Just got exploring the vast @BylineFest site - where @pussyrrriot will be performing and hundreds of speakers from @thatginamiller to @carolecadwalla. Here’s the lovely glamping and Walk a Mile in my shoes immersive experience
So Farage (and his funder Arron Banks) are dismissing their multiple Kremlin connections as a hoax. However, looking at the Russian-backed Facebook accounts i the Reform Party, Xenophobia and GB News are exactly what they boost.
Two of the Facebook accounts identified as part of this pro-Kremlin network were called Common Sense Britain and UK Patriots. The first bigs up Farage and Lee Anderson and demonises Muslims 2/9
Though, beyond creating division and boosting Farage, these Russian backed networks can't help going direct from time to time 3/9
Since Nigel Farage is seeking high office as a leader of Reform, and the media is happy to give him a platform but rarely challenges his track record, let me put in a 🧵
The Five Questions Nigel Farage is Never Asked About Brexit, Trump and Russia 1/6 ⤵️
1. Why Did Farage Lie About Meeting the Russian Ambassador?
UKIP was targeted by a spy, Alexander Udod, who set up meetings with Farage's campaign and Ambassador Yakovenko,
So why did Farage protest in June 2018 that “I’ve never met the Russian Ambassador”? 2/6
2. How Could Farage Not Have Known About Arron Banks’ Multiple Visits to the Russian Embassy During the Brexit Campaign?
Banks donated £8m to Leave EU and provide Farage with a £4.4 million rented home, luxury car, bodyguard, private office, and trips to the United States 3/6
I was still ill from an early dose of COVID-19, vitiated by a fever, strange dreams and a constant popping sound in my head when I was interviewed by @PoliticsJOE_UK in mid-April 2020 about a speech Boris Johnson had made two months earlier. 2/23
These remarks were ‘a smoking gun’ to my eyes because they revealed that Johnson’s ‘take it on the chin’ comments 5 March 2020 were not casual. Though dismissed by organisations like @FullFact as just speculation, they were indeed the real strategy 3/23fullfact.org/health/boris-j…
Lebedev was more than just a hotel owner after the annexation of Crimea - he was initiated this event and is described as chair of the Board of Directors of the National Reserve Corporation, aswell as publisher of The Independent and The London Evening Standard Alexander Lebedev.
During that event, which he organised, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied all the documented abuses of the Crimean Tartars. Pure Putin propaganda - six years ago sputnikglobe.com/20170611/crime…
Brief thread on the scandal the other papers won't tell you - Hancock, Osborne and the hundreds of millions in subsidies to the British Press bylinetimes.com/2023/03/01/fro…
Leaked WhatsApp messages between Matt Hancock and George Osborne have revealed he asked the then Editor of the Evening Standard to run a favourable front page story on COVID testing as the lack of uptake was “hard for my target” as Health Secretary.
This came at the same time the newspaper received a share of tens of millions of pounds from Boris Johnson’s Government – “bungs” that were later “dressed up as COVID relief”, according to Dominic Cummings.