Under the #PoliceBill, this sign could get me jailed if police said it was used as part of a protest that had a "relevant impact” on or caused “serious annoyance” to any 2 people, or “serious disruption” to any organisation.
The stench of fraud, bribery & money-laundering around the "patriots" of Reform UK is overwhelming. (Not to mention the racism & fascism.)
#bbcqt
And as we're talking about Nigel Farage, Nathan Gill and George Cottrell...
Cottrell is also a close associate of Arron Banks, the Brexit moneyman who lied to a parliamentary committee about his about many "business" meetings with representatives of Putin's mafia state in 2016.
3/ Arron Banks has often trotted out the same talking points on Russia & Ukraine as Nathan Gill was bribed to trot out.
Here he is with Farage, Gill & Andy Wigmore - the guy who sent documents about Cottrell's arrest to Russian officials. Small world! bylinesupplement.com/p/thick-as-thi…
Never mind the milkshake. The real #Clacton story is that Nigel Farage is being escorted by fraudster & convicted felon "Posh George" Cottrell.
More on Cottrell and various other crooks with whom Farage has close links in this by me for @BylineTimes. bylinetimes.com/2023/07/24/far…
It is indeed George Cottrell with Farage in Clacton. After serving time in the US, he changed his name to George Co & moved to Montenegro, from which he made an abrupt exit after some very murky & allegedly illegal business involving cryptocurrency. insidebitcoins.com/news/crypto-sc…
.@BBCNews & other media outlets need to ask themselves why they're so extensively platforming Nigel Farage, the unelected "leader" of a far-right political "party" that's actually a private limited company, & a man who consorts with convicted fraudsters.
I wrote about Isaac Levido, Topham Guerin, Palantir & the intersection between dark money-funded corporate lobbying & political dirty tricks for @BylineTimes.
@BylineTimes @JolyonMaugham Incidentally, I wonder if Palantir will be showing its appreciation for the award of massive NHS data contracts by contributing its big-data resources for political campaigning purposes, perhaps "unofficially".
That said, the BBC has many excellent journalists, locally & nationally - here's BBC News East reporting in depth on why the Green Party did so well in Suffolk. The political bias comes from much higher up within the organisation. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
And here's BBC Politics West reporting on big @TheGreenParty wins in the Forest of Dean & talking to @carla_denyer about Greens winning on Jacob Rees Mogg's doorstep in North East Somerset.
BBC reporting on the amazing #GreenWave has been much better locally than nationally.
The photo of Nigel Farage embracing Andrew Tate was taken at the 2019 CPAC conference, where Tate was also pictured with an assortment of other far-right creeps incl. Paul Joseph Watson & Jack Posobiec.
Tate was already notorious for his vicious misogyny.
Later that year. Andrew Tate invited some of his far-right pals to Romania, including Mike Cernovich (famous for claiming that date rape "does not exist"). Cernovich tweeted that it was a "first class event".
And here's Andrew Tate with Donald Trump Jr at Trump Tower, & with Candace Owens of the influential far-right group Turning Point (its UK branch has been endorsed by Priti Patel & Jacob Rees-Mogg). Tate is not just a virulent misogynist under investigation for alleged rape...
1/ Liz Truss's government is clearly trying to destroy the (already degraded) social contract that underwrote the NHS and the post-war welfare state.
It's doing this on the basis of an extreme version of Hayek's "free-market" ideology, the moving spirit of Britannia Unchained.
2/ Crises present good opportunities for ideologically motivated extremists to push through policies that might have seemed unthinkable before, as Naomi Klein described in The Shock Doctrine.
Pinochet imposed precisely the same sort of ideology on Chile after seizing power.
3/ Truss's extremist ideology will not produce the prosperity it promises, though it will make some already very rich people even richer.
For everyone else, it will only deepen extreme poverty & inequality, and drive social chaos & despair.