Mahmood’s migration changes will deliver fraction of claimed savings, data suggests Exclusive: Analysis of government figures indicates public finances will gain £600m not £10bn if migrants’ access to benefits is reduced

My analysis of the fiscal impact of the "earned settlement" proposals, based on government's own data.

The direct savings are a fraction of the Home Secretary's misleading claims, and likely to be offset by the substantial costs of lower work-related migration.

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

Reform accused of using third party to turn crypto into c... Digital currency donations have been turned into sterling to make them much less easy to track, sources say

So it turns out Reform are laundering their donations through crypto, before converting them into cash, hiding the original source of the money.

So who is really funding Nigel Farage and Reform UK?

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I may be misremembering but I think Andrew Neil was extremely rude to people on Twitter who explained exactly what GBeebies would quickly become…

How Australia killed populism

open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Reform’s Richard Tice avoided nearly £600,000 in tax The deputy leader’s property company paid nothing in corporation tax on multimillion-pound profits for most of 2018-21

Richard Tice:
- engaged in highly aggressive tax avoidance to avoid nearly £600,000 of tax
- did so at a time when the taxpayer was already paying his salary as an MEP
Nothing patriotic about this party of grifters
www.thetimes.com/article/6f55...

Post-Brexit sales of British farm products to EU fall by 37% NFU warn it could take years to restore Brexit losses despite efforts to smooth negotiations on farming and other elements of UK-EU reset

“It could take years to restore Brexit losses”

Especially if Farage comes along and tears up the ‘reset’ as he threatens.

Honest to god.. it’s such a tedious, idiotic, resource-sapping mess. There’s really nothing patriotic about it. Prejudice costs such a lot.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

NEW: Keir Starmer on Peter Mandelson- “He betrayed our country our party and our parliament.

He lied to my team repeatedly. I regret appointing him.”

Says he’s asked the King to remove him as a privy councillor.

Food sector calls for transition period if UK and EU agree post-Brexit rules reset Industry groups warn that aligning agriculture standards overnight could cost British businesses up to £810m a year

“One transport chief told the trade select committee Brexit paperwork had been “pure hell””

Another chapter in the Brexit yawnathon. Forever juggling glacial improvements in the deal with the pissing inefficiency, cost and red tape we’ve inflicted on ourselves.

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

If Matthew Goodwin is the very best Reform can muster for an eminently winnable by-election, the unfeasibly warm welcomes for the worst of Johnson & Truss's flotsam & jetsam suddenly make much more sense.

Suella makes the ultimate sacrifice as she ditches Tories for Reform | John Crace Most of those at Monday’s event had to remind themselves that Braverman hadn’t defected long ago

Lovely hatchet job on the monstrosity that is Suella Braverman. Crace covers it all;
her dishonesty, disloyalty, nastiness, incompetence, her wild vanity… and her deep stupidity.
How dare these utter arses think we’d be persuaded by their swaggering nonsense.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New - Nigel Farage has been found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have made 17 standards breaches, adding up to over £380,000 in late declarations.

He’s apologised, so no further investigation (which seems unusual for a breach this large)

London’s homicide rate drops to lowest in more than a decade Sadiq Khan says ‘public health’ approach has made the capital one of the safest cities in the western world

More appalling news from dystopia central

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

Greenland belongs to its people, say European leaders, as coalition of willing meets to discuss Ukraine in Paris – Europe live Danish PM and leaders of UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland allude to Trump threats of takeover and say principles of UN charter must be upheld Their statement also says they “will not stop defending” the UN Charter principles, “including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders”. Nato has made clear that the Arctic region is a priority and European allies are stepping up.” Continue reading...

Greenland belongs to its people, say European leaders, as coalition of willing meets to discuss Ukraine in Paris – Europe live

It is.

But if we are to regain the conditions which cut red tape and promote growth we really need both.

And then we may as well rejoin.

Why keep wasting valuable time, money and opportunity, buggering around nibbling at the edges fairly ineffectually?

BREAKING: “What is becoming increasingly apparent is the falsehoods that were peddled by Nigel Farage and others at the time of the Brexit referendum…all you had to do was leave the EU & you would have £350m a week for your NHS, well it hasn’t materialised”

PM Keir Starmer

2025 Awards:

Racist of the year: Farage
Incompetents of the year: Reform run councils
Traitor: Nathan Gill, Reform
Grifter: Farage
Most ruinous policy of the year: Brexit (9th year running)

New Year’s resolution for 2026:

Not having these howling failure monkeys leading in the polls.

Keir Starmer told closer EU trade ties ‘strategic necessity’ for UK firms Labour urged to accelerate reset with Brussels as many exporters struggling to trade in the EU after Brexit deal

“Over half (54%) of exporters in a survey of almost 1,000 businesses – the majority of which were small and medium-sized firms – said the (Brexit) trade deal negotiated by Boris Johnson’s govt… was not helping them”

Paying a v high price for Brexit ‘sovereignty’.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

c.7000 elderly people, many with dementia & confused were given “eviction notices” with 28 days notice from care homes in 2024 because of changing care needs/they could not afford to pay

A 200% increase since 2018

I saw it happening in my brother in law’s nursing home

www.msn.com/en-my/news/o...

Just pointing out that the UK has the highest pension and minimum wage we ever had. Also the highest level of regulatory protection.

Because it is rarely mentioned when everyone talks about how terrible everything is.

Guys I'm getting the impression Trump’s lawyers are struggling

Trump sues BBC for defamation over Panorama speech edit The US president has requested $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages, according to court documents filed in Florida.

Trump files $5bn defamation lawsuit against BBC over Panorama speech edit

The BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama programme on its US channels. While the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was restricted to UK viewers. What a weak, petty man

#DefendTheBBC

If handing someone their arse, was a video clip

An anti-Brexit majority of eight million The British electorate are now overwhelmingly pro-remain. And yet the europhobes still argue the votes of the dead count for more than the views of the young

The views of the young should count for more than the votes of the dead.
www.thenewworld.co.uk/peter-kellne...

Covid fraud under the Tories cost the taxpayer £10.9 billion The counter-fraud and error measures during the pandemic under the Conservative Government were accused of being 'so lax they may as well have left the door wide open'

Covid fraud under the Tories cost the UK taxpayer £10.9bn.

VIP lanes and crony contracts.

Lack of anti-fraud controls in Covid scheme.
Money handed out for non-existent employees
Newly formed companies got public money
No competitive tenders
Poor checks on quality.

How much would be recovered?

The owner of Reform UK ltd - Farage, has accepted £9m from Thailand resident Harborne.

Dubai Dick Tice in 2018 on George Soros donating to UK organisations:

"He doesn't live here. He doesn't pay taxes here. What right has he got to interfere with our democracy?"

Vote Refuk - get crypto mafia

Brexit: the trillion pound ‘mistake’ The recent NBER report suggests the Treasury’s 2016 analysis – slammed by Brexiters as a ‘hoax’– actually understated the impact of Brexit

Johnson described the pre-referendum Brexit Treasury report as “doom-laden” predictions as a “hoax” & “just not credible”

Farage attacked Cameron & Osborne for feeding the public “a constant diet of lies” in their arguments for staying in the EU

The report, was correct
@yorkshirebylines.co.uk

All the coverage of Reeves ‘lying’ debagged in a single sentence.

Free marketeer admits that putting up trade barriers reduces prosperity.

She has made a start on trying to reduce numbers of those here unlawfully. Bizarrely, we do not even try to estimate how many illegal immigrants there are. Others know — the Americans reckon they have 13.7 million. It matters greatly. The 40,000 or so returns claimed by the Home Office would be impressive if our number were 100,000. But since most experts would put it nearer to two million its efforts seem limp.

Not main point (see my other post) but depressing that Phillips happily regurgitates entirely fictional numbers invented by far-right trolls on X and attributes them to "experts" {and Times is happy to print this slop]

archive.ph/RlXPj#select...