Jeremy's Den: Millions Weep A Fountain Just In Case Of Sunrise

It’s simple: Someone invades? You kick them out. You don't ask them about their security concerns while they’re killing your people and flattening your cities to the ground: Some people suggest there should be negotiations. What is there to negotiate about? You don't negotiate with someone who marches into another country, devastates it, killing whoever stands in his way. You get him out, make him pay and see that he is never in a position to do these things again.

(Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party Conference, 12 October 1990)

You will always be angry, no matter what. But you have a choice. You can either let it destroy you, or you can put it to work. You can use that anger to break free.

(Grace Ellis, Blue Lights, 2025)

Ten years ago, we lost the great David Bowie. To remember and celebrate the Thin White Duke, today's soundtrack starts with Aladdin Sane, the most brilliant album of his early career before the Berlin Trilogy. And ends with his testament album Blackstar, released on his 69th birthday, just two days before his untimely death. Two very different masterpieces, 43 years apart. Bonuses include two non-album tracks in the middle, that were recorded during the Aladdin Sane sessions, and the tracks from the posthumously released No Plan EP appended at the end, that were recorded during the Blackstar sessions. Now, you surely remember how we collectively felt that 2016 had been a fucking shite year, because there was fucking Brexit and so many good people died that year, including David Bowie. I know I do. But what do we make of 2025, which in my opinion has been objectively shiter? Of course, YouGov speed-polled that and it looks like an astonishing majority agree with me, when asked how we feel the year has been for the UK.

These results were pretty predictable, weren't they? Even a majority of Labour voters think it has been a shite year. We had all noticed that, especially with the number of times Keir Starmer felt he had to relaunch, reset, reboot or reframe his Premiership. It's also probably the first time the public globally agree that a Prime Minister has reached his expiration date before the end of his first full year in office. Except George Canning and Liz Truss, of course, who were never given the opportunity to last that long. Oddly, we feel quite noticeably happier when YouGov asks if 2025 has been good or bad for us personally.

I honestly can't explain why so many of the TikTok Generation feel happy with 2025, unless it's just them spending too much time watching one-minute shots of basement-made porn to notice what is happening in the real world. I guess Labour voters feel happier bunnies than average because they enjoyed every second of Your Party turning into a fucking farce and exploding mid-flight quicker than one of Elon Muck's vanity starships. And Reform voters surely feel gloomier than average because their party has proved total shite at running a Council, besides being exposed as bribed agents of Russia's genocidal fascism. A story so good it will surely continue well into 2026. At the end of the day, YouGov may have found the perfect explanation for the gloomy feelings of a quarter of us, with another speed poll about failed deliveries and stolen parcels.

So seven out of ten of us have never had any bad experience with parcel deliveries, despite the couriers's best efforts. But two out of ten have gone through The Curse Of Evri, when you abandon all hope of seeing your signed copy of Rick Wakeman's last CD ever again, and lived to tell the story. Unsurprisingly, parcels are more likely to vanish in London than anywhere else in the UK, including the most remote rural backwaters of Shropshire. Surely because, ye ken, it has turned into a lawless jungle under Sadiq Khan. And The Curse also hits the younger generations more than our elders, probably just because they order far less online. Or maybe they order stuff and then forget they have, a bit like the Orange Baboon forgetting who is friend and who is foe, so they never notice when the stuff never shows up. Now, if you do the math, a fifth of the Realm's adult population having grieved for a stolen parcel, and some of that many times, means we are talking fucking millions, even double-digit millions. So it's really a fucking curse and a massive blow to our already Brexit-damaged GDP, innit? Surely something Peter Kyle will want to investigate further, if only to make sure people know he actually exists.

This is shite. Really shite. It’s going to require a very big bucket. But we will catch this shite in our bucket, and dispose of it hygienically.

(Steven Neill, Blue Lights, 2025)

The Indians say that this is the last age of Kali, the last cycle of man before everything gets destroyed.

(Wendy Greene, Rake, 2014)

But we are surely past whining about 2025 now, and YouGov resolutely nudged us to move on with another duet of speed polls about our feelings about 2026. Do we anticipate it to be good or bad for the UK? Of course, we all have different definitions of what "good" and "bad" mean here, but there is one trait instantly jumping to your face like Alien's facehugger. We had a bad feeling about 2025, and we still have a bad feeling about 2026. The sense of doom is less strong, but it is still here in the poll's results. But should we really feel more optimistic about 2026 than we did about 2025, when The Hipstershire Gazette relished in publishing yet another gloomy column to prove us that we ain't seen nothing yet?

Then you only have to look out the window, at the big picture of the state of the world, to realise instantly that 2026 hasn't started well. On one side, we have a deranged imperialist Christo-fascist ordering the illegal invasion of a foreign country because he does not like their government. On the other side, we have Vladimir Putin. And in the middle, we have Keir Starmer, who thinks blandness was not enough and is now trying to convince us that leading by impotence is the way to go. And now has to sheepishly deny we were involved in Trump's actions against a foreign government, because the way he sucked the Orange Baboon's dick for a whole year makes it credible that we were. Fucking hell. Then I guess most of us don't really care about what will happen to the UK collectively, but more about what will happen to us individually. Seen from that angle, a sizeable fraction of us are optimistic. I wouldn't want to piss on your parade, mates, but I have a strong feeling this will be proven to be just deluded wishful thinking. Mark my words.

Finally, we had the umbrella question from Ipsos. It's not about 2026 being good or bad on its own merits, but whether we feel it will be better or worse than 2025. Interestingly, the charts show quite similar patterns between the YouGov and Ipsos polls. The demographics who tend to think 2026 will be good for themselves, regardless of what it has in store for the UK, also tend to think 2026 will be better than 2025. Admittedly, the charts show lower levels of enthusiasm and visible uncertainty, but the patterns seen from the crosstabs are definitely transposed from one poll to the other. Which might be evidence that 2026 will indeed be better, as we are for once not contradicting ourselves when answering very similar questions.

Can 2026 really be worse than 2025? Methinks not, when our last glimpse of 2025 was Amol Rajan on University Challenge talking about the Magna Carta, the most atrocious barbarism in spoken English bar "should of", and a schoolboy mistake totally unbecoming a BBC quiz show host. Paxo would never have done that, and neither would Clive Myrie. Then there are several ways it can get better, against all odds. Like Ed Sheeran ending his "musical" career, Nigel Farage being charged for money laundering and stamp duty fraud, BBC One sacking Alan Carr, Donald Trump being deposed on grounds of dementia, or the Armed Forces of Ukraine at last shoving a drone up Vladimir Putin's arse. Unless the Chinese Ministry of State Security take care of him first, and of his 93 FSB-operated clones, to remove a clear and present threat to profitable transcontinental business and their own plan for world domination. So we should not abandon all hope. Yet.

Dad used to have a Blue Heeler cross called Kali. Used to gnaw at his own genitals.

(Cleaver Greene, Rake, 2014)

We will sing at the very first spring that the promise will come when the promise is made

(Jon Anderson, Face To Face, 1999)

January being, as tradition orders, the Month Of Good Resolutions, what do we have in mind for 2026? YouGov also polled us on the resolutions we had made for 2025, and how successful we were with these. To be bluntly sincere and honest, I think all this narrative about resolutions is total sanctimonious bullshit. This actually not a new fad, as it can be traces back to Babylon circa 2000 BC. Then it trickled down to Ancient Rome and then into Christian traditions. But the term "resolution" itself appeared only in 1671 in England, and the whole concept of "New Year's Resolutions" in 1813 in the United States. Interestingly, YouGov revealed that it is actually not popular and widespread in today's UK.

One out of ten Brits allegedly made resolutions in 2025, and barely one out of five want the rest of us to believe they will make some for 2026. Then we have to look at the detail of what was allegedly pledged in 2025, and will allegedly be pledged again in 2026. Of course, exercising more and losing weight top both lists. But do you know some interesting facts about gym memberships? 9% of Brits who pay for a gym membership never set foot there at all. Another 21% go to the gym less than three times a year, and it is estimated that we wasted £503mil on unused gym memberships in 2024. We have reached this astronomical amount because a mammoth 65% of Brits who signed up for a gym membership as a New Year's Resolution gave up on it within six months, and only 4% fully stuck to their resolution and were still gym regulars a year on.

Actually, the item I like most in YouGov's bucket list is that 5% of us want to be a better person. That's probably what the Puritans, the precursors of today's Christo-fascism, pledged in the 17th century, before going out for a witch-hunt. Towards the end of the previous millennium, Generation X, especially in the United States, revived it as one of the core points of their cretinous New Age luxury beliefs. And now the woke TikTok Generation want us to believe they are also committed to it, when they actually are just as vindictive and censorious of dissent as the Orange Baboon, the Kremlin's Nosferatu and the Witchfinder General of yore. But always see the bright side of life, the success rate of all these asinine resolutions is really low, as YouGov also revealed.

A third of Brits claim they have kept all their resolutions of 2025, which probably means that they had made just one and cherry-picked it as an easy one to keep. Or they may just be lying, because that's we usually do when pollsters ask inconvenient questions. Another third claim they kept some of their resolutions, which is probably summat like giving up on the gym after six months, which you can frame as a 50% success rate while it is actually a plain 0%. That makes me feel proud that I actually have a 100% success rate on my 2025 resolutions. I made none and I totally fulfilled it, mates. The real surprise is actually that a serious pollster failed to see that New Year's Resolutions are totally irrelevant and immaterial, and felt they had to survey it. This will certainly not change my position, which seems to be widely shared by the Great British Public. Can't see the point of vacuous self-aggrandising virtue-signalling that is not going to be followed by acts. Can you?

That’s the game. Always has been. Always will be.

(Paul Collins, Blue Lights, 2025)

Someone who's not bothered about torturing an animal is not bothered about the welfare of people either. Don't vote for them.

(Brian May)

There are two very specific sur mesure commitments that have been closely associated with January for some years, obviously as a result of wokeness gone mad. At least, Benito Farage would say so, wouldn't he? The first is the pledge to not get blootered dumb and senseless for a whole month, and that's Dry January. Which I guess would be quite a challenge for most English nationalists, so here's why Nige will have none of this nonsense. Then we would have to define the perimeter more precisely. Are beer and cider off limits too? Because, ye ken, we all know these are not real alcohol, don't we? YouGov obviously polled that and I must say that I do not believe for one second that 30% of Brits never ingest booze, especially 36% of the TikTok Generation. This being stipulated, it's revealing to see that only 10% of the whole adult population of the United Kingdom intend to have a Dry January. Even a very specific and duration-limited pledge, unlike the gaseous concept of New Year's Resolutions, does not work. And that's fucking hilarious.

The second pledge, which may be even more untenable than ditching booze for the average Reform supporters, is to refrain from eating the corpses of deceased non-human animals you didn't kill yourself, and that's Veganuary. I would also require some precisions here, like whether or not it also includes human animals, of if Hannibal Lecter can still have a go at his favourite treats. Or, more applicably to the lot of us, are leftovers of the New Year's Eve Banquet covered by a blanket ban, a pigs-in-blankets ban, so we have just the option of feeding them to the dog? Or is it admissible to consume them on New Year's Day and thusly have only a 30-day Veganuary? YouGov took the concept more seriously than I do and polled it. Just to find that support for Veganuary is even lower than support for Dry January. To be bluntly honest, I totally expected that kind of result.

What the poll shows, and we probably already knew, is that veganism is really a fringe thing here, and the simple idea of just one vegan month is just as unpopular. It is not even an ideologically-motivated thing, as even Green voters are massively reluctant to endorse Veganuary. But it is surely a cultural thing, even if it is definitely not a culture war. We are all genetically engineered to be hunter-gatherers, even the Neanderthals before us were. It runs as deep as Dog's unconditional, and too often undeserved, love for Man and has come to define the collective psyche of ancient societies that emerged from the even more ancient tribes. The objectification of animals, and their reduction to commodity status within the broader social order, is just one of the side effects. Just consider how difficult it is to pass laws that repeal the notion that animals are property, and legally define them as sentient beings. It works, and only just recently, for cats and dogs, but is an uphill battle for other species that the vast majority of us still see exclusively as their next lunch. Even issues such the humane treatment of farm animals generate controversy and scandals, as tolerance for animal abuse is woven into the fabric of our society. But, as Tony Blair said, things can only get better, so let's keep our fingers crossed for a brighter future on the sunlit uplands of compassion.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

(Immanuel Kant)

People who say things like "I can't worry about animals when there are humans who need help", tend to do fuck all to help humans either.

(Ricky Gervais)

Of course, refusing to go veggie and sneering at the veggies does not mean you don't love animals and care for their wellbeing. And I will not even try and explore the depths of that contradiction. And I will not either lecture you on good and evil, or the benefits of a healthier diet, because it's everybody's right to have a different perspective on that. And I have never felt like preaching from a moral high horse anyway, as they are the awkwardest to ride. I nevertheless think that Kemi Badenoch had a point when she controversially remarked that not all cultures are equal. Surely a culture that finds pride and joy in the evisceration of a pregnant vixen by savage hounds is morally and civilisationally inferior to one who doesn't, though that's probably not what Kemi had in mind. And don't even get me started on what happens to the hounds when they are no longer deemed "useful". Anyway, a revival of the debate about fox hunting had YouGov poll us about it, finding that we haven't totally lost our marbles and still massively oppose the slaughter of innocent animals. It is even completely consensual across all the boards. If only we could extend that to the unnecessarily culled badgers.

You will notice that YouGov have added an unusual crosstab to this poll, one that they usually never use, by type of neighbourhood from urban to rural. This is a highly relevant addition, as the Conservatives, Reform UK, the Countryside Alliance and Jeremy Clarkson have been endlessly boring us to death with rants on how Labour are traitors to the "traditional British rural way of life". Which is probably just a fantasy now as it has long ceased to exist, if the lived experiences of Midsomer Murders characters are any evidence. This new crosstab is relevant and useful here, as you will see that it proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Countryside Alliance and Nigel Farage are talking bullshit about what rural dwellers really think and want. We have already established that they do not want the return of fox hunting, and neither do they want the perpetuation of trail hunting. Rural dwellers are even more opposed to it than the residents of "town and fringe", who must be the Londoners who moved just as far as the cosy outskirts of Causton during Covid because Badger's Drift was too wild and had no Waitrose, and now fancy themselves experts on anything rural.

This totally kills Reform's and the Countryside Alliance's narrative that they are speaking in the name of rural England. They simply aren't and we can prove it. So Starmer should not think twice about closing all the loopholes in the Hunting Act 2004, which are only here because Blair believed all the nonsense fairy tales about rural England, and shut them tight despite all pressure. By the way, did you know that there are at least 15 times more foxes per square kilometre in Greater London than anywhere in rural England? Not my stats, mates, David Attenborough's. YouGov has the perfect umbrella question to close that chapter, about how important we feel hunting is for rural communities. And we opine it is not. Rural dwellers, who obviously know best, think it is neither socially nor economically important to them in higher proportions than average. In higher proportions even, in both cases, than the urban dwellers who have no fucking scoobie what they're talking about and have just suffered social contagion from the fabricated version of rural life promoted by Jeremy Clarkson in The Telegraph.

That looks like the perfect background to start pressuring Labour to get bolder and more ambitious on behalf of our animal siblings and their wellbeing. Except Bridget Phillipson, of course, who seems more concerned about the wellbeing of furries than of real non-human animals. No strong measure should be off the table, as every gesture is far more than symbolic, and would have a genuine impact on the safety and wellbeing of some rural communities. Banning all the Boxing Day Gatherings of the Hunts would be a good place to start. Some councils have already done it, and pubs barred them, because they are predictable disturbances of the peace. Labour should have no problem with totally eradicating that putrid remnant of feudalism, which has now become the refuge of the insufferable arrogance of the posh country parvenus. Dissolve The Hunts! After all, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and they were a far tougher nut to crack because they did still have some power, unlike the pathetic costumed toffs that haunt the countryside to indulge in blood-soaked illegal activities. Having the local plod in their pocket, or even an ACC or two, doesn't mean that the entitled tossers should pull the strings of government. So just do it and strike hard, Keir!

You have to put your thumb on the scale to make an impact. Sometimes, the facts get in the way of the story.

(Gerald Fox, Law & Order: Juvenile, 1999)

If you don’t like seeing pictures of violence towards animals being posted, you need to help stop the violence, not the pictures.

(Johnny Depp)

There are other issues on which animal welfare activists want the UK Government to act, urgently and decisively. One of them is the use of snares, the poachers' weapon. The basic technique of snares is extremely simple. I wouldn't want to give you nightmares, but it is similar to garroting, the method used to execute humans in fascist Spain under Franco. But animals caught in a snare are actually garroted while running, and I will let you picture that one in your head now. Just don't shoot the messenger if you can't unsee it. Petition your MP to abolish it instead, as this is what the vast majority of us want. YouGov polled it and founds that six out of ten Brits wants snares banned.

The interesting part is again in the crosstabs by type of neighbourhood. Rural dwellers are even more supportive of a snare ban than average. There is no room here for intimidation or falsification by Reform UK or the Countryside Alliance. The governement could also take its cues from the proverbial "best international practice", as snares have already been banned in most civilised countries, including the whole of the European Union. Do we really want to hear Nigel Farage arguing that snares are a Brexit benefit? Probably not. Neither are they some symbol of an endangered traditional rural life, which exists only in the fantasies of people who pretend to speak in the name of rural communities, while having fuck all idea of what these communities actually stand for. Then YouGov extended their polling to our support for the outlawing of puppy farms, which eight out of ten Brits support.

The various crosstabs show that this is really a consensual issue. There is no sign of a political divide here, and very little geographical divide. Except, oddly, between Scotland, who is the most adamantly opposed to puppy farms, and London, who is less supportive of a ban, probably because puppy farms are where blue-haired hipsters get their bespoke designer dogs. But a ban on puppy farms would be incomplete if it wasn't followed by measures to help dog rescue charities. This could include a compulsory no-kill status for Council pounds, and the right for the public to adopt directly from a pound, without having to wait for a rescue taking charge of the dogs. YouGov concluded their survey with the controversial practice of shock collars for dogs, that have never been a proper method of training, even for the most "difficult" dogs. There seems to be a clear understanding that this is a cruel and inefficient method, as seven out of ten Brits support a ban, again very consensually across all crosstabs.

All the items surveyed by YouGov are indeed part of the UK Government's updated Animal Welfare Strategy. But a strategy means jack shit until it is fully transposed into an Act of Parliament, and this is where we must apply pressure on the Government and Parliament by any means necessary, including repeated petition on the House of Commons site if the proposed legislation falls short of the stated goals. The pro-hunt lobby is already at work to water down any legislation and leave massive loopholes open. The faux rural Countryside Alliance will undoubtedly double down on its lobbying and incite obstruction in the House of Lords. This is why stronger pressure in the opposite direction is needed, so Emma Reynolds MP, whose remit it is as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is left in no doubt about what the Great British Public really wants. The strongest measures, in the quickest way possible. No compromise can be accepted.

You call it a sin, that I love the dog above all else? The dog stayed with me in the storm, the man, not even in the wind.

(St. Francis of Assisi)

I’m not fucking Trócaire. I don’t go round trying to make the world a better place.

(Tina McIntyre, Blue Lights, 2025)

David Lammy, always ready for stir-frying an oven-ready controversy, has recently got a lot of flak for proposing to unclog the criminal justice system by reducing the number of cases that go to a jury trial. Let's contextualise first, as Owen Jones always urges us to. The right to a fair trial is an internationally recognised human right, that is mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. But the "by a jury of their peers" bit is not, as it is actually just a very English construct that has a proto-constitutional foundation in Magna Carta. Remember, kids, not The Magna Carta, even if Amol Rajan calls it that on University Challenge. Back then, its sole purpose was to protect the Barons. If Barons could only be tried by other Barons, if nobility was accountable only to nobility, then they could get away with pretty much everything, and they did. It wasn't democratic. It was, as they did not say back then, totally classist. Casteist, even. Then the United States made it the Sixth Amendment to their Constitution, as the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, but they ditched the "of their peers" part, and that does not make it international law anyway. But now we have an Opinium poll proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Great British Public are not happy bunnies with Lammy's reforms.

But Opinium reached that level of rejection with the long convoluted wording of its question, that deserve quoting in full. David Lammy has proposed changes that would keep jury trials only for the most serious crimes, like murder and rape, while more mid-level cases would be decided by a judge or heard in strengthened magistrates’ courts. The plan also includes giving magistrates greater sentencing powers and limiting when defendants can choose a jury trial or appeal.The government says these changes are needed to cut the huge court backlog and make the system faster, so victims and witnesses are not left waiting years for justice. Critics, such as the Conservative opposition and some legal groups, argue the reforms weaken the long-standing right to a jury trial, could lead to unfair decisions, and fail to fix deeper problems like years of underfunding in the justice system.To what extent do you support or oppose this proposal? Unfortunately for Opinium, More In Common also probed us about the same issues, with radically different results.

Here again, we have a textbook case of pollster manipulation. Opinium went ahead with a long-winded wording that focused only on part of Lammy's proposals, cherry-picked as the ones most likely to be controversial, ending with an equally long-winded description of the opposition's position. Just what you do to bag a sure "Fuck No" verdict. In marked contrast, More In Common selected four specific points of Lammy's proposals, worded in a descriptive way without a rant on the pros and cons. I have also transcribed their wordings verbatim, to avoid any doubt. Framing the questioning in terms of acceptability, rather than support vs opposition, is also a way to lead towards a fairer judgment. So the only reasonably fair conclusion is that there is no evidence whatsoever of a massive rejection of Lammy's proposals, whatever pre-scripted narrative the mediatariat want to impose on us.

Bear in mind too that whatever David Lammy proposes will apply only to England and Wales, not to Scotland, so the point of reference is the English criminal justice system. Even without considering the constitutional basis, it is worth remembering that most cases don't even end in a trial, either because the case is dismissed en route, or because a guilty plea in entered. Then the bulk of those who go to trial end up at Magistrates' Court where, as it says on the tin, there is no jury. The so-called "indictable offences" are passed to a Crown Court. That's rape, murder and robbery, but not assault and battery. IYKYK. A Crown Court normally has a jury. That's the way it is phrased on the UK Government's website, which clearly means that the jury is not a mandatory requirement. Basically, the defendant has to ask for it, which is automatically granted, but not all do. Official statistics on court activity in England and Wales show that only 2-3% of cases come to a jury trial. So why all the fucking fuss?

Your conscience is like tits on a tomcat. You’ve painted yourself into a corner here, and you’re wearing fucking clown shoes.

(Tina McIntyre, Blue Lights, 2025)

I’m sick and tired of nice, respectable middle-class people. People who go to dinner parties and that. Because, for some reason, they think they’re above the law.

(Shane Bradley, Blue Lights, 2025)

There is a hint of an explanation in another question, asked concurrently by Lord Ashcroft and More In Common. If that happened to you, would you prefer a jury trial or a magistrate trial? Which is pretty much irrelevant because there is not the slightest trace of objectivity in it, as it is openly relying on pure subjectivity. Besides, asking this is asking the respondents to think in terms of them being guilty of the most serious criminal offences. The small array that go to Crown Court. Robbery, rape, murder. This is definitely not the most convincing way to feel the public's pulse, even if the two polls agree. What I see in that is a subliminal remnant of the thinking behind Magna Carta's concept of "lawful judgment of his Peers", as it was actually worded. That your peers, people with the same lived experiences, are more likely to understand you and thusly not be actually fairer, but more lenient.

Lord Ashcroft did not rest his case with that, but went one step beyond in his investigation, with a question opposing the quick administration of justice and the fairness of the verdicts. It is a fair question because it is pretty much how the two opposing sides have framed the debate. David Lammy is arguing that the whole criminal justice system is quickly coming to a grinding halt, and the only responsible course of action is to unclog it, even it it takes some radical measures. On the opposite side, Nigel Farage, Jolyon Maugham, Robert Jenrick and Amnesty International are not even trying to counter this. They want the debate to shift to another battleground, that between human rights and state oppression, or summat. Which is a bit rich, considering the past record of some of them, but that seems to be the very nature of unholy opportunistic alliances like this one. At the end of day, we collectively do agree that Lammy is right and the whole system needs unclogging through streamlining, but still believe that the status quo is fairer, by roughly the same proportion as we would prefer a jury trial if we were murderers.

So we are still living under that ancestral delusion that a jury is by definition fairer than a judge, despite having absolutely fuck all solid evidence of that. You just have to remember that Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Timothy Evans, Derek Bentley, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and Robert Brown were all found guilty by a jury, and that is just a small sample of blatant miscarriages of justice in the UK. Since we love to take our cues from the United States, which is fucking cretinous, also remember that the most shocking and obvious case of a miscarriage of justice over there is not one where the jury found the defendant guilty, but one where the jury found the defendant not guilty against all available evidence. The infamous murder trial of O.J. Simpson in 1995, where the verdict was not fact-based, but openly politically and racially-motivated. The best evidence of this is that a civil trial, examining the exact same evidence, found Simpson liable for "wrongful death", or murder in real English, to the height of $33.5mil, which is about $70mil or £52mil in today's money. Doesn't fucking scream "innocence", does it? If you are looking for worthier causes, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were also found guilty by a jury. Now I rest my case.

The real people driving all this shite, they’re not the ones out on the street, buying shite gear. Not anymore, anyway. It’s the people who live in big houses behind nice tall gates.

(Shane Bradley, Blue Lights, 2025)

It just keeps on coming. And it’s getting worse, and we can see that. We know it’s happening. But nobody else cares. Why is that?

(Shane Bradley, Blue Lights, 2025)

All this controversy about juries is also a clear sign of malaise throughout the criminal justice system. Is there a loss of confidence in the system? Clearly there is, though it is probably rooted in a myriad of contradictory reasons, from those of us who think judges are too lenient on criminals, to those who blow the whistle on police racism and brutality. But, whatever the root causes, all of this coalesces into a general sense of discontent and distrust in the way the system works. Which should be an incentive to reform it, rather than preserve the status quo, but this is just one of many contradictions we have painted ourselves into. For a more up-to-date picture, Opinium has polled how good or bad we think the main protagonists of the criminal justice system are at their jobs, and it is not a pretty picture.

Of course we do not like the way the Ministry of Justice is performing, which was pretty predictable. When in doubt, always blame the Government. Even if you don't know what for, they do. Note that we already have a pattern here, of Labour voters being less pessimistic about the whole state of affairs, and Reform voters cultivating the most negative attitude, though they probably would not be able to explain why. Opposition for opposition's sake, pretty much. The public's view does not get really more positive when asked about the Polis and the prisons. It say a lot about the state of decay of the whole system that right-wing voters are now more critical of the plod than left-wingers. Though it might also have to do with the drift towards woke ideological policing in many forces, clearly to the detriment of classic law and order enforcement.

So we hold it for a self-evident truth that everybody in The System is a wanker, a tosser or a plonker. Which are also the names of Santa's New Model Reindeer on BBC One's Ru Paul's Christmas Drag Race. It is just odd that Opinium avoided to explicitly mention solicitors and barristers, as if they didn't have any responsibility in the way the system misworks. There is a lot to say in favour of a blanket reform of legal professions in England, that would at last totally abolish the artificial separation between solicitors and barristers, and the feudal institution of Silks in favour of one unified profession of advocates of equal rank, as is the case in all civilised countries and even in the United States. Lord Ashcroft also polled what we think are David Lammy's key motivations in his urge to reform the courts, This was from a pre-scripted list, not spontaneous random choices, so we avoided the hairiest conspiracy theories that never fail to surface every time the Government is the focus, though they left the door open for a big one.

It cones as no surprise that Reform voters are massively believing that Lammy's proposals are here to grant the government control over court decisions, as this is just the kind of asinine conspiracy theories this fucking lot would endorse. After all, they're the ones who believe Candace Owens is a reliable investigative journalist, Tucker Carlson is The Voice Of America, and George Soros has summoned the kitten-eating Lizard People from Orion to take control of the International Monetary Fund, or summat. I genuinely think that Lammy is sincerely motivated by the will to unclog a system that will otherwise crumble under the weight of a massive embolism in a matter of years. If that saves money too, that will be a welcome bonus at a time we need every penny to mend the damage done by Brexit and Liz Truss. And it might even made verdicts safer.

I don’t know if you can imagine what that’s like, Just cleaning up a mess. When you know there must be some way to stop it, but nobody up there gives a shit. No one.

(Shane Bradley, Blue Lights, 2025)

Unless we are weak, Putin has no serious chance of winning. A snail would get to the Polish border faster than Putin’s troops at this rate.

(Boris Johnson, Holberg Debate, 11 December 2025)

Of course, the beginning of the New Year would not be complete without an update on our thoughts and prayers for Ukraine. Well, our thoughts mostly, as they might actually influence our government just a wee smitch, while our prayers are just as useful to the people of Kyiv as my dog pissing on Putin's picture. Which is not a lived experience, just a metaphor. So we have a new poll from YouGov, conducted last month and revealed only on New Year's Eve's Eve, probing us on all things Ukraine. Not just us, actually, but us and them, as it also includes surveys of YouGov's usual Main Five EU nations, our friends and nominally allies in that fucking mess. The only possible caveat is that this poll was fielded before Zelenskyy's last visit to Mar-a-Lago, when Trump called Putin first to get his updated orders from his handler. And also before the Russian fabrication of an imaginary attack on Putin's county mansion near Novgorod, one of those he paid with some of the $45bil diverted to his personal accounts from organised crime and systemic corruption. So let's examine first what we think our governments' strategy should be to help a friendly democratic nation defend itself against a genocidal aggression by a rogue fascist terrorist state.

Of course, Zack Polanski, Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin would smirk at those who are still willing to "fight to the last Ukrainian" from the comfort of our flats and fridges, and relentless Russian and American propaganda has visibly increased the feeling of "Ukraine fatigue" all across Europe. It is also obviously not a coincidence if the UK is still the most committed to helping Ukraine secure a just and solid peace, when even Poland shows signs of succumbing to the toxic sirens of appeasement and the safety of capitulation. Then we still have the prospect of being part of a peacekeeping force to protect Ukraine, which the British public still conclusively support, while other European nations are reluctant and divided. Of course, Nosferatu is threatening us if we intervene, thusly fueling the faux pacifists' cretinous narrative that we can't do this as it would put British lives at risk, because they can't admit that their beloved Russia is the aggressor, and a genocidal fascist terrorist state. YouGov's findings for the Western European nations prove that there is a correlation between the levels of opposition to being part of the peacekeeping force and the influence of Russia-owned propagandists.

To nobody's surprise, the Clacton Stamp Duty Fraudster opposes any such intervention, thusly validating and affirming his acquired persona as the Russian Reich's best agent within the English politicariat, and totally in line with his own true self as an absentee MP skipping PMQs for a self-serving radio appearance. But that's all we can expect from this hypocritical faux patriot, can't we? Squealing pre-scripted faux outrage at anything that goes against the interests of his organ grinder at the Kremlin. YouGov have also probed, on their British panel only, another course of action available to Ukraine's allies, but in a peculiar way. Do we support, in their own words, the UK assisting the USA in the capture of oil tankers evading sanctions against Russia or Iran (sometimes called a “shadow fleet”), and it looks like we have really mixed feelings about that.

Or maybe we don't. I confess that I am indeed highly suspicious of this poll, as I think it is probably not even representative of our actual position, because it is flawed, as if it had been designed to elicit opposition or doubt, for two main reasons. First, you don't set the scene as the UK being summat like the USA's errand boy when one of your own polls has just revealed that 77% of us dislike the Orange Baboon and only 18% like him. This is literally soliciting negative replies, when you should have asked what we should do, regardless of what Trumpistan does and independently of them. Second, you don't mix Iran in the broth, as it only muddies the waters and distracts from the question's real scope, which should focus on Russia only. So another pollster should ask again, but with a different wording. I would suggest summat like, "Do you support or oppose the UK, alone or in coordination with European nations, seizing tankers of Russia's shadow fleet, that helps Russia evading sanctions, at sea in European waters?", which is the heart of the matter, and would be a much more appropriate and relevant description of the actual decisions we now have to make. Decisions that don't require Parliamentary approval, in case Vladimir Farage objects.

The only chance of ending the Russia-Ukraine war is to turn up the heat on Putin. It’s no use for Europeans to blame Americans while Europe still buys Russian gas.

(Boris Johnson, Holberg Debate, 11 December 2025)

We forced Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers. We promised to protect Ukraine from Russia. We made Ukraine vulnerable. So yes, this is our war.

(Bill Clinton, 18 December 2025)

YouGov also asked their cross-European panel to consider plausible futures that may be in store, whichever way the war in Ukraine ends, and most plausibly if Nosferatu doesn't get a full capitulation with the help of the Orange Baboon. Of course, the loopy faux pacifists and the bribed fascists want you to believe that just mentioning these possible futures is escalation, fearmongering and Russophobia. But Russophobia is a perfectly legitimate, sensible and healthy state of mind when we see what the Russian Reich has become under Nosferatu. It is a shite rogue imperialist state, and all the propaganda in the world won't make a fucking difference. Fortunately, the YouGov poll shows again that Europeans don't fall for it and are aware of the risks and likelihood of renewed Russian aggression during our lifetimes. Because the vatniks are like the proverbial scorpion, They can't help it, it's in their nature. It's not even a threat or a warning, it's a prediction.

We know that summat of that sort will happen because Nosferatu himself has told us so repeatedly and for years. He will never give up on destroying and enslaving Ukraine, no matter the death toll and the economic cost. He will also risk further aggression towards the West because of his publicly-stated belief that everywhere a Russian soldier has ever set foot is Russian by right. Look up your history books and you will see this goes as far West as Paris. Nosferatu will probably not go that far, and be content with just rebuilding the Soviet glacis of the Warsaw Pact era. Mark my words, mates, next stop is Narva. He will feel all the more emboldened if he thinks he can get away with it because of American inaction. Sadly, the YouGov poll also proves that Europeans don't have much faith in the United States' willingness to stick to their commitments under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, as significant numbers consider it unlikely that the United States would intervene in three specific cases of Russian aggression, even directly against a NATO member state.

A reminder first, that Article 5 has been invoked only once, in 2001 when the whole civilised world rallied around George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And also, and more importantly, my usual fact-affirmation that Article 5 does not mean instant nuclear conflagration, contrary to what the cretinous faux-pacifist appeasers like Zack Polanski and the treacherous FSB-controlled fascists like Nigel Farage want you to believe. Just read the exact wording of Article 5 and you will know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. Under Article 5, inaction is a perfectly acceptable course of action, and this is exactly what us-and-them have come to expect of the United States, even if the target of the Soviet Empire's next aggression was a Western European country. This is how low our trust in the Orange Baboon has sunk, and with good reasons that we find in the contrast between our own expectations for the end of the war, and what we think The Donald wants.

Europeans want Ukraine to win the war, but think that the Orange Baboon wants the Russian Reich to win it. It is a perfectly sensible point of view as he has left a conclusive trail of breadcrumbs that go a long way back, to the day he appointed the crassly incompetent and easily manipulated Steve Witkoff as his envoy to the Soviets. We know that Trump is totally bereft of any principle, sees the world as a Monopoly board and diplomacy as a sequence of business transactions. This has never been shown more vividly than in his handling of the Ukraine war, where he has always teamed with the side who offered him and his cronies the best opportunities for juicy deals, and was also the best expert at cuddling his massive ego and vanity. We sill have three years to live with that, and even more if the Christo-fascist ideologue J.D. Vance is elected as the next POTUS. It wouldn't get better even in the very unlikely case of Trump being impeached and deposed on grounds of dementia, as Vance would be instantly anointed under the 25th Amendment and pursue the same pro-Russian pro-fascist anti-European policies. We are really and truly fucked.

President Putin has been very generous in his sentiments towards Ukraine, wishing it success, notably by providing it with energy, electricity, and other goods at very low prices.

(Donald Trump, 29 December 2025)

There’s no deal to be had with Ukraine, only an agreement on its surrender.

(Andrei Kelin, Russian Ambassador to the UK, 13 December 2025)

Now we should stop caring about the loopy woke mediatariat chuntering about British participation in the seizure of a Russian tanker by the Americans, because we should have started wiping Nosferatu's Shadow Fleet off the surface of the oceans ourselves long ago. Especially as Ukraine has started doing just that with more radical means, drones. The resident faux pacifists may clutch their pearls all they want, realism dictates that we help Ukraine destroy the Russian Reich's oil industry and oil trade wherever it is, on Russian soil or on the high seas. The domino effect on the whole Russian economy is the most potent weapon Ukraine has to avoid being forced into an abject capitulation. The recent summit of the Coalition Of The Unwilling To Displease Trump has sadly brought little clarification. Did Trumpistan actually commit to anything serious, as some reports said? Or is Zelenskyy right to say that all he heard were words without substance? The latter is probably true, and no concessions seem to have been taken off the table, all of which were again polled by YouGov.

The possible concessions are neatly twinned in YouGov's most recent pan-European poll. In each pair, you have one reflecting what Putin has ordered Trump to extract from Zelenskyy, and one reflecting a less extreme demand that may be acceptable for the Ukrainian leadership. The size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is definitely a major bone of contention, as they officially number 880,000 now. Even if 800,000 would still be considerable force, the largest in Europe, such a reduction is still unacceptable for many Ukrainians, besides having little support among their allies. It could nevertheless be a concession of last resort, if and only if serious solid guarantees have been offered by Ukraine's allies, who are still procrastinating about that. Issues centering on reconstruction and reconciliation are just as thorny right now.

There is a consensus among the European allies, supported by their public opinions, that Russia must fully compensate Ukraine after the war, and fund its reconstruction. This is the whole point of the full seizure of frozen Russian assets, which Trumpistan opposes because they want those to be used in funding business deals that will personally benefit the MAGAligarchs and the extended Trump family. The complete moral bankruptcy of this kleptocratic clique is again demonstrated by their pressure on Ukraine to accept a full amnesty of war crimes. Which is exactly what the Russian Reich wants, as we all know their military and mercenaries are guilty of 99% of crimes committed during the war, including the mass murders of civilians in several Ukrainian towns. There are no more grounds to exonerate the Russian Reich today than there were to pardon the Waffen SS in 1945, and Ukraine's allies have a duty to support post-war Nuremberg-like trials, even under pressure from Putin's representatives in the Trump administration. Then YouGov found some worrying attitudes in the European public opinions' view of hypothetical territorial concessions.

Unfortunately, this is also where our governments and Zelenskyy himself seem most willing to offer some compromise. Now, look at this through the prism of a century-old precedent. In November 1918, would the Allies have agreed to freeze the border between France and Germany on the Western frontline, pending further negotiations, on the flimsy pretext that Germany had not been defeated and had even gained some ground in the last months before the Armistice? You can see the absurdity of this, which is exactly what Trumpistan proposes as an alleged "compromise" to the Russian Reich's unacceptable extreme demands. Then you have to be a very special sort of decerebrated cretin to believe Russia would not station military forces in a surrendered Donbas. Of course they would, just like they did in the areas ruled by the Kremlin-funded separatist terrorist militias in 2014. Russia had direct control of the militias, armed them, funded them, trained them, sent tens of thousands of Russian military personnel under false identities, the Little Green Men, to reinforce them, and Russian Army officers to command them. And don't even get me started on the coerced Russification that would inevitably happen in surrendered territories, similar to the Nazis' forced Germanification of Eastern territories after 1941.

For Ukraine, surrendering their land will be a nightmare. And that nightmare is made worse by the almost unbelievable suggestion that the United States would recognise land Russia has stolen as Russian, the first time Washington would've done any such thing since World War II.

(Boris Johnson, Holberg Debate, 11 December 2025)

I was sitting in every significant NATO meeting from 2016 to 2022, and there was never a snowball’s chance in Hades of Ukraine joining NATO. Because any such suggestion faced vetoes from France, Germany, and the USA. A caviar bowl of black balls.

(Boris Johnson, Holberg Debate, 11 December 2025)

Then we also have to take a firm stand about the security guarantees we can offer Ukraine as part of a peace settlement, to discourage any further aggression from the imperialist genocidal Russian Reich. Sadly, the Coalition Of The Stalling have been painfully equivocating, procrastinating and obfuscating for months about this, because they know exactly what these guarantees should be. Offering Ukraine membership of international organisations that would be bound to consider any appropriate action to defend Ukraine against any foreign aggression, First of all NATO, and of course the Orange Baboon will veto it for all of eternity because his ally at the Kremlin can't allow it. The obvious alternative option, or "compromise" option, permanently stationing a NATO force in Ukraine without granting them membership, is just as unlikely to be approved by the Russian agent at the White House. Sadly the neverending Russian propaganda, that either of these would be unacceptable escalation and further aggression against Russia, does have some impact in several European countries, even in Poland. Again, our own public opinion is the most supportive of Ukraine.

Other than NATO, the European nations still have the option of offering Ukraine a fast track to membership of the European Union, with preferential treatment during the accession negotiations. European public opinions are far less reluctant to it than to NATO membership, and YouGov's British subsample is again the most supportive, though it is technically none of our business. But it is also none of Trump's fucking business, even if he would obviously interfere with it and try to derail it on Putin's orders. Because what Trumputin want is getting Russia back in the G8, which all other members should veto without hesitation. It is obviously unacceptable because it would instantly repeal all sanctions against the Russian Reich, and we cannot allow that. Russia's economy is close to the edge of implosion, and our obvious best interest is to push it over the cliff. The Orange Baboon wants to avoid that because his donors, his cronies and his family would benefit financially from new business deals with Putin's close circle. And that alone should be enough reason for Europeans to oppose Russia's return to the respectable club, just as their public opinions want.

But events, dear boy, events are moving faster than we can possibly cope with. Most of the time from Trumpistan, which is determined to live up to its reputation for unpredictability and maverickism. Now the Orange Baboon has thrown another fucking huge spanner in the cogs, with his own "special military operation" in Venezuela. Let's get one thing out of the way first, for the avoidance of all doubt. Nicolás Maduro is a corrupt dictator, who falsified the result of an election to stay in power and continue embezzling public funds. Nobody will miss him, especially not the Venezuelan people. The loopy far-left politicians who pretend to stand up for Maduro "in the name of the people of Venezuela" are just talking out of their arse, as they mostly do. This being stipulated once and for all, it does not mean we must unquestionably approve Trump's misguided intervention. YouGov has obviously speed-polled it and found that we do not.

It is reassuring that a majority of Brits, and especially Scots, disapprove of Trump's action, though I wish the disapproval had been stronger. Only the deluded Trumpians at Reform approve, but this lot would swallow anything from their idol, wouldn't they? But our politicians should not be in denial that Trump's intervention is a brutally gross violation of all sorts of international law, besides being also illegal under the USA's own federal laws. This is what Starmer, Macron and Merz should have said, instead of looking petrified by the fear of hurting the Orange Baboon's feelings. It says a lot that the only one to not equivocate was the President of Finland Alexander Stubb, calling for the absolute respect of international law. These guys have dealt with the Soviets for generations, so they are not impressed by Trump. What will our cowardly leaders do next, when the White House's lunatic shifts his focus from pillaging the oil reserves of Venezuela to plundering those of the yet-unsoiled Arctic? Remember what that legendary anti-war anthem of the 1960s said. Almost. And it's one, two, three, four. What are we fighting for? Next stop is Greenland.

About Venezuela? How should I respond to that? Well, what can I say? If it is possible to act with dictators like this, it means the United States know what to do next. Thank you.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 3 January 2026)

There are only two options today: either the world stops Russia’s war, or Russia drags the world into its war.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 31 December 2025)

Volodia is right here, we are at a crossroads. Or rather at a fork, as a proper crossroads offers you three alternative routes, not two. Just ask Robert Johnson. IYKYK. But maybe we are at a crossroads anyway as there is a Third Way. Someone, might be the SBU, might be SAS or MI6, DGSE or the Chinese, gets to Putin first and erases him from this space-time continuum. Which would save lots of lives, resources and money for a lot of countries. But, until this happens, we really have to be bolder and more imaginative regarding our level of military spending and how we use it. I feel more upbeat about that right now, as there has been quite a dramatic shift in our attitudes between one year ago and one month ago, the first and last time YouGov asked a very specifically worded question about the "tough choices" between military spending and generic spending on public services. It is a genuine change of priorities, as even Labour and LibDem voters now prioritise the military above, broadly speaking, social spending.

But a change of priorities, albeit very welcome, does not mean we will instantly overturn all the damage done by thirty years of basking in the twin delusions of "the end of history" and "the dividends of peace". The only consolation we can find is that it is now revealed, bit by bit, that Russia's Soviet-age military equipment is even more decrepit and unfit for purpose than ours. But that does not make us more optimistic about the state of readiness of The Forces. A YouGov tracker shows that, six years ago, we were pretty confident in our ability to successfully wage a defensive operation on home soil, and an offensive operation overseas. Today we are really pessimistic about resistance to a home invasion, and far less buoyant about overseas operations. From where I'm sat, this is the unavoidable conclusion of the programmed decay of our power projection capability orchestrated by the Conservatives all along their disastrous years in charge, and Labour's lack of serious commitment to restoring it.

This is quite worrying when just this kind of capacity may well be what we will need in a very near future. Let's say, just hypothetically and speculatively, if a NATO country invokes Article 5 against another NATO country. Tom Clancy would never have dared imagine such a scenario, and even Dan Brown would never touch that with a sixty-foot bargepole. But who knows what the New World Disorder may bring? Especially when two of its core components are the Orange Baboon's ego and greed, both of which have him irrepressibly attracted to Greenland. I am not saying that he will try another "special military operation" there, as even Marco Rubio could see how stupid that would be when a few millions in bribes could do the trick, but I am not saying I am ruling it out either. If Epstein's disgraced friend, and Trump's plant within the English establishment, Lord Guacamole says we are being "histrionic" about it, then there must be some truth to it. YouGov, always at the vanguard of bold polling, speed-polled us about the likelihood of an American invasion of Greenland, and we are not really sure either way. Which is actually quite revealing of how far we have come to expect even the most deranged actions from Trump.

But even that mad scenario must not make us embark on a wild ghost chase after seductively fashionable new technologies. There seems to have been summat of a tectonic vector shift in some military circles, who are now drooling over drones. They are a useful addition in land operations or intelligence gathering, but a fucking dead end for naval operations. Ukrainian drones have damaged and possibly destroyed several warships in harbour at Novorossiysk. But so did Italian maiale at Alexandria in 1941, and it did not change the course of naval warfare. It would be as foolish to succumb to the sirens of a New Model Jeune École, which is just as misguided today as it was in 1880s France. Many smalls don't make a big. No drone has ever sunk a major warship on the high sea, and none ever will, as it requires much more striking power than any drone can have. To sink a 100,000-ton aircraft carrier, you need a full salvo of cruise missiles launched from a large submarine, and that's what we should prioritise, not our fantasies of an Attack Of The Drones. Cruise missiles will still do the job much better, even on sitting-duck ships inside of harbour, just like bomber planes did the job better than maiale or chariots, at Taranto and Pearl Harbor.

Anyone who fears escalation fails to recognise that Putin is already waging this war against us through sabotage and hybrid attacks. We have squandered months waiting on the US, which is now withdrawing from its protective role.

(Roderich Kiesewetter)

We’re going to take it from here. All you have to do is stay out of our way. Go off and enjoy your retirement. It suits you.

(Donal Fogerty, Blue Lights, 2025)

Find Out Now have released a new poll of voting intentions for the incoming Senedd election, that only confirms that Welsh Labour are now just like an Advent Calendar. Their days are numbered. With the Welsh Conservatives also reduced to rump status, like their English siblings, we are totally heading towards a Clash of Titans between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru. But there might still be some surprises in store, as the trend of polls hints that Reform may well have peaked already, while Plaid still have some margin of progress. And these trends also offer quite a clear hint of how Plaid can achieve that.

The election can be an even wider, overwhelming and unquestionable Plaid Cymru victory if the disgruntled Labour voters who have switched to the Greens think twice and switch again, this time to Plaid. Right now it is so bad for Labour that, if you apply only the ancestral uniform national swing, they would get negative votes in some of the sixteen new constituencies. So we definitely need smarter algorithms, which I think I have devised. The seat projection again says that the allegedly proportional electoral law does not deliver a fully proportional result, as deducted from the national vote shares, as the parties' relative strengths in the individual constituencies matter more that their national average. It is actually more distorted towards the right this time than some earlier polls delivered.

This poll says that First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth would need two junior partners for a viable government coalition, Labour and the Greens. Of course he could also play it safe by getting the Liberal Democrats on board too in the name of progressive unity against the threat of fascism, or summat. This is surely not impossible as there will probably be no irreconcilable differences between all of them after the campaign dust has settled. Welsh Independence would not be a bone of contention as it is pretty much off the table for the foreseeable future. In the past, Plaid Cymru indicated that an Independence referendum would be held if they won a majority in the Senedd. Since the quasi-proportional representation makes that impossible, this is now irrelevant and inconsequential. The only obstacle to a four-way coalition could be the Liberal Democrats still opposing what they once called Plaid Cymru's "pie in the sky economics". Then that would be a moot point too, as Plaid Cymru wouldn't actually need them for a majority.

Once upon a time you were useful, but these days are gone, and now you need to be gone too.

(Donal Fogerty, Blue Lights, 2025)

I do not believe that we deserve or have a right to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.

(Marlene Dietrich)

Find out Now also graced us with a new Full Scottish, commissioned and paid for by The National, who managed to squeeze only four columns off it. I can't help thinking they wasted dosh on some totally frivolous questions, like the one about Scottish Labour being a branch office of the Mothership in SW1, which has been a self-evident truth since Johann Lamont first used that expression twelve years ago, and really deserves no further investigation. The question about how our vote at an Independence referendum would change if Benito Farage was Prime Minister is also a fucking cretinous waste of dosh, as there would be fuck all referendum if Benito was in charge. There wouldn't even be a Scotland left, as Benito would rename us Northern Britain, just like his organ grinders Trump and Putin rename gulfs and countries to suit their imperialist fantasies. Find Out Now started their investigation with the ritual question about our Westminster voting intentions, and that extra data point actually did not add any unexpected information to the trendlines.

If we take this poll at face value, we have even odds of witnessing a Labour Extinction Event in Scotland in 2029. Bear in mind, though, that an Extinction Event does not mean that all representatives of the species, or the brand, are wiped out in one go. Some dinosaurs did survive after The Asteroid, didn't they? So, if Ian Murray again survived alone, we could still count that as Extinction. But I will give you my actual prediction for Scotland later on, based on a wider array of polls than just the one. What Find Out Now found out about our intentions for next Holyrood election is of more immediate interest, as it is now less than four months away, Donald Trump permitting. There wasn't any earthquake of the trendlines here either.

Admittedly, this is the first time Reform UK come second in a Holyrood poll from Find Out Now. But it has been predicted already by Norstat, Survation and Ipsos, so the shock value has largely worn out. The English Union of Fascists has also emerged as the runner-up in Scottish Westminster polling often enough that we have kind of grown accustomed to it. Which is not good. Germany got accustomed to the Nazis long before 1933, didn't they? And the Americans got accustomed to The Return Of The Orange Baboon long before the 5th of November, 2024 too. Note that Find Out Now thought it smart to include Your Party in their prompts for the first time, only to see them bag a miserably low vote share. If the refurbished woke Trots can't get any traction in the Cradle Of The Labour Movement, how can you expect them to make a real impression anywhere else? Then the seat projection from that poll certainly did not make me as ecstatic as The Scottish Pravda. But they would say that, wouldn't they? Because that's what they say about every poll, no matter what it actually says.

This time, my model does not predict any constituency seat for the Greens, though they come pretty close in Glasgow Kelvin and Maryhill, Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith. Then the four constituencies predicted to be gained by Reform UK are more significant, as all would be snatched off the SNP. Airdrie, Aberdeen Central, Falkirk Eat and Linlithgow, Uddington and Bellshill. So we have a whole generation of SNP rule resulting in the humiliation of seeing Alex Salmond's birthplace represented by an English nationalist, because every poll so far, and this one is no exception, predicts that Reform would overperform in the recarved Central region, which does now include the bit of West Lothian where Linlithgow stands. Otherwise, we still have the usual post-election dilemma for First Minister Stephen Flynn, who would have every reason to do the exact opposite of what John Swinney would have done. Which is to not even try and cajole the loopy Greenies back into government, but instead to make Anas Sarwar's successor an offer they can't refuse. And that's how you get the more sensible option of an SNP-Lab coalition without interference from cretinous student politics. Mark my words. Again.

If you ain’t got anything nice to say, I’ll meet you at lunchtime, babes. That’s my motto.

(Laura Smyth)

I can't do what I've done before. I just can't beg you anymore. I'm gonna let you pass, I'll go last. And then time will tell just who has fell and who's been left behind, when you go your way and I go mine.

(Bob Dylan, Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine, 1965)

Like all self-respecting pollsters, Find Out Now also probed us about a hypothetical future Independence referendum. It looked quite good at face value as they found 49.9% Yes to 43.7%, which you can extrapolate to 53% Yes to 47% No, give or take, if you eliminate the undecideds. But I wouldn't be as triumphant as The Scottish Pravda in their column about that part of the poll. Contrary to their statement, a 53-47 Yes victory is not the standard of the polling industry. It is more like the standard of Find Out Now polls, and not much beyond that. But I promise I will not tell you that I told you so when we get YouGov's next Full Scottish, predicting a 10-point lead for No. Let's be content for now with the updated trendlines, that confirm that the Yes vote has gained ground in recent months, even if nobody has done anything serious to influence us that way. Except the UK Government, that is.

I could have ended this chapter on this mildly optimistic note, but it wasn't to be. Don't blame me fort that, blame The Scottish Pravda, who could not resist the urge to impose a totally cretinous final question on their pollster. Who obviously had no issue with it, as it meant they would be paid more. YouGov's going rate is £1,000 for any additional question, so I guess Find Out Now would charge summat like that too. Anyway, they concluded their investigation with a question about... you would never have guessed it... "trans loos". This is so totally passé, so totally last year's question, but remember this is a poll commissioned by The Scottish Pravda, whose editorial staff are totally in the grip of the trans lobby, and just enjoy what a fucking shock the results must have been for them.

Even with undecideds still included, a clear majority of Scots support the Supreme Court ruling about the definition of sex in a legal context. If you remove undecideds, it is an overwhelming three-to-one, and a smashing defeat for the fanatical woke activists who still want us to believe that the law says what Stonewall says it says, and not what the Supreme Court has ruled it says. The Scottish Pravda went into full clutching at straws settings about this, arguing around an alleged "huge generation split". Which is real if you compare the TikTok Generation with their great-grandparents, but much less so if you compare them to the national average or the next generation, mine. Bear in mind too that this comes after ten years of government-sponsored indoctrination by organisations like TIE, and the only surprise is that the pro-trans score isn't higher among the influenceable youth. It does not get better for the trans cult when you consider the breakdown by region.

So the pro-trans vote is at its highest in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which only confirms my perennial oft-made point, that this is a textbook case of metropolitan middle-class luxury beliefs spread by social contagion among people embracing fashionable bourgeois conformism. This opinion doesn't even have much traction in Mad Mags Chapman's chosen electoral turf in the North East. But the zealots just can't accept that biological sex is now the sole law of the land, for Scotland too even if this is a devolved matter, as the authority of Supreme Court knows no borders. The ruling is not fully applied yet only because bad faith actors are standing in the way, like Bridget Phillipson in England, and pretty much the whole Scottish Government. This surely pleases The Scottish Pravda, who are still advocating rearguard actions against the Supreme Court ruling, though their own poll proves that even SNP voters support it. The woke mob can never accept being wrong or suffering a defeat. In that respect, their mental pathways are pretty similar to Trump's and Putin's or even, which is probably worse in their minds, Queen Victoria's.

We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. It does not exist.

(Queen Victoria)

People say, “How do you know, when you’ve arrived in a country, that you’ve understood al the shibboleths? Which bit of society really matters”. It’s when the British applaud colours of crisps packets.

(Sandi Toksvig, QI: Ultras, 2024)

Do we really have a debate about British identity right now? Or is it just Nigel Farage having a debate with himself because nobody else gives a frying duck? Well, it must be a thing, or else YouGov would not have polled it. Of course, there are many competing views of Britishness and what it takes to be British. Or, better, truly British even if that one walks and quacks like a far-right dogwhistle. YouGov nevertheless used it to make us define what it is, and the results are quite perplexing. To be honest, the very wording of the options YouGov offered led directly to that. So a majority of us, though I am tempted to say "of you" this time, opines that you can be truly British if you try hard enough. So maybe Meghan Markle didn't try hard enough. That's quite a weird way to define it, innit? Though there may be some truth to it when you consider that Agatha Christie's most quintessentially British character was Hercule Poirot, who confessed in one of the later novels that he had lost his Belgian accent years ago, but chose to continue faking it so the English would feel less threatened by his superior intellect. More truly British than Bertie Wooster or John Barnaby, this.

But who is "truly British", when even the royalty isn't? Just look at the line of succession since Guillaume le Bâtard, who became William the Conqueror only by chance because the last truly English king was a fuckwit. Since then, you've had Viking, French, Welsh, Scottish, Dutch, German, and a touch of Greek. Just don't tell Nigel Farage. It may not be enough to make an effort, so we definitely must have some criteria that will shape a working definition of true Britishness. YouGov tried just that and, quite ironically, the results do not fit what the True Defenders of True Britishness, like Farage and Jenrick, want us to think.

So it doesn't matter if you are a Christian, or if we can draw a pint of True British Blood off you. That True British Bodily Fluid made of a random mix of Celt, Italian, German, Viking, Dane, Norse, French, Nigerian, Pakistani and Indian. But you have to respect the British institutions and laws, which a test Nigel Farage would fail. Just saying. Then YouGov probed their panel about what it takes to qualify as a "good British citizen", I guess from a pre-scripted list to avoid the looniest definitions. It's another blow for the Clacton Führer, as his two core fetishes, skin colour and religion, come at the bottom of the pile. Just like these allegedly Very British Traits, buying rounds at the pub or having a casserole and a dram ready for election canvassers, or summat.

The overall picture is far different from Farage's or Jenrick's fantasy of Britishness, that was already outdated in the 1970s and probably disappeared into the ether around the time of The Postwar Dream. Remarkably, there is no trace of English Exceptionalism is these replies, as the most quoted traits could apply to citizens of any civilised country, and even have a globally progressive feel. The first clearly far-right trait, what the Reform-like National Rally in the country of my birth call "national preference", ranks only 10th and supported by just 8% of us. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not buy the idea that "being an English speaker" is a far-right dogwhistle, as it is just basic common sense. And, by the way, English As We Know It is an imported language, mostly a mix of Northern German dialects and old French, with very little left of the ancestral native languages. Gotcha, Nigel. So, despite what voting intentions could lead you to believe, the cultural influence of Reform is minimal, and their narrow vision of Britishness, which actually means just Englishness in their Weltanschauung, is not shared by a majority of us. Gotcha again, Nigel.

He means it, you know, it’s not all bullshit to him. He actually thinks being British is an honour and a privilege. Bless.

(Harry Pearce, Spooks: The Tip-Off, 2008)

Ah! The money! Why stick to your values when there is cash at stake?

(Shirley Schmidt, Boston Legal, 2007)

Now, if Keir Starmer wants to make some resolutions for 2026, and address some serious issues head-on, I have one for him. Political funding, of parties and campaigns. I am not thinking of the public funding here, Short Money, Cranborne Money and the Policy Development Grants, but of the political funding by individuals and organisations. Our current political funding system is notoriously outdated and grossly inadequate, as was demonstrated by Russia pouring £8m into the Vote Leave campaign in 2016, totally legally. Foreign interference in our next general election, mostly from the United States and Russia, is a major concern, so it would be a criminal dereliction of duty for the government to do nothing, especially as we have had advance warnings that the main beneficiary of foreign blood money would be Benito Farage and his New Model British Union of Fascists. YouGov, always aware of the most sensitive issues, have of course polled us about that. They surveyed at which amount we think donations should be cap, from a total ban to no limit at all, for three categories: individuals, trade unions and businesses.

A quarter of use think that even individuals should not be allowed to donate to political parties at all, which is a bit extreme. This would mean that the parties could rely only on membership fees, which most would find totally insufficient, unless they increased those fees substantially. I think this would be totally counter-productive as it would de facto create an elite of contributors who could wield more influence on the politicariat than the common people. More equal than others, as the saying goes. So, I certainly wouldn't advise to ban individual donations, just to cap them, but more strongly than the intermediate levels of the YouGov poll suggest. More on that later. We also collectively have a rather unfavourable view of political funding by the trade unions, as half of us want donations from trade unions banned or reduced to a pitifully low level. That may be just a wee smitch biased, as I can't remember Unison or GMB ever funding the Conservatives.

Furthermore, I can't see how any sort of legal limit could be applied to the unions' affiliation fees to the Labour Party, which are totally a matter of private contracts. So, even if some of our elders have bad memories of the disproportionate influence of trade unions on the Labour Party's policies, some time in the prehistory before Tony Blair, the issue of funding by the unions is probably irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential. But the influence of corporations is not, and YouGov found us collectively less willing to limit it, which sounds odd. How can we whine about the influence of Big Business on our politics, if we are not ready to ban political funding by businesses, or at least severely limit the legal amount? Only a third of us would ban corporate donations, and a quarter would consider a cap at £50k, which is a fucking massive amount, like 1.5 times the median full-time salary of working people. This is not how you curb corporate influence on politics, and shift back power to the common people.

Now here is my plan. First ban all donations from foreigners, individuals, organisations and businesses, explicitly extending to British subsidiaries of foreign companies, so that Elon Muck can't use that loophole to buy Benito Farage our next election as he bought the Orange Baboon the last American one. Not my conspiracist fantasy, just Elon's self-incriminating testimony on Twitter. Then ban all donations from British businesses and trade unions, so that the restrictions are fair and balanced between Reform and Labour. Cap donations from individuals to a variable amount, 10% of the previous year's median full-time salary across the UK. Which would be about £3,500 this year, and amount most of us can't afford anyway, but we do have to preserve a wee smitch of Very British Classism, haven't we? That would be for the parties themselves. For general election campaigns, candidates are allowed to spend £17k in borough constituencies and £20.5k in country constituencies once Parliament is dissolved. I see the limit for individual campaign donations as no more than 2% of the spending limit, and limited to only one constituency per general election. Parties would thusly have to rely on a large number of small donors, with nobody legally in a position to exert major influence on multiple candidates. Up for that, Keir Starmer?

Conscience is a negotiable commodity. There are no heroes, no white hats, no black hats. Just shades of green. Money. That’s the true universal panacea. Good for anything that ails you.

(Sebastian Fenix, Endeavour: Quartet, 2018)

Things aren’t what they used to be, that’s for sure. Butterfly flapping its wings causes a hurricane fifteen years later. Chaos, you’re in the middle of the chaos, mate.

(Paul Collins, Blue Lights, 2025)

It would be a Very English Euphemism, summat I would never indulge in, if I told you that the tail end of 2025 has not been the best of times for the Labour Party. But it certainly isn't one, as I wouldn't want to be a repeat offender, when I tell you that the start of 2026 could be the worst of times for them. There were hints in the December polls that Reform may have peaked ans was starting to go down, but the first week of 2026 polls has them back up again according to all three of our reference pollsters. Two out of three also have Labour still going down over the first days of the New Year. Keir Starmer is actually very fortunate that all rebellion is frozen for now, as nobody wants to challenge him for leadership just before local and devolved elections that promise to be a fucking bloodbath. Because not even Andy Burnham has the magic wand to fend off the electoral threat from the Greens, who may be flatlining in the polls, but at a high enough level to be a fucking thorn in the arse.

Never missing an opportunity to speak ill of the walking dead, The Hipstershire Gazette have started predicting doom and gloom for Labour at the May elections, all of them. That's the Han Solo Syndrome. Keep grunting that you have a bad feeling about this, and when the self-fulfilling prophecy inevitably self-fulfills, you can tell the punters that you told them so and they should have listened. You even have a vested interest in the Electoral Winter happening in the spring, because otherwise you would become the Cassandra who cried wolf once too often. Today, my snapshot includes the four most recent polls, conducted by More In Common, YouGov, Find Out Now and Opinium between the Second and the Ninth of the First, or 2 to 9 January if you are not fully familiar with the olden ways of stating dates. That's a super-sample of 8,790, or roughly the full load displacement in tons of the US Navy's Arleigh Burke class destroyers, the ones to be renamed soon as USS Donald J. Trump 1 through USS Donald J. Trump 74. No shit, mates, that's citizen journalism, so it has to be true.

So we still get a Reform majority on 30% of the popular vote, with a razzia of seats for the SNP on the same 30% of the popular vote North of the Eyemouth Layby, and the Liberal Democrats still firmly burrowed all across the Leafy South. All this and a fucking debacle for Labour, not to mention the much less regrettable culling of the Rump Tories. Also note that the combined predicted votes for a Lab-Lib-Green electoral pact vastly outnumber Reform, and would get them a massive majority if Che Polanski wasn't hell bent on destroying Labour instead of blocking Reform's ascent. But should we get accustomed to the idea that the Realm's next Prime Minister will be like Trump's errand boy combined with Putin's chargé d'affaires? Well, fuck no. There is still more than enough time until the next general for the Reform bubble to implode, and for Farage to seek asylum where his most recent passport came from.

They are a cancer. Their motto is, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying”. And when they take over a town, they get everywhere. They use everyone and everything.

(Paul Collins, Blue Lights, 2025)

I hope all colleagues had a Happy Christmas, it probably feels quite a long time ago by now. But not for Reform, of course, because today is the day they celebrate Christmas in Russia.

(Keir Starmer at PMQs, 7 January 2026)

It is really good to see Keir Starmer channeling his inner Ricky Gervais, visibly enjoying the sound of his own joke, and at last taking the piss out of the British Union of Putinists. I only wish he perseveres, and also that more MPs take advantage of Parliamentary Privilege, that nice legal peculiarity under which MPs can say absolutely anything they want about anybody within the Chamber of the House of Commons, without the risk of a libel suit. Time to mention at every opportunity that Benito Farage is a stamp duty fraudster, a blood money launderer and an agent of two hostile foreign powers. There must be enough ways to spin and phrase that for, like, 150 MPs to have a go at Benito every day the House sits, for a year and more. Just hammer that home, and make sure every bit of it is broadcast on Parliament TV, until Benito totally breaks apart foaming at the mouth, and the Speaker has to have him taken away by security. Ridiculing and discrediting the fash, while exposing their faux patriotism, may be just what the progressive camp needs to deflate their votes all across England and burst their bubble. It is at least worth a try. Just look at what sort of vote shares today's snapshot is granting them, and you will plainly see it.

On the fun side, Che Polanski has reached a new level of cretinous entitlement, chest-thumping like a boisterous adolescent gorilla as if it was up to him to choose who should be the leader of the Labour Party. Not sure Andy Burnham will love that stunt, that is only designed to seed the sows of division within Labour, and also a fucking oddity coming from the bloke who said that destroying and replacing Labour is his calling. That and cuddling Gary Fucking Lineker's bruised ego. My problem with Zack is not just that he is a morally bankrupt loony, but that he has all the ingredients to be a worse pub bore than Keir Starmer. The kind who has to explain the "message" of the "jokes" he nicked from James Acaster, and lecture you on the contextualisation of all answers to the pub quiz. Worse than Keir droning on about his father the toolmaker. But the current snapshot of predicted seats sadly says that Che does have some appeal for a fraction of disenchanted Labour voters.

The full list of seats predicted to transition to Green shows that they would snatch none from the Conservatives, but exclusively from Labour, which proves again how fucking useless they at fighting the real enemies on the right. Securing all seats in Brighton and at the upscale heart of Bristol, as well as university constituencies like Huddersfield, Cambridge, Leeds Central, Manchester Central, Norwich South or Sheffield Central doesn't really scream working class credentials. More like a continuum of entitled metropolitan middle-class youth eager to prove their "progressivism" by embracing all the loopy fads of imported wokeism. The only upside to the Green Party of England and Wales is that their hunting grounds are pretty much the same as Your Party's and they are better at it, so they are sucking the air out of the woke Trots, the happy ending of which could be their total dalekisation. The obvious downside is that they, and the loopy Trots too, are an impediment to a united fight against Reform, which should be the sole priority of anyone pretending to self-identify as progressive.

You have to question the morality of an individual who used to make money by pretending he could hypnotise women to get them a bigger bra size.

(Steve Reed MP)

At a certain point, they bring you into the circle. And it’s like putting on a rucksack full of secrets. Week after week, year after year, it gets heavier, until you can’t move.

(Nicola Robinson, Blue Lights, 2025)

One of our favourite New Year's games, besides phony resolutions that we don't really intend to keep, is making predictions for the coming year. Which is a very risky game, as we all know that the only successful predictions are those about the past, especially when they are made by economists or election prognosticators. Notwithstanding, Ipsos and More In Common have both indulged in that game, and probed us about what we see on the horizon for 2026. Their investigations cover roughly three categories: serious political stuff, serious stuff beyond domestic politics, and weirdo stuff that nobody really cares about when our real concern is whether Nosferatu will nuke us before or after Rachel Reeves's next tax hikes. I have merged the replies to the two polls, so this is a rather long bucket list. So bear with me while we explore all its corners, starting with the most obviously political stuff.

Surely Keir Starmer will exit stage left, pursued by a bear, at some point. But will he go on a bang or a whimper? Will it be more like Julius Caesar, Götterdämerrung or the First Fall Of John Swinney? More importantly, and pursuant to the scope of the polls, will it happen this year? Methinks not, and a wee plurality of respondents agree, while also opining he will sack Reeves without avoiding the inevitable obviousness of tax hikes. Honestly, it is far more likely that Kemi Badenoch will be demoted this year, because the Rump Tory MPs can do it next week if they want, while a coup against Starmer would have to go through a long and winding road. Then there are some really surprising predictions in the political-yet-not-really-political batch.

Let's be clear, I do not believe for one second that the Russian genocidal aggression of Ukraine will end this year. Simply because Nosferatu does not want it, as a permanent state of war is his only hope of staying in power. I do not believe either that the Orange Baboon will be deposed, as the window of opportunity opens on 21 January 2027, two years and a day after his inauguration, because this is the earliest day when J.D. Vance can invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment without forfeiting his right to two full terms of his own. But I do believe there will be summer riots in the UK, not because the Kaiser Chiefs said it, but because Nosferatu will use his sleeper agents in the UK to trigger them. And also the totally awake ones like Benito Farage, who will stoke the fires even where there are none, just to put Labour in an impossible position facing massive and very unpopular unrest. It is also very likely that a fucking big cyber-attack, also led by the Russian Reich, will happen during the riots, to create more disruption and make the situation worse, fueling Benito's narrative about an incompetent and impotent Labour government that needs replacing by an iron fist in an iron glove. His. Then there are more light-hearted predictions in the final batch.

To be bluntly honest, the thought of the atrocious Alan Carr being made a Sir is even more repugnant than the thought of the Orange Baboon winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The only reassuring thing is that Ipsos obviously meant it as a joke, like their fitba questions or Justin Welby marrying Taylor Swift. Or summat. Otherwise, that would signal the utter moral bankruptcy of the British Monarchy, and trigger a constitutional crisis that would wipe them out. No shit, mates. Obviously, the only serious item in that third of the list is the UK bagging nul points at the Eurovision, because it is the only one that will surely and definitely happen. As it should, because the Eurovision has a moral obligation to do that, so the world knows how shite what currently passes as "popular music" on These Isles is. A crap song sung by talentless plonkers will win anyway, so we should be happy and relieved it's not one of ours, shouldn't we?

A Happy New Year, then, to Niall Harbison and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the ones who deserve it most in the whole Galaxy.

Be seeing you!

You could see the world as you wanted to be, not as it is. That’s over now. It’s time to put on the rucksack. Feel the weight of knowing things you never wanted to know.

(Nicola Robinson, Blue Lights, 2025)

David Robert Jones, known to the Universe as David Bowie

(Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth, 8 January 1947 - New York City, 10 January 2016)

Jeremy's Den

12/01/2026

Millions Weep A Fountain Just In Case Of Sunrise

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Millions Weep A Fountain Just In Case Of Sunrise