeared in the dramas included Ray Winstone, Alison Steadman and Helen Mirren, while Dennis Potter was among the playwrights whose work was featured, including Blue Remembered Hills, with an adult cast playing children during wartime.

Potter also contributed Brimstone And Treacle, wherein a strange young man (played by strange young Sting, no less) has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.

It’s not possible at this distance to say for sure which dramas we watched together. I recall one about a George Best-like footballer who, when cornered by a man accusing him of being a softie about being kicked, slammed a car door into his shin, saying: “That now I earn my living”, or something like that.

Disappointingly, a trawl through the list of dramas doesn’t pin that memory down, so perhaps it wasn’t a Play For Today. Plays that do occur include Our Day Out by Willy Russell, Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh, Spend Spend Spend by Jack Rosenthal, Nuts In May (Leigh again), and Edna The Inebriate Woman, by Jeremy Sandford and starring Patricia Hayes.

I can’t ask mum what she remembers about all that, or not at present. A question to be saved for another day.

As I sat typing this, my wife came in with my mother on the screen on her phone for a video chat. Calls keep being missed or cut off, the wrong button having been pressed, or the right button having been pushed the wrong way. But here she was. Mum said she was having a good day as assorted friends had been to see her, and she was out of bed at last. So that was something.

Channel 5 has revived Play For Today to “give young writers, actors and producers from lower-income backgrounds a way into TV, helped by established talent”, according to a report in the Guardian.

Good for them.

If those writers want any steers on dialogue, perhaps they should hang around a geriatric ward.

Flags, flags, flags. When did we all get so hung up about bits of fluttering material?

Surely it is possible to harbour no strong feelings about the union flag or the St George’s flag; to think, oh there’s the flag, then turn your mind to higher matters, or lower matters if you prefer.

Of course, most of those hanging these flags from lampposts do so because they wish to engineer a row, cause a spat – and then act all affronted about their ‘rights’. To them flags are a symbol of Britishness, although heaven knows why. A country strong in its identity, one sure of its culture and history, doesn’t need to pull such playacting patriotism from the dressing-up box.

The weaponisation of flags will disappear soon, if only to flap back when those with angry insecurities wish to cause a fuss.

As for pride in your country, that always seems a strange feeling to indulge. Shouldn’t you rather have pride in your own achievements, or better still those of people you love or respect. Being proud about the mere happy accident of your birth seems odd.

Of course, those demanding this dusty fealty really just want to have a scrap, so best to walk on by and leave them to it.

Here’s a nubby conundrum. Should my typing fingers address ‘lawless Britain’ – or go straight to the new Naked Gun film?

Oh, with a tug of reluctance, let’s start in that Nigel Farage-fabricated land where people are too scared to step outdoors for fear of being mugged.

This maliciously made-up place does not exist, as Fraser Nelson pointed out in his column in The Times: “NHS hospital data shows knife assaults last year fell to a 25-year low, with the number treated for violent assault close to half what it was in 2000. Crime surveys agree. By such measures our streets have seldom, if ever, been safer. So what’s going on?”

Oh, right-wing fearmongering, the rise of social media distortions, people’s dumb determination to believe whatever they wish and never mind the evidence, that’s what.

Nelson says that when “shrill voices dominate, hyperbole wins and Britain is portrayed not just as troubled but in ruins, terrorised by immigrant-driven crime, even close to civil war. And if the official figures show none of this? Well, then those figures must be wrong”.

Praising the former editor of the right-wing Spectator doesn’t come easily, but Nelson is right here, especially in highlighting Farage saying: “We all know that crime has risen significantly over the course of the last few years.”

Ah yes, “we all know” – the nudge-nudge politics of perception. Farage has never been interested in traditional politics; too much like hard work, too little reward. Instead, he dives into social media, flourishes endless lies and exaggerations with shabby elan, and filches policies from his hero Trump.

But, you know, I am forever saying this stuff; does pointing it out make a difference, or will too many people continue to believe the lies?

Incidentally, a Reform supporter who doesn’t know how the electoral system works has started another of those pointless government petitions calling for an immediate general election.

The petition had 639,168 signatures at the time of writing. At last year’s general election Labour won 9,708,716 votes. Perhaps the instigator of the petition ‘knows’ that 639,168 is a higher number than 9,708,716.

A counter-petition instead asks that we should: “Shove a Pineapple Up Nigel Farage’s Arse”.

Sadly, this petition seems fake and appears to be a schoolboy prank (well done that schoolboy, it certainly tickled my inner schoolboy).

Britain isn’t flawless but it isn’t lawless either. It mostly remains a pleasant, friendly and engaging country. Unless you’re a poisoned patriot; that sort hate the country they profess to love, which is odd.

Thanks to Private Eye for its spoof news story on tinderbox Britain, seen below.

OUR eldest son has a dizzy fond memory of watching the original Naked Gun film as a family. He particularly recalls me laughing my head off (something that used to happen with Tommy Cooper, too).

For me the hilarity lay in spotting where a joke was going before it arrived. Anyway, we went to watch the new one the other day with the eldest, at his suggestion.

Liam Neeson stars as Frenk Drebin Jr, alongside Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston. The film is exhilaratingly silly, breathlessly funny and the jokes swarm like witty bees, almost each one a welcome sting.

Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian praised the film as “amiably ridiculous, refreshingly shallow, entirely pointless and guilelessly crass”.

Yup, all that.

Neeson proves to be an inspired replacement for Leslie Nielsen, a hulking straight man given endlessly ridiculous lines and scenes to spin out, including a romance with Anderson, who is fab in the film.

More importantly, at one point the three of us were helpless with laughter, and our son, sitting with his long legs at the end of the row, leaned his forehead on the back of the seat in front, and howled. Another good memory.

Definitely recommended if well-honed foolishness is your thing.

Dr Johnson famously said: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Well, don’t tell Donald Trump for he seems to hate London, reserving especial contempt for its mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan.

On his recent golfing jolly to Scotland, the US President took time out to lay into ‘windmills’ – and into Mr Khan.

When a man is tired of hearing Trump blather on about everything, he is perhaps tired of life as it is presently being played out, for there is in Trump all that life can ill afford.

When a man is tired of Trump – well, you get the picture, one fuzzy with contempt and corruption (how else do you describe a sitting President using US taxpayer dollars to fund a five-day business trip to promote his own golf clubs?).

Those windmills tilted at by the orange Don Quixote are in fact wind turbines. Trump hates them in an unhinged manner, but then he does most things without calling on a hinge.

At one of his audiences with the press, Trump said wind turbines compared unfavourably to a small hole in the ground. He didn’t elaborate, but he was talking oil, and that ‘small hole’ would need to have a massive oil rig built on top.

To Trump the turbines spoil the view from his golf courses. I’d say Trump spoils the view of every horizon along which he shambles and halters, but there you go.

Anyway, isn’t there something beautiful about a line of wind turbines, touching the sky, and generating power only from what blows by.

Nigel Farage, that Trump Mini-Me, is turning Reform UK against all eco-energy, but then his party is said to be funded by big oil (small man, big oil; small man, big noise).

But let’s return to London. I love our capital city and earlier this year spent a great weekend there with our eldest son, as written up in a blog published on March 10.

There is so much to see and do in London; so much culture; and it is a fully multicultural city. All that culture, all those diverse people – that must be why Trump so often disparages London. The city is the opposite of his low-culture, fools-gold glistering world of tasteless glitz.

And while Trump’s behaviour is killing tourism to the US, London has just been named the world’s top destination for 2025 by Tripadvisor. Maybe he just can’t stomach that.

Why he hates Mr Khan isn’t clear, but it’s a long-time antipathy. No-one would be surprised if race came into it, and Trump last week called Mr Khan “a nasty person” who has “done a terrible job”. He previously called Mr Khan a “stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London”, proving once again that Trump insults are schoolboy slights spat from an old man’s mouth.

Nigel Farage is always talking down London by exaggerating crime in the capital. He does this by referring to his favoured statistical measure: the department of things he just made up or wildly exaggerated.

It’s an odd sort of patriot who so often talks down the country he is supposed to love. Wearing Union Jack socks is no defence either and probably should be recorded in the crime statistics Farage chooses to ignore.

In the far-right conspiracy world – also known, sadly, as ‘the world’ – just saying that London is ridden with crime is enough for that to be true. No dry statistical heckle will silence those who shout.

Sadiq Khan and his team conducted ‘social listening’ research after Trump’s verbal assault in Scotland. This concluded that 94 per cent of those commenting online posted from outside London: 94 per cent as opposed to 6 per cent of Londoners. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner, as the old song almost has it.

Not sure what Dr Johnson would have made of all this. When a man is tired of social media he is probably just tired. I’ll plead guilty to that.

Johnson, by the way, was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and later moved to London where he struggled to support himself through journalism. Well, echo me that one, if you replace Lichfield with Cheadle Hulme.

Despite his travails, he remains known today mostly for his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755.

“The task took eight years, and Johnson employed six assistants, all of them working in his house off Fleet Street,” according to BBC History.

His quotation about London took less time and is surely remembered by more people. By literary law, those words are also dug up every time Dr Johnson is mentioned.

As for London today, here to close are wise words on Threads from a woman called Jenna Chowdhury. I know nothing about Jenna but like what she has to say:

“London thrives BECAUSE of its diversity, not despite it. It’s not perfect. Racism exists. Inequality is real. But Londoners show up —for protests, pride, for each other. We don’t just talk diversity — we fight for it! Next time someone says multiculturalism has failed tell them: It’s alive & thriving. It’s called London.”

There is a file I keep for blog ideas. At present it’s swollen like an appendix fit to burst, but mostly that’s down to Nigel Farage.

Many of the bits and pieces put into the ‘blog stuff’ folder are examples on social media of what seems to be growing agitation with the BBC for giving undue prominence to Reform UK. This has only grown after Farage was granted yet another audience with Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday programme last weekend.

Let’s have an investigatory prod at that aching appendix to see what pops out.

Oh look, here is Farage fuming that anger in the UK is the worst it’s been for 60 years. Small boats are to blame – of course they are. Farage would be quieter than a Trappist monk in a library if he didn’t have disadvantaged migrants to complain about.

Every time he or anyone else jabs a mean finger at migrants, just remember that deeply disadvantaged people in small boats don’t cause all your problems. I’d worry more about the ones in big boats who hoard wealth to themselves and resent paying their fair share of taxes.

Migrants fleeing here on inflatable dinghies have surmounted problems a privileged moneyed man like Farage has never encountered – and anyway they constitute a tiny fraction of immigration to this country.

Sadly, Farage has been horribly efficient at tricking people into believing what he says. Just remember it’s always about the moan; just remember he’s a shoddy peddler of grievance politics.

After his Sunday outing, Farage was back on the BBC the following day with a televised press conference about crime, almost as if there was an election round the corner, which there isn’t. Britain faces societal collapse, he spouted. Not true, but Farage just tramples the truth to create the impression that this is so.

He’s like an arsonist who sets a blaze, runs around shouting that he warned everyone there would be an inflagration, then seeks praise for phoning the fire brigade.

Let’s take another tentative prod. What emerges this time is Caroline Lucas, the former Green MP, saying sensibly: “Farage should never be interviewed without being forced to answer for the failures of Brexit.”

Quite right – but good luck with that. No one ever asks him about Brexit on the BBC, preferring to let him spout off on his chosen topics.

As you will have noticed, much of Farage’s shtick is to suggest that we are not being told the truth about something, even after he’s just been presented with the evidence. Crime is rising dramatically, he says, only to grumble about the reliability of crime statistics if anyone points out this isn’t true.

Let’s prod another infected spot.

Ah, yes, here is Farage claiming on social media that Essex Police bussed counter-demonstrators to a far-right protest earlier this week outside a migrant hotel in Epping. The chief constable should resign Farage blabbered.

He showed footage of what had “happened”, only for Essex police to say he was “categorically wrong”. Some of the counter-demonstrators were instead “escorted by vehicle away from the area for their safety”.

What a typical Farage move – being inflammatory before the truth.

He later issued a sort of apology to Essex Live, containing this slippery line: “I was slightly out on accuracy, I apologise, but I think the gist of what I was saying was right.”

After that press conference, the right-wing papers were happy to be Farage’s echo chamber. “Police not ready for summer of unrest” wailed the Telegraph. The Mail went for a splash about asylum seekers “gambling away taxpayer cash”. They were, in fact, using some of their meagre allowance to gamble, and in a sense you can understand why, foolish hope perhaps being their last resort.

Here’s a confession: I gamble away a small portion of my pension on doing the lottery, but don’t tell the Daily Mail.

Oh well, right-wing papers do what right-wing papers do. I am more concerned about the BBC giving Farage endless free publicity without ever asking tough questions.

Another prod, yet more septic politics. This time on climate denial. Reform UK is reportedly funded in part by big oil, hence its hatred of anything to do with climate change. Deputy leader Richard Tice wrote an alarming, if absurd, threatening  letter to energy firms warning them against bidding to provide clean power provision as Reform would do away with all that.

Never mind that the clean energy industry has seen a growth of 10% and now supports nearly a million people in well-paid jobs in the UK, according to the CBI.

Almost there now, although this file sure is bursting. Another prod finds Farage moaning about the government’s plans to give 16-year-olds the vote, saying it’s an attempt to rig the system.

Ah, yes – 16-year-olds are too young to vote but it’s perfectly OK to have a 19-year-old Reform councillor as leader of Warwickshire County Council. A little hypocrisy goes a long way.

A final dip into the infected file brings up something heartening at last. On Threads you will find an excellent account called Reform Are Not Your Friends. This has endless examples of how you really don’t want to end up with a Reform government.

I rather liked this one…

Reform really need to do better with their attack bot accounts… 😬

😂 They’re almost always called “Derek”, “Brian” or “Graham”.

😂 They typically have 0-4 followers.

😂 They’ve never posted anything other than rant responses to us and others.

😂 They don’t respond to any facts.

If you’re on Threads, given them a follow.

And to conclude, if you want a climate denying, gun toting far-right grifter who uses politics to enrich himself – he has nine jobs now, apparently – who says he will his install multi-millionaire mates as Cabinet ministers, and is basically a Trump tribute act, go on and vote for Reform.

Just remember they’re not your friends.

Footnote: Sarah Pochin, the Reform MP for Runcorn, filmed herself for her YouTube channel saying that Greenway Road in her constituency was riddled with crime and social unrest because of illegal immigrants. BBC North West Tonight interviewed locals on the street who said that’s not true and it’s a lovely place to live.

Here are pieces of flotsam found in the stagnant pool of my mind.

You can’t move nowadays without tripping over two vowels yoked together in the name of progress. No prizes for guessing those letters.

Great things are being promised in the name of artificial intelligence (AI). Putting a search in Google brought up the following:

“Artificial intelligence refers to the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. According to a BBC article, these tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making…”

That was how artificial intelligence explained artificial intelligence to me – a sort of tech version of mansplaining. Tech-splaining, perhaps.

In a sense I don’t know enough to be writing this, but such a deficiency doesn’t bother others, including our government which is setting great store by AI. Something we don’t fully understand is going to perform miracles of efficiency, apparently.

Perhaps it will; perhaps it won’t.

I worry we are being oversold something that isn’t finished yet. And fret that many of those doing the selling are US tech bros, a cold clan who already seduced us with social media, upending the world and in the process hoarding all the available money; or much of it, at least.

Are we willing to trust them all over again – and what are they going to take as their reward this time?

My other doubts lie in the admittedly small matter of my first novel, which was among those appropriated by Meta without permission or reward. An investigation by The Atlantic magazine in March revealed that Meta “may have accessed millions of pirated books and research papers through LibGen – Library Genesis – to train its generative AI (Gen-AI) system, Llama,” according to the BBC.

I typed in my title, and there it was, nicked.

Our own government seems dangerously relaxed about American tech companies conducting a smash-and-grab raid on the creative vaults, all to train their AI systems.

The word processing system I type this on also interrupts me all the time, asking if I’d like help writing. No thanks – I know how to write, and even if I don’t, those are my mistakes to make, my own stumble towards something complete and human made.

Then again, on the BBC news just now was a breathless report about switching on the UK’s most powerful supercomputer. It’s called the Isambard-AI machine and apparently hails a new age of artificial intelligence. A surgeon interviewed praised the medical work of AI, adding that his job might not exist in the same way in the future.

Incidentally, I am rereading my three Rounder Brothers novels as I am trying to find a way to bring them back. They were written long enough ago for me to have half-forgotten the plot, as it were. Some parts seem good; others leave me wondering why did I write that? No artificial intelligence was used in writing those novels, just the rusty old-fashioned sort.

KEIR Starmer was foolish to suspend seven of his more left-wing MPs last year; and now he’s banished four more, again for ideological insubordination.

He’d do better to keep MPs who disagree with him onside; and to admit that perhaps sometimes they might have a point. But no, it’s the naughty step for them.

It’s one problem with what some describe as Labour’s ‘loveless majority’. Last year’s general election saw a whopping win for Labour, yet no-one much seems to like them. As it happens, I mostly think they’re doing an OK job compared to what went before.

But having so many MPs does allow Starmer to make an example of those who step out of line; a small majority would make such bullying behaviour unwise.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell is one of the recently expunged MPs; her ‘sin’ was to have led a rebellion against disability benefit cuts.

I don’t know Rachael, but she is my MP, and we have met on the doorstep. She seems to be serious-minded and not someone you would recklessly call light-hearted. Yet she is hard-working, principled, willing to stick to her beliefs, and a good local MP.

She knocked on our door while electioneering last year. She had time for a chat, was pleasant, listened, and spoke like a normal person, not a party robot.

Making this hardworking Labour MP sit as an independent seems shameful and a little stupid. If an election were called tomorrow, Rachael would probably keep her seat, and Labour would be down another one.

Here I am, cycling to the university for a game of squash (result foretold, as usual). On the iron girder bridge in Holgate, a woman whizzes past as I am about to signal right. Oh, she’s on one of those cheating electric bicycles, I think. But no – turns out she is using those cheating young legs, the ones that don’t get tired. I follow her for a while but soon she is a bobbing speck on the horizon, rushing to wherever it is that young women on bicycles go in such a hurry. There is a metaphor in here somewhere, one that I will leave unturned.

Even younger legs now in a small family story. That same morning the alarm went off at 6.20am at our daughter’s house. She asked her own daughter, heading for three, if she’d go to work for her instead. The little one got out of bed so that she could stand to her full height and deliver her indignant rely: “Just look at the size of my legs. They’re teeny.”

WHAT links Jeremy Corbyn and Elon Musk? Both have announced they are establishing a new political party, that’s what.

Musk, former Trump buddy and backer turned fury-spitting frenemy, is setting up the America Party to “give you back your freedom”.

Might that be freedom from the Trump autocracy – a rotten state Musk himself helped secure?

A madman’s vanity project to counter the other madman’s vanity project. It can only end well if one undermines the other, but Trump seems immune from harm or consequence, although death can’t be ruled out. That applies to us all, of course, but Trump stands haltingly near the front of the queue, bathed in cholesterol and sociopathic ill will.

In the thankfully calmer waters of British politics former Labour MP Zarah Sultana has said she is quitting to co-lead a new left-wing party with Jeremy Corbyn.

The man himself, seemingly not expecting her announcement quite yet, said “discussions are ongoing”. One of his allies told the FT that “Zarah has really overplayed her hand” by speaking too soon.

That’s the sort of squabble more commonly found in Reform UK when underlings cross Nigel Farage, although, to be fair, Corbyn is said to favour a collaborative party, and no-one could accuse Farage of running one of those.

Corbyn released a statement saying just what you’d expect, really.

“One year on from the election, this Labour Government has refused to deliver the change people expected and deserved. Poverty, inequality and war are not inevitable. Our country needs to change direction, now.”

Well, a year isn’t exactly long to achieve any of that, and ‘refuse’ is only one way to sum up Keir Starmer’s dull stubborn pragmatism, and former leaders have a weak hand when making demands.

Dissatisfied Labour supporters may well rally to that flag, especially those usual suspects who like Labour until they’re in power when they say, oh, this is the wrong sort of Labour.

Names for the new party are reported to include The Collective and Arise, neither of which seems likely to set hearts racing.

Still, Starmer created this problem thanks to his bad habit of suspending MPs who disagree with him. Sultana and six other MPs faced that fate last year after voting against the government. Corbyn too was suspended and now stands as in independent.

Better, surely, to contain and appease your internal critics rather than erecting a righteous platform for them to stand on.

One fear in all this is that Jeremy Corbyn, who has already lost two elections for Labour, could help them chuck another by diluting the vote and accidentally giving Farage a piggyback.

Still, Farage usually manages to trip himself up. I’m no political Nostradamus, but I’d wager he’ll end up doing the same again, never mind what the polls are saying now. Reform UK is a ragbag protest movement, not a party that deserves to be anywhere near government.

Front pages about the BBC and Glastonbury, as highlighted on Threads by Adam Bienkov

Zarah Sultana is among those who’ve been critical of Keir Starmer’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as inflicted by Israeli troops. Isn’t it more a case that Starmer has simply gone with the misguided western consensus that supports and funds Israel, never mind what its government does?

It is no longer a stretch to suppose that history will eventually record what is happening as genocide. In that context, the row last weekend about an unknown band leading chants of ‘Death, Death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury seems wildly overblown, as these matters often are.

Sadly, our newspapers and broadcasters seem much more agitated about that chant than by the Israeli military killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza, including those reportedly hit by a 500lb bomb aimed at a Gaza café (The Guardian, July 2).

We seem intent on turning our eyes away from Gaza, much as we are similarly intent on ignoring the climate crisis, even as countries burn and floods in Texas sweep away nearly 50 people.

Incidentally, if you can hold your nerve, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack – the documentary dropped by the BBC and picked up by Channel 4 – is shocking beyond words but deserves to be watched.

With so much that is gloomy, here is a chuckle. Trashy Trump has released two colognes called, would you believe it, Fight Fight Fight. They embody “strength, power and victory”, apparently.

My juvenile side prefers Shite Shite Shite, but there you go.

Here is a splendid response on Threads from Sir Michael Take CBE, a satirical account that sometimes sounds all too real:

Jill has a bumper stock of cut price Donald Trump fragrances in the village shop. I bought a bottle yesterday. I immediately liked the subtle scent of sausage & chive. However later in the day I started talking gibberish, became incontinent & tried grabbing my wife Bunty’s crevice.

U-turns seem to be having a moment, especially if you are the political editor of the BBC. That’s Chris Mason, by the way, that over-eager weasel with a scrap of something bloody caught in his teeth.

Incidentally, I am old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher saying: “You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning.”  This line, incidentally times two, was crafted for her by the playwright Sir Ronald Miller, and was itself a pun on Christopher Fry’s play The Lady’s Not For Burning.

Thatcher did not get the reference but whistled that tune anyway.

Sir Keir Starmer has partially changed his mind on three big policies: efforts to make it harder for people to claim personal independence payment, the winter fuel payment for pensioners and holding a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.

The headline on Mason’s ‘thought piece’ on the BBC website says: “A hat-trick of U-turns – and this is the most awkward of the lot.”

A longer feature marking the first year of this government, in this case not by Mason, is headlined thus: “Starmer’s stormy first year ends in crisis – now he faces a bigger battle to turn it around.”

It has not been an easy first year, but ‘stormy’ and ‘crisis’ seem to be words better suited to the 14 years before that, when the Conservatives set about exploding themselves and the country, thanks in part to a bomb called Boris.

In a sense you can call something whatever you want. But are these U-turns or just embarrassing concessions to political reality? Grabbing the U-turn label from the big box of political cliches seems, if nothing else, lazy. I’d rather have a prime minister who is prepared to change his mind. Better that, say, than cowering in the court of Mad King Donald, where truth is whatever Despot Don says it is.

But that is to digress into an all-too-easy cul-de-sac.

It was good to me that Starmer won a year ago, although reactions to the anniversary will depend.

The haters can perhaps be divided into two camps, one to the right and one to the left.

Many on the right hate Starmer because that is their reflex and, if they own or edit newspapers, their job. Some on the left hate Starmer because he isn’t Labour enough, because he isn’t Jeremy Corbyn – or just because.

I have my doubts, especially on his keenness for defence. Is that really what we want from a Labour prime minister? It’s not what I want but you don’t always get what you want.

Incidentally times three, I have always thought the defence industry should really be called the attack industry, as that’s what it does, too often with innocent civilians as the victims.

As for those Labour supporters who dislike Starmer, they are passionate in their antipathy, and I know some in that camp. Fair enough, but let’s skip back to that ‘just because’.

To support a party in opposition only to abandon that party when it wins power might be seen as a petulant sulk; such desertion also has consequences. Democrats who turned against Joe Biden helped push Trump into the White House for a second time. As Labour supporters or voters who turn against Starmer risk helping Nigel Farage win power – a grim eventuality Chris Mason and the BBC seem determined to report on every other day.

Two celebrities today add their views in newspaper interviews. Rod Stewart tells The Times that he ‘quite likes Nigel Farage’, while Maxine Peake tells the i weekend that she is ‘petrified by Reform. Just look at America’. Unsurprisingly, I am with Maxine on this one.

I’d suggest that the problem with Starmer’s government is that no one knows exactly what it’s for, what it believes in. Starmer is so fixed on what he sees as his pragmatic purpose that he forgets to raise his head, look around, and try to work out what is it that people are thinking.

A lighter and kinder touch, a glimpse of wit wouldn’t go amiss either. And whoever is telling Starmer that the way to beat Nigel Farage is by being more Nigel is leading him through the wrong door.

Perhaps you never get the governments you want. One thing is certain, though: one led by Farage would be a government no-one should want.

However you view all this, these are merely the thoughts of one man peering down from a ledge and raising matters that, at the moment of writing, seem worth raising. No offence is intended, unless you are Nigel Farage.

Hate to say this as I’ll be one soon enough, but old men are ruining the world. Not all old men, just those who drag their stubborn tired legs into politics.

At the last US election, voters were initially asked to choose between two male wrinklies. The lesser of those querulous old geezers called the other one ‘Sleepy Joe’, while the one thus addressed muddled his responses.

The sleepy one was persuaded to drop out at the last minute, a capable-seeming woman took his place, but the election was won by the least reputable of the original old codgers.

Was it a fair and seemly election? Only time and history will tell, but few would be surprised to learn something or other went on.

Now Trump – mocked by some on social media as DonOld – has started dozing off at international summits, tripping on the steps to Air Force One, losing the plot whenever he speaks, then flinging out insults and deranged decrees on his own social media platform.

Dodderier by the day, but no less dictatorial or dangerous, as shown when he ordered National Guard troops and then US Marines into Los Angeles to quell what started as small protests about the arrests of immigrants.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, fast becoming the Anti-Trump, responded that US Marines “shouldn’t be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfil the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American”.

Over in Israel, another old man, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has presided over genocide in Gazza, and has now also turned his attentions to bombing the shit out of Iran.

A country that is led by the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who is 86, and reportedly not much loved by many of his own people.

Take your pick which old man most deserves our disdain.

Netanyahu seems hellbent on keeping himself in power by fighting endless wars; Trump seems hellbent on grabbing all power, while also making himself and his family as rich as possible.

Leading a country demands a certain vigour, something old Trump lacks, outside of play-acting the tough guy.

Still, sometimes he stumbles not on steps but his own ego. Last weekend he hijacked an Army anniversary parade to mark his 79^th birthday. It turned into a damp squib, a low-energy military trundle, mostly remembered for the poor turnout, Trump looking sour and grumpy, and a small squeaky tank. Did you see that tank? You couldn’t have found a better metaphor for the rickety vanity of one old man.

No one paid much attention, as America was more interested in the nationwide No Kings protests. Across the States, an estimated five million people took to the streets to complain about Trump’s behaviour since he returned to the White House.

Trump’s press people responded with a made-up figure of 250,000 attendees for his birthday walk-by, but nobody much was buying that.

Come on, old men – let some younger, less deranged people have a go at running the world. And let a woman be president of the US for once.

Musical footnote: Not all old men are up to no good. At nearly 80, Van Morrison has just released his best album in years. Remembering Now has been getting enthusiastic reviews all round. It’s properly good, too.

Certain newspapers and media groups now exist almost exclusively to push a one-sided view. In the US, Fox News has long been a right-wing shouting shop, and now an embarrassing number of its former presenters have lickspittle roles in the American government.

Over here we have GB News endlessly agitating for Nigel Farage to lead the next government (closely followed by the BBC; see last blog).

Thanks to the US commentator Mary-Jane for reminding us on the Threads platform how this all goes back to something called ‘the Fairness Doctrine’, a 1949 policy that said American broadcasters had to “be honest, show both sides, and serve the public interest”.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. Apparently, he believed the “free market” should decide what the public hears, not the government. Deregulation allowed the big media companies to say whatever they wanted. “They called it freedom of speech, but what it really did was open the door for partisan media to run wild,” says Mary-Jane.

And that, among many other things, is how doddery old Trump has twice ended up as President.