Politics in 2024 - the year of elections

Hello hope you had a good Christmas and a good NYE. Ha ha hell will freeze over before I join that lot! Admittedly not a great choice but you seriously want that geriatric sleepy Joe to win again in the US? 300 million people and that's the best the US can come up with.

Farage thinking about rejoining Reform. In the meantime:

"Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK, has addressed supporters and journalists about his party's plans for the year ahead.

Here is what he said, as he said it:

Mr Tice says the country at large never voted for Rishi Sunak, and playing on the prime minister's leadership campaign slogan, he says Britain is "ready for Rishi to call an election sooner rather than later";

He argues that the country is ready to "punish" the Conservatives for the state of the country, and says they are "terrified" of Reform;

Mr Tice says the party will "stand in every single seat in England, Scotland and Wales", and says pleading with Reform to not stand in certain seats has started;

He launches an attack on Mr Sunak, saying he has failed on four of the five pledges he made a year ago;

Mr Tice says the Tories and Labour are "two sides of the same socialist coin", and argues that neither party's policies are good for Britain;

In particular, he hits out at the government for having "failed" to bring down immigration, despite promising to bring it down repeatedly, which he says is a "betrayal" of Brexit voters;

He says the Tories need a wake up call because "Starmergeddon" (a Labour win) would be a "disaster" for Britain economically;

Mr Tice calls for the income tax threshold to be raised to £20,000, which would mean, he says, millions wouldn't pay any tax at all;

He also says the government has "cowardly" failed to scrap EU laws, and calls for a "freeze on non-essential immigration", saying there should be "one in, one out";

He calls for net zero policies to be scrapped entirely;

Mr Tice concludes by saying that the party has approved around 500 candidates for the next election, to be unveiled at a rally next month."

Very much so. His partner is Isabel Oakeshott who is just as bad.

I hope Labour don't take Reform for granted though just because they are mainly targeting Conservative voters. If they don't make some effort in mitigating Reform's propaganda then they'll see more go into their arms, a la Brexit Party.

Dunt nails it .


Nigel Farage is the ghost at the feast. He’s everywhere and nowhere: an absence that defines the world around it.

You could feel that absence up on stage with Reform UK leader Richard Tice today as he unveiled his party’s election platform. The invitation to journalists had included the loaded suggestion that it would feature “guests”, leading to rampant speculation that Farage himself would show up. But he wasn’t there. Instead they wheeled out Ben Habib, deputy leader, as their candidate for the upcoming Wellingborough by-election.

Bit of a damp squib. Tice looked terribly average and humdrum up on stage. He has none of the charisma or the canny intuition required of a successful populist leader. At one point he was reduced to celebrating the fact that Farage was using him as a sub-par placeholder while he considered what to do. The former Ukip leader was “still assessing” his next steps, Tice said. “A good poker player doesn’t show their hand too early.”


There is something utterly absurd about the fact that Farage can command this kind of attention. He has failed at every attempt he has made to enter Parliament – seven times in total. Fifty-four per cent of people have an unfavourable view of him, according to the latest polling, compared to just 30 per cent who like him.

Even if he became Reform leader, the party could aspire to perhaps 10 per cent of the vote at most – around the level of the Greens, who hardly get any coverage. And yet the media hangs on his every word. His decisions are pored over by columnists and news reporters, from appearances on reality TV to the endless speculation about the political implications of his bank account.

The temptation is to ignore him, but that is not possible. And this isn’t because he has his finger on the pulse of the British personality. It’s because he has achieved total mastery over the Conservative Party.

This has been the case for some time now. Why are we out of the EU? Because of Nigel Farage. David Cameron originally called that referendum 11 years ago in order to try to placate the Tory MPs worried about the threat from Ukip. It destroyed his leadership, consumed the country and undermined Britain’s status in the world. But precisely no lessons have been learned.

Fast forward to today and the same dynamics are in play. It was Farage who first started talking about the small boats three years ago. Soon enough, the campaign engulfed the Tory party. Now Rishi Sunak’s entire premiership hinges on the Rwanda plan – an impossible solution to a problem originally given prominence by Farage.

Once upon a time, proponents of the first-past-the-post electoral system would argue that it insulated mainstream politics from extreme parties, by depriving them of a seat in Parliament. That argument is now impossible to maintain. For years, Farage has been able to exert far more influence over the Conservative Party from outside than he ever could as a Tory MP, or even a Tory secretary of state. He pushes, he agitates, he creates ripples of anxiety in the parliamentary party, and then eventually it succumbs to his will.

You only have to look at the Reform policy platform Tice unveiled today: cuts to government spending, low taxes, a bonfire of EU laws, an end to net zero and zero net migration. It’s all profligate nonsense, of course, based on nothing but half-brained prejudice and pub-bore stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs. But more pertinently, it is all perfectly in line with the broad outlines of Tory party thinking.

People occasionally fret that the Conservative Party will become like Ukip. It’s as if they’ve been living in a different world. The Tory party absorbed Ukip’s ideological disposition after the Brexit referendum and it has not come back since. Politically, they’re one and the same.


The difficulty the Conservatives have is practical. In the outer wilderness of opposition, with no MP and no prospect of ever getting one, Tice and Farage can suggest all sorts of mad things. But it doesn’t matter, because they’ll never have to implement them. The Conservatives do not have that advantage. They constantly move to Reform’s position but then look weak when they find they are impossible.

This is what happened to Theresa May. She spent years parroting Ukip-style nonsense about a severance from Europe. The moment she had to acknowledge reality, it ate her alive. It’s the same with the boats. Sunak promised to stop them. It was not possible. Now he looks feeble.

The foolishness of the Tory relationship with Farage can be distilled by a single tweet, published yesterday by the former Ukip leader. “In an effort to rush through the Asylum backlog, this morning @rishisunak boasts he has granted 50,000 new applications,” he said. “The Conservatives have failed us all.”

You can see it all there, perfectly clearly. There is nothing Sunak can ever do to placate the Farage energy, just like there was nothing Cameron or May could ever do. No movement to the further fringes of the right will ever be enough, because he doesn’t want it to be. It’ll never be in his interest. So all versions of Brexit are a sell out. All asylum policies, no matter how draconian, are a betrayal.

One by one, Tory leaders all make the same mistake. They could face down the extreme right position Farage represents – challenge it, refute it, distance themselves from it, show themselves to represent a more sophisticated form of right-wing thought. But they do not. They submit to it. They validate it. They replicate it. And every time, it eats them alive.

They simply will not learn. Farage inflicts as much damage on the Tory party as he does the country. And it will not stop, until they elect a leader with the principles to stand up to him. And yet that seems a very distant prospect indeed.

I see 'Wales' is becoming verboten, everything needs to be Cymru now.

Nationalists manufacturing grievance or a genuine gripe?

"Kemi Badenoch has topped a poll of Tory members on who should be the party's next leader.

The Business and Trade Secretary came first with 38 per cent in Conservative Home's survey of party members on who should succeed Rishi Sunak.:"

According to an Express article, she beat Penny Mordaunt and Suella Braverman, the only three who made double figures.

In related news, Grant Shapps has declared a submarine will retain its name (Agincourt) in face of <non existent 😆> French sensitivity. Sounds like Jim Hacker's Euro sausage in Yes, Minister. Couldn't make it up, although someone clearly has. 😇

Their last pick was Truss , bodes well 🙄

That was my thinking too, still three obvious dates, none of which can be ruled out.

Maybe just to take the shine off a Starmer key note speech and make the headlines.

Brycgstow Rovers FC 😇