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Liz Webster: Farage sold himself...

Farage sold himself as the man who would clean up politics. But the Sunday Times now alleges his political operation was quietly supported by George Cottrell, a convicted criminal and crypto-gambling figure. Staff. Security. Transport. Accommodation. Back office support. Farage denies breaking the rules. This matters because MPs must declare benefits that might reasonably be thought to influence their actions or words including relevant benefits received in the year before election. Farage reportedly declared one Cottrell-linked benefit. The Sunday Times alleges there was much more. And this is not isolated. Farage is already under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over a separate £5m gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. He denies wrongdoing there too. But the pattern is now impossible to ignore: crypto money private support undeclared benefits questions over influence and Reform shouting “nothing to see here”.

Liz Webster: Revealed: Nigel Farage...

Revealed: Nigel Farage secretly funded by convicted criminal The Sun Times details allegations that Farage received undeclared benefits from Cottrell (a 32-year-old convicted criminal and crypto-gambler) including: Staff (including social media/recruitment help) 🔒 Security 🚗 Transport 🏨 Accommodation (Farage reportedly using Cottrell’s London property near Buckingham Palace) 🏢 Back-office support 😧 Cottrell calls Farage “Daddy” and the pair are described as extremely close (Farage has called him like a son). 😟 Cottrell’s background: former federal inmate (money laundering/wire fraud plea deal), ties to crypto gambling platforms, seeking a Trump pardon. 😦 Farage allegedly failed to declare these benefits in the year before his election, potentially breaching parliamentary rules. 😧 This is on top of the ongoing £5m Harborne gift probe and crypto lobbying claims. 🛑 Reform denies wrongdoing; Farage says it’s a personal matter.

Jayda Fransen: Dashcam footage from Gary Poland's...

Dashcam footage from Gary Poland's taxi shows the girls running alongside his vehicle, and showed him looking in the rear view mirror. “I then saw a massed huddle of children, aged approximately six or seven years old, stumble and run in a panicked hurry out of 34a Hart St. They were screaming, it was like a stampede for their lives.” Although Mr Poland saw children fleeing the building and screaming in terror in his rear–view mirror, he did not stop to help. This is one of the most sickening things I’ve read in a long time. Cowardly men destroy nations, they are no better than paedophiles.

Bob Pickard: This guy hasn’t even taken office...

This guy hasn’t even taken office, yet a remarkable intensity of duelling mainstream and social media narratives with clashing image development and character assassination agendas. The next British PM’s extraordinary and controversial method of arriving at this point – and now poised to take power – puts the pressure on him to show he’s got the goods and motivates his critics to define him unfavourably even before the get-go.

Liz Webster: Brexit madness!...

Brexit madness! Matthew Elliott says the next election will be a rerun of Brexit, then argues we should stop looking backwards because the world has changed. But if Brexit is still the defining political issue 10 years on, that tells you something. He points to the EU’s declining share of global GDP, yet ignores geography and the fact that the EU remains the UK’s largest trading partner by far. The question was never whether Asia would grow faster than Europe. It was whether Britain would be more prosperous outside the Single Market than inside it. That’s the comparison Brexit still hasn’t won.
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