Jeremy's Den: The Bullshit Never Stops

Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership. Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat.

(Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938)

Help On The Way © Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, 1975

Slipknot! © Jerry Garcia, Keith Godchaux, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, 1975

All of politics is an aspiration, if you really think about it. Every manifesto, every contract is actually an aspiration because you can never tell. War can break out, all sorts of things can happen.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Let's go back to the Thirteen Colonies today... well, technically not the Thirteen Colonies because California was never a Colony of the Crown, but you get the gist... for a Grateful Dead twofer of Blues For Allah and Terrapin Station, with three bonus tracks in between that were recorded during the Terrapin Station sessions, but not released until the Beyond Description box set more than a quarter of a century later. These two albums are quite a pick'n'mix of odd stuff, including bizarre attempts at reggae and symphonic rock, and not as revered as the band's canonical Americana of Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. But I'm always one to root for the underdog, so I fucking love both. Let's go!

Remember to click on the images for bigger and better versions.

On 26 June, Channel 4 broadcast an episode of Dispatches titled Will Nigel Farage Be Prime Minister?, which was available for replay on their site for only a month. So your opportunity to watch it has vanished forever in the endless landfill of cyberspace. Let's just say that, though being hosted and narrated by an openly right-wing journalist, Fraser Nelson, it was amazingly less sycophantic, promotional and Faragophile than what we usually see in the media, including the allegedly 'progressive' ones. Or maybe it is because Nelson is right-wing, and thusly less obsessed with being kind, civil and inclusive, that he actually cornered Farage more than once with inconvenient questions that the more polished 'progressive' metropolitan mediatariat never ask. It was interesting to see that anything that didn't sound like the usual predictably soft questioning sent Farage huffing, puffing and waffling. Or even plainly lying. But the bespoke poll fielded by Survation on behalf of Channel 4, often quoted during the show, shows that Reform UK enjoy a high level of favourability. Quite astonishingly, they have a higher proportion of favourables, and also a better net rating, than any other party.

Reform UK have had their share of dodgy MPs over the years, actually more than their share. First there was serial renegade Lee Anderson claiming that you can get a perfectly good meal on 30p. But that doesn't count, as he was a Conservative MP when he said that. Then there was failed football club owner Rupert Lowe having his sick old dog executed, Russian Mafia style, by a gunshot to the back of the head. But that doesn't count, as he had already been kicked out of Reform UK when he did that. Now we have convicted felon James McMurdock, who was jailed for brutally assaulting a woman, involved in what looks like one of many Covid-era scams. Admittedly on a far less grand scale than Michelle Mone or Matt Hancock's publican, but still a horrendous abuse of taxpayers' money in time of crisis. But that doesn't count, as he has withdrawn himself the Reform whip before revelations came out. Both "incidents" were made public by The Times, which is more evidence that the right-wing establishment have a vested interest in not letting Reform UK march to Number Ten over the dismembered corpse of the Rump Tory Party. Unlike the woke metropolitan media bubble who keep promoting them to undermine New Model Labour in the name of ideological purity. Survation tested their panel two different ways, first about their likelihood to vote for this or that party, then about their actual voting intentions. Reform UK tops the poll on both.

There is another interesting feature in Reform UK. They now have four MPs left. Three of them are men, who have appointed themselves Leader, Deputy Leader and Chief Whip because, ye ken, that's how it's done in Commons. The fourth is a woman, elected by just six votes, who is allowed to ask the silly questions at PMQs, the ones the three men consider "feminist", I guess. Now, we all know that Reform UK can be quite vocal at calling out the absurdist asinine nincompoopery in the public sector about "gender", but we don't elect a government to regulate access to the loos at The Barbican, do we? Besides, Suzanne Moore and Rosie Duffield MP are better at denouncing the reign of terror of gender ideology than Reform UK, and from the left. But, come Election Day, what will matter will not be the voting intentions on Election Eve, but what people actually do in the last seconds at their polling place. Pollsters try to approach that by testing the public's certainty to vote for their chosen party. Here again, Reform UK have a massive retention rate, on a par with the Conservatives and better than Labour. So now it's up to Labour. Either they instil doubt in the minds of potential Reform voters, preferably not by copycatting their manifesto, or they may be in for a nasty surprise.

The Conservatives' best strategy is certainly not doing what Boris Johnson advised them, ignore it and hope it will go away. It worked for Bozo in 2019 only because Farage stood down his candidates in all Tory constituencies, so it became 100% Labour's problem and they failed miserably. 2029, or whenever the next general is held, will be so fucking different that Boris will regret saying that, when the Tories end up the massive losers and one ditch away from the Extinction Event Horizon. Now even James Cleverly, the poster boy for the non-existence of nominative determinism, has realised that and is challenging Reform UK on the narrative they intend to peddle. To sum it up, you can either pretend to be rebels blowing apart the establishment, or you can pretend to be managerially proficient, but you can't have it both ways. Especially, I add, when there is growing evidence you are neither, just crassly incompetent minions of predatory capitalism funded by a hostile foreign power. Or two, if you also count all their donors from the United States. Just in case you wondered why our Mosley 2.0 has a definitely mercantile Trumpian approach to politics.

Anyone that thinks politics isn’t about sales doesn’t understand politics. It’s about selling ideas. It’s about selling hope. It’s about sometimes selling fear.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

I’ve never wanted anything to do with extremist politics in any way. Ever, ever, ever.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

The Survation poll shows that the Great British Public are aware of The Dark Side Of The Loons, though we collectively tend to overlook some of their most worrying flaws. As usual, there are also some notable contradictions in the views expressed, probably depending on which subset of the panel express their view more strongly, between those supporting Reform and those opposing it. Survation even went to great lengths to get a conclusive perspective on one of Reform's favourite talking points, that they are the courageous ones speaking for the people, or the silent majority, or whatever. This is the cornerstone of populism, and Survation tested it four times with various wordings, and pretty much the same results. The Great British Public do consider Reform UK as the voice of the common people, whom the establishment parties dare not represent faithfully. Which is fucking laughable when you consider what Reform actually stand for. I seriously doubt that anyone approves of massively increasing the deficit and the national debt through tax cuts to the higher incomes in the names of the discredited myth of "trickle-down economics", which Rachel Reeves sadly seems to have endorsed too recently.

Let's make no mistake, though, about why Reform are hailed as "the voice of the people", which they aren't. The root cause is clearly the political establishment's deliberate policy to stifle dissent, again illustrated by Keir Starmer expelling four Labour MPs whose only fault was being faithful to true Labour values which resonate with the people. Or, probably more to the point, the establishment Left allowing radicalised loony fanatics to wage a war of terror against wrongthinkers and common sense, in the name of extravagant unscientific ideologies imported from the privileged safe heavens of American universities. But, when decision time comes, British voters will have to factor in how much they trust Reform UK, or not, to handle the main issues facing the Realm. The levels of trust are not overwhelming, but neither are the levels of distrust, as a quarter of Brits are still sitting of the fence. Probably the ancestral "wait and see" attitude, which shouldn't apply here as we definitely should not want to see the level of damage a Reform government could do.

It beggars belief that anyone could trust Reform on energy, the environment and the cost of living, when their policy on renewables is a perfect example of parroting the worst of Trump for purely ideological reasons, without any semblance of caring for the consequences. Of course, sabotaging renewables would force the UK to rely more on fossils... err, fossil fuels. I'm quite sure Farage would have no problem buying oil and gas from the Russian Reich, but the most obvious and readily available source would be GNL from the United States. Which would be just as good as it would allow an hypothetical Reform government to thank their overseas donors with billions in juicy contracts. The same foreign donors who would probably have invested in HMOs in anticipation of Reform dismembering the NHS and selling the pieces to the highest bidder, thusly trebling the cost of healthcare. Who can be stupid enough to trust this lot on the NHS? But there's more to come in the second half of Survation's select topics.

Some of the results here defy logic even more than what we saw in the first half of the list. Reform get their second best ratings, after immigration, on defence and foreign policy. Which makes me question the wisdom of the British public, if not our collective sanity. How the fuck can anyone trust a party that is renowned for its pro-Russian stance, and would take its marching orders alternatively from the White House and the Kremlin? Reform UK are not patriots, they are enablers of massive foreign influence in our politics, and massive submission to foreign business interests. And, if you think that Starmer is betraying his voters and all of the British people with his handling of welfare and benefits, just look at what Trump is doing to the welfare system in the United States. Because that is a preview of what Reform UK would do, trickle-up economics to fatten up the wealthiest. How can anyone in their sane mind trust these loonies?

Donald Trump once said to his supporters, “I embody your anger”. I think Nigel Farage is trying to do that, as well.

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

I’m unconventional, I’m completely unconventional. I don’t obey the rules that everybody else obeys. I do things my way.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

After probing the public about Reform UK as an entity, like the Borg Cube of the Fascist Revival, Survation then switched their focus to Nigel Farage individually, the Borg King swallowing 68 million Locutus in his deadly embrace. Or summat. Survation first submitted a list of a dozen character traits to their panel, probing whether or not they aptly describe Nigel Farage. The portrait we thusly get is quite interesting, as it reveals that the British public have few, if any, illusions about the true nature of the man. Which makes you wonder even more why the fuck so many are ready to support his politics.

The three dominant items here are that Nige is a divisive opportunist not afraid to speak up his mind. Or makes people believe that he is, when it is just for show. That looks like the perfect description of a populist demagogue to me. But is he more Marine Le Pen or more Bob Roberts, the perfect fictional Trump even before Trump existed? The American influence is obvious in Farage's obsession with a DOGE-like Whitehall Chainsaw Massacre that would indiscriminately cripple all pillars of the welfare state and the public sector. His ant-woke stance may not be as unhealthily obsessive as Elon Musk's but is clearly here, as it is also an easy bait for all the people who have had more than enough of the shenanigans of a 'progressive' fringe who prioritise bourgeois luxury beliefs over the people's true interests. But we are surely clever enough to see through it, and not fall for it like the pathetic cretins who clapped Trump like lobotomised seals because he "knows what a woman is"™, without ever looking at the big picture. Or aren't we? Anyway, Survation also surveyed the people's trust in Farage, on the exact same list of items as when they probed trust in Reform UK.

There is actually not much to see here, as Farage's results very closely match those of the Borg Collective... oops, the party. It is even embarrassingly similar, but there is some obvious logic in it. The Great British Public have a hard time dissociating the man from the party, or more accurately the party from the man, as he is the only one of their lot to have that level of name recognition and familiarity. Since Survation chose to make it personal, let me just ask one question. How can we trust Farage to be a "man of the people", when his income from juicy second, third and fourth jobs was £600k in six months, or about 35 times the median full-time salary in the UK? Farage is part of the entitled elite he is denouncing, and has always been. Make no mistake, a hypothetical Farage government would be the same sort of plutocratic oligarchy, dominated by cronies, as the Trump II administration. It would inflict the same kind of damage to the UK, and this should determine our assessment of the man, not the persona he projects in his public appearances.

Some of the items on which the public claim to trust Farage are even more ridiculously shocking when applied to him than to Reform UK as a whole. Imagining Farage in charge of defence and foreign policy is a fucking farce. Imagining Farage in charge of welfare is a tragedy, when he doesn't even hold surgeries in Clacton to address the concerns of his constituents who are on benefits. Imagining Farage in charge of immigration is a nightmare, as he has nothing to offer but very simplistic and openly xenophobic measures that would offer jack shit solutions to the real problems. His record, for his first year as MP after seven failures, speaks for itself. He is an absentee MP, just as he was an absentee MEP, who spends more time in the media than in Commons, or on feeding his bank account than on working for his constituents. Do we really want that fucking clown at Number Ten? I certainly don't, and the loony woke left doing their best to make it happen, just to score cheap ideological points, is even more reason to fight it.

Nigel Farage stands as the kind of “break glass in case of emergency” candidate, somebody voters will reach for if they have to.

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

How we perform in Councils will make a material difference to how we’re viewed running up to the next general election. Of that, I have no doubt.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Reform UK have had a bumpy start handling their new jobs in the Councils they now control. Two months into their first term, they have already lost three by-elections. One in County Durham to the Liberal Democrats, one in Nottinghamshire and one in Staffordshire to the Conservatives, all triggered by the almost instant resignation of Councillors elected in May. Eight other Councillors have left the party and now sit as Independents. Eleven losses may look insignificant, compared to the 677 seats Reform gained at the elections, but it's been not even four fucking months, and already red flags are flying in a couple of other Councils because of the appointment of teenagers to key positions. It certainly erodes Reform's credibility, but will it also erode support for the main points of their political agenda, which is unreservedly and shamelessly far-right? The Survation poll shows high levels of approval, sometimes even surprisingly so, for proposals that can only be described as abhorrently radical, on purpose. Because Farage is a shit-stirrer by nature, and enjoys the spotlight of controversy just like a freshly groomed bichon frisé enjoys rolling in fresh fox turds during walkies in the woods.

Farage's anti-immigration rhetoric and his focus on hotels housing asylum seekers is what got us Lucy Connolly and her tweet openly calling for arson and murder, that got her a well-deserved prison sentence. It is also what gets us hate-filled "protests" at the door of the hotels, that have to be protected by riot police against obvious risks of terrorist acts. Then there is the Trump-inspired "war on woke", which is not a bad thing per se, but becomes one when the whole point is to replace one variant of American-made exclusionary fanaticism with another. There is a lot to say about DEI, or EDI as it is usually called this side of the British Ocean, but mostly about how it is enforced by judgemental blue-haired activists, rather than about the basic intent. Just fire the current ideologically-captured EDI teams, and replace their reign of terror with real HR professionals who can find the proper balance between individual rights and proper workplace rules. Stop pretending that censorship is a way to eradicate discrimination, or that post-Maoist re-education is, because they aren't. Just drop the absurdist "bring your whole true self to work" policy and lots of problems will be solved overnight, allowing genuinely open-minded and inclusive initiatives to go on.

The problem with Reform UK is that there are promising all sorts of stuff that may please the public in some ways, but that they can't deliver. They know it, we know it, and they know we know, despite all the lipstick they have put on these pigs. As the saying goes in Ukraine, the only free cheese is in the mousetrap, and that's exactly where Reform UK would lead us. Because the first thing their proposals would do is punch an £80bn pothole through the budget. Oddly, Survation missed the two points that highlight that. The question about the income tax thresholds should have been in split in two, just to see if people would still have approved of raising the threshold for the higher-rate band, which is a massive tax cut for the highest earners, if it had been polled on its own. Then they didn't even mention Farage's proposal to reinstate the non-dom status, a massive help to tax evasion. You don't need to be a fan of "fiscal responsibility" to see that we just can't let that happen. Ever. Putting Clacton's Poundshop Mosley in Number Ten would be like buying a season ticket on a one-way ride down the slippery slope to the bottom of a black hole. A Groundhog Day Of Infamy. Now, if Farage proposed to reinstate rationing to cure obesity and thusly save the NHS billions, would the people still vote for him?

With Reform now in control of ten local Councils and two Mayoralties, they will now be judged by their delivery, especially if it ends in disaster.

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

People are coming off the roller-coaster all the time with Reform. They could explode..

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Another factor in the people's choice at the next general will be the level of favourability they feel for the leaders of the various parties on offer, how much they approve or disapprove of their performance and positions. A lot will also depend on how they feel about the local candidate, who may well be a fucking wanker, don't put that past any of the parties. But we don't have that kind of assessment yet, and probably never will, unless the local parish bulletin goes polling the blokes at the pub. Anyway, Survation probed how the British public feel about Starmer, Badenoch, Farage and Davey. Swinney and ap Iorwerth were rated only by the Scottish and Welsh subsets of the panel respectively. Quite shockingly, Nigel Farage has both the highest level of approval and the best net rating, better than even Mister Ed, who usually tops that sort of silly beauty pageant.

Sorry to sound like a broken arrow again, but Farage's ratings have a lot to do with the shameful way he is treated by the metropolitan media, first and foremost the BBC. Basically, they allow him to rant unchallenged on any issue, because they actually hope he will again say summat outrageously cretinous or offensive, because that's good clickbait on their Twitter. This totally moronic attitude also means that his constant lies go unchallenged, like when he offers dubious or fabricated statistics to make a point. Have the BBC learned nothing from the years they kept platforming and promoting Boris Johnson, because he always put on a good show? They should be shamed and called out for the way they grant the same treatment now to Nigel Farage. It didn't end well with Johnson, it would be even worse with Farage, and we don't deserve this just to cuddle sone entitled pseudo-journalist's ego. This kind of sycophantic treatment obviously influence the way the public associate some character traits with various political leaders.

Some of these findings are fucking laughable. Being peremptory in answers to an obsequious interviewer does not make you a strong leader or decisive. Farage's handling of spats within Reform UK even suggests he is the exact opposite of both. Likewise, describing him as being in touch with ordinary people and caring for them only proves how many Brits are totally gullible and ready to buy Farage's fabricated self-portrait, just as they bought Johnson's before. At least Johnson brought some level of posh sophistication to his populist persona, while Farage is the brutalist version of it. But Farage is also a fucking fraud, as even Starmer can claim more genuine working class roots than him. But Labour's main asset against Farage is certainly Angela Rayner, the most working class in the Cabinet, who is also "quite ballsy, good on a platform, unafraid of the limelight, a bit noisy and good at selling things", as Clacton's Poundshop Trump once described himself. Survation concluded that sequence of their poll with a short survey of ways political leaders can bond with the public.

Some of the items Survation selected are fucking hilarious. To be honest, if I had to choose between the same four people, I would pick Ed Davey on every item. Not that I really like the LibDems, quite the opposite in fact, but Mister Ed's public persona is certainly the most likeable of that quartet. It is probably also the less artificial and fabricated of all four, as he always has an air of childlike sincerity about him, even when he is talking bullshit. But Mister Ed is not the one on trial here, Neil Fromage is. It is really hard to understand why the fuck anyone would trust Farage with their money or enjoy being stuck in a lift with him. Or is there a subtext here I did not grasp? What we see here is also the result of Farage's PR, leading the complaisant media up the garden path the same way Johnson did, to make himself look "humane". We really need more honest and professional journalists ready to put and end to this before we end up with a Putinist fascist, which is kind of a redundant tautology, at Number Ten.

This whole Reform roller-coaster could come off the rails, and we’ve got years until the next election.

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

If Kemi Badenoch presented the BBC’s Daily Politics, nobody would watch it. What would be the point?

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Now Nigel has painted a fucking target on his own fucking arse, with his new promise that a Reform government would be so tough on crime and inflexible that they would halve crime in the UK. True to his usual obsessions, that would start by deporting 10,000 foreign inmates. Which, according to official statistics, actually means all foreign inmates. Good luck with that, as 60% are either Europeans, Australians or US citizens, and their home countries are surely in no hurry to get them back. Or they would and then send us back their British inmates, which would be totally their right. But Nigel won't let simple facts get in the way of an election promise, especially when he can add some racist overtones on it, will he? YouGov speed-polled that utterly cretinous plan, asking the public if they think it is likely to work. And you know what? We don't. Because we now it is just fucking performative bullshit, don't we? All except Reform voters, that is, who are now totally formatted to take bullshit for an answer.

It has become summat of a widely accepted common wisdom that the British political system has gradually become more presidential over the years, with the personality of the wannabe Prime Ministers playing a bigger part in the people's choice. The most obvious example was Boris Johnson's tenancy at Number Ten, that definitely walked and quacked more like a Presidency than a Premiership. Some key aspects of parliamentarism nevertheless remained very alive. Johnson had his fair share of dissenters and rebels, which he felt he had to purge before the 2019 election, just as Keir Starmer has conducted successive purges of Labour's Left since his accession in 2020. The purges they enforced as Prime Minister are even quite similar. Johnson expelled 21 Tory MPs, for not being pure Brexit devotees, and later reinstated 10. Since the last election, Starmer has expelled 12 for political dissent and then reinstated 4, while another 4 have been expelled on suspicion of various offences. And now Keir Starmer is a hare's breadth behind Nigel Farage as the people's preferred Prime Minister, according to our Survation poll.

Even Labour voters are not fully behind Starmer, while Reform voters are massively supportive of Farage. Conservative voters are even less convinced by Kemi Badenoch, if that can bring Starmer some solace, but it only reflects the public's general feeling that she can't be taken seriously. It certainly does not help that her only visible alternative is Vigilante Bob Jenrick. Say what you will about the Conservative Party of yore, but those who were queuing to replace Margaret Thatcher in 1990 had more presence and panache, even if the less panachy eventually won. There is even a generational divide here, with those under 45 picking Starmer as the less bad PM, and those above picking Farage. Which very inconveniently means that the generations who elected Tony Blair are now turning to the turquoise end of the rainbow. It may just support the proverbial view that people switch to the right with age, or more embarrassingly mean that all efforts to shape and solidify New New Labour have been in vain. It doesn't get better if you choose the place of residence as the explanatory variable.

Starmer is definitely geographically challenged, as the only the North East and London prefer him. Farage even wins in Scotland, which means we should not underestimate the plausibility of Reform MPs North of Marshall Meadows caravan park. The biggest disappointments for Labour must be Yorkshire and the East Midlands, which were for a long time battlegrounds with the Conservatives, and are now leaning towards Farage as PM. Just as the Global South is a huge setback for the Conservatives. The once Leafy Blue South, that might be still leafy but surely no longer blue, now also ranks Farage first. Even East Anglia, where Reform UK have lost two-thirds of their MPs in a year, still support Farage quite conclusively. Not the happiest picture for all those who believe that true democratic values still have a place in Britain. Is Keir Starmer now ready, willing and able to get the heavy artillery out in the field and be the barrage against Farage? Or should England trust Ed Davey instead, which would be quite a fucking twist of fate?

I suppose the question isn’t really what Nigel Farage does next, it’s what Keir Starmer or anybody else can do to stop him.

(Fraser Nelson, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Blues For Allah © Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, 1975

Sand Castles And Glass Camels © Jerry Garcia, Donna Godchaux, Keith Godchaux,

Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, 1975

Unusual Occurrences In The Desert © Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, 1975

I guess the threat for Labour will be, is the threat of Prime Minister Farage enough to squash a smaller party from the Left, can they make the argument that these guys are worse?

(Luke Tryl)

I have dealt with the fanatical loonies down one far side of the sofa at the start, so it is only fair and balanced that I deal with the fanatical loonies down the other far side at the end. Aye, that's the now-officially-existing Corbyn Party, who have got more attention from pollsters than they deserve, but probably not going the way they expected. I have mentioned the first poll from More In Common in my previous post, and we have had two more since. Another one from More In Common, and an inaugural one from Find Out Now. MIC and FON from now on, as in a rural comedy duet from Dorset. The second poll from MIC was interesting as it showed the Corbyn Party down 2% on their first poll I mentioned in my previous article. Interestingly, and also in contrast with the first poll, it showed Reform UK down in the Corbyn-inclusive scenario, as if the Corbynista had siphoned votes from the Fash too, which would be fucking hilarious. The seat projection is a wee smitch puzzling, as it shows Labour limiting the damage, and the Conservatives being the main beneficiaries. But the Corbynista are still doing very poorly in seats.

Then came the much publicised FON poll, which happens to be the one about which I have the most serious doubts. It was not fielded, as the MIC polls were, combined with their regular polling, but as a separate sur mesure poll with half the sample size. The first thing that inevitably raises eyebrows is that this bespoke poll has Reform UK 3% higher than the regular poll conducted literally on the same day. The second attention-catching feature is that the Corbynista are credited with a whopping 15% by nicking votes very inclusively from the Greens, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. I am not saying it can't happen, as we obviously could know only if that was tested at a real election, just that it is different enough from the pair of MIC polls to raise reasonable doubt. With these caveats, the seat projection confirms the MIC polls. The Corbyn Party would only get a tiny number of seats and massively boost the right, especially Reform UK. That's the inconvenient truth the Corbynista don't want you to hear.

Of course, the loony woke radicals loved it, and Shitweasel celebrated it on his socials, because it predicts the Corbyn Party tied with Labour. Their glee clearly shows that these wankers have no idea how first-past-the-post actually works or what a prediction model is. They also don't remember the precedents. UKIP getting one seat on 12.6% of the vote in 2015. Reform UK getting five seats on 14.3% of the vote in 2024. But they don't give a fucking shit about how many seats they would get and what the effect of splitting the vote would be. The replies to Shitweasel's post on BlueShite tell the whole story. It's not about making progressive policies prevail. It's just about breaking the Labour Party because, ye ken, ideological purity. This whole "True Left" thing is outrageously ridiculous because they are all bad faith actors feeding off each other's talking points. It's circular reasoning servicing a self-fulfilling prophecy, so they can tell us they told us so, and a clique of entitled metropolitan middle-class poseurs can cosplay Defenders Of the People Against Fascism. Clearly we all deserve better than Putin-appeasing Hamas-apologists handing the keys to the kingdom to Reform UK in the name of a virtue-signalling neo-puritanism worthy of both Oliver Cromwell and Pol Pot. The Communist Party of Germany played that game too in 1932, and we know where it led a whole educated and civilised nation.

Are they going to have mainstream appeal? Lots of people on the Left want to improve institutions rather than tearing them down necessarily. And does it just go a bit far and spook the horses?

(Luke Tryl)

All of us will agree on one thing at least, that the Labour Party is dead and it’s time for a mass movement that will take on the billionaire class and the parties that represent them.

(Zarah Sultana MP, 23 July 2025)

Now, if you want a look at what a full-blown Corbyn Party with predicted votes in the 20s could be like, look no further than across the Pas-de-Calais and the country of my birth. They have a nest of live ones with La France Insoumise, whose leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is just two years younger than Jeremy Corbyn, and a similar background of years at the left fringe of a mainstream social-democratic party. Now they are the dominant party of the French Left, with a strikingly similar narrative, that anything between them and fascism is a field of ruins, and that they are the last hope of the True Left. The ideological components are the same. Vociferous opposition to Israel, reluctance to call Hamas terrorists, silence about the Russian genocide of Ukraine, rabid anti-Americanism, opposition to the European Union, appeasement of radicalised islamism for electoral gain. Plus a record of ruthlessly suppressing dissent within the party, and demanding blind obedience to the leader. A trait Corbyn does not share, but others in his Ninth Circle probably do. Interestingly, recent French opinion polls hint that LFI may have lost some momentum, pun fully intended, and that they may be closer to the results our triad of polls predict for the Corbyn Party than to the 22% Mélenchon bagged at the 2022 presidential election.

These results highlight that the radical far-left is political Marmite or that, like Kemi Badenoch, the more you see them, the less you like them. Electoral predictions are also scaringly similar. French polls unanimously say that, if Mélenchon reached the second round of their next presidential election, he would be squarely beaten by Marine Le Pen or her substitute Jordan Bardella, if she is nicked for embezzlement from the European Union. This is similar to what seat projections from our Corbyn-inclusive alternative polls predict. All three predict mediocre results for the Corbyn Party, especially when you factor in that they would already make gains if they stood as independents affiliated to the existing Independent Alliance. All three also predict losses for the smaller left-wing parties, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru. Two out of three predict significant losses for Labour, and the third is almost neutral. All three predict gains for the Conservatives, and two also gains for Reform UK, while the third oddly sees swings from Reform to the Tories. Nevertheless, the dominant impression form the aggregate big picture is that the Corbyn Party would be just a vote-splitter weakening the Left and, at the end of Election Night, the useful idiot of the far-right. A rather common situation for the loony far-left all across the Global West, so no surprise here.

While we're here, a recent event has brutally highlighted the true nature of the radical woke far-left. That was of course The Curious Incident Of Diane Abbott At The BBC, and also Shitweasel's reaction on social media to Abbott's second suspension from the Labour Party. She clearly played intersectional relativism, coupled with self-victimisation, two core components of radical wokeism. Shitweasel went from tribal to feral to defend her, but had to resort to laughable semantic contortionism, because she did not highlight "different forms of racism". She minimised racism against Jews, Travellers and the Irish. It was so obvious that even Angela Rayner, who had successfully supported Abbott last year, was shocked and declined to do so this year. Even the argument that only the colour of your skin triggers "on sight racism" is totally flawed. What about kippahs and ginger hair, then? Also note that neither Abbott nor Shitweasel ever mentioned anti-Arab or anti-Asian racism, because they know it would have blown their "on sight racism" talking point to pieces like a battlecruiser at Jutland. At the end of the day, I am convinced this was in fact a calculated stunt. Abbott knew she wouldn't get away with relapsing, and staged it so she could cosplay victim after her inevitable expulsion, and then triumphally announce, after a reasonable mourning period, that she is joining the Corbyn Party, to at last be her whole true self, reliving their taxpayer-paid jolly to KGB-ruled East Berlin. Mark my words, mates.

We have to acknowledge the polls which are great at looking at this new left-wing party. But 10 to 15 per cent in the polls has to be a floor, not a ceiling. We have to be ambitious and aim for 20 to 25 per cent and beyond.

(Zarah Sultana MP, 23 July 2025)

We recommend the adoption of the following definition, "Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness".

(All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, 2018)

An issue very dear to the hearts of both our sets of loonies, but for polarly opposite reasons, has gained media attention recently. Islamophobia. Much of the debate revolves around a "working definition" of Islamophobia, as the only one on the table is seven years old, which is like two full lifecycles of the Universe in politics. I have always been extremely suspicious of "working definitions", as they more often than not end up being "official definitions", more in the spirit of North Korea than of the European Enlightenment. Moreover, the APPG's definition is hugely problematic, as you would first have to define "perceived Muslimness", which is anything but a legal concept. Imagine being asked to define "perceived Jewishness" or "perceived Sikhness" without mentioning headgear, and see how you avoid jumping straight to racist clichés. Now you see what a tinderbox of worms that is. Pollster J.L. Partners, henceforth known as JLP, surveyed our views on Islamophobia on behalf of The Telegraph, who dutifully published a quite cataclysmic analysis of their findings. Let's go back to basics first, whether or not the Great British Public agree that we live in a two-tier society, where certain offensive opinions are fine, but others can lead you to cancelation or even trouble with the Polis.

Of course, we do massively think we do live in such a society, because we have seen too many examples of it in recent years. Such an overwhelming level of agreement is obviously reached only because both warring factions at the far ends of the rainbow think they, and only they, are the designated victims of two-tier morality and censorship. I could argue that the actual main victims of two-tierism are the so-called "gender critical" like Sandie Peggie, but that would lead us too far astray from the matter at hand. This is of course toe be contextualised, as Owen Jones always urges us to do when he can't make his case, in the wider debate about free speech, and which kind of limitations, if any, we are ready to accept to protect us against hate speech. JLP of course dutifully polled that, with a specific follow-up questions about legal protections against islamophobia.

The Great British Public seem to agree with the ancestral slogan that "political correctness has gone to far", which was quite a hit towards the end of the previous millennium. In today's money, that would be "wokeism gone mad", a beloved talking point for the Trumpian right. There is definitely some truth to this, as many cases brought to court in the UK have proven recently. You don't need to be an absolutist of unrestrained free speech, like Elton Muck or Toby Young's Free Speech Union, to agree with that. Wokeism has draped itself in neo-puritan McCarthyism for the benefit of the sanctimonious permaoffended way too often, thusly undermining the legitimate case for protections against hate speech. Like all excesses of extremist wokeism, this could only lead to a backlash, craftily and opportunistically exploited by the various hues of the right. JLP detected the consequences of this with a question about which party the British public trust most on a number of issues.

To nobody's surprise, Reform UK gets excellent ratings here, topping the poll on free speech and countering islamist extremism. More worrying is that they are also the public's first choice for the party most trusted to speak for the people. We know they don't, and only the fanaticism of the loony far-left makes them the heralds of "common sense", a concept that has very easily been hijacked by the far-right. We have another example of that with a government contractor in EDI training opining that the terms "islamist" and "jihadist" are discriminatory and stigmatising. You don't have to be one of Toby Young's groupies to admit that this is definitely going too far. Of course, The Telegraph and most of the right-wing media have a fixation on this kind of incident, but doesn't the far-left have an obsessive fixation on 'offensive' language that actually offends only a dozen Guardian-reading snowflakes? This is just the kind of linguistic contortionism that has jeopardised the investigation into the grooming gangs, and sentenced their victims to a decade-long ordeal, because it was racist to call groomers groomers. What should we call Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell then?

Let us be clear, the aim of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has neither been motivated by, nor is intended to curtail, free speech or criticism of Islam as a religion.

(All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, 2018)

We are absolutely committed to defending freedom of speech, and any proposed definition must be compatible with the right to freedom of speech and expression.

(Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 7 July 2025)

Angela Rayner has inherited the live grenade, in her capacity as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and appointed a Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred in February this year. It instantly raised fears of a possible reinstatement of blasphemy laws, which were abolished only in 2008 in England and Wales, and in 2024 in Scotland. Aye, you read right, just last year and, quite ironically, thanks to Humza Yousaf's widely criticised Hate Crime Act. Reinstating blasphemy laws, which do not exist just in welcomingly inclusive countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia, but also much closer to home like in Germany and Greece, is obviously not Angela Rayner's intent. But some Labour MPs would welcome it, and have said so openly in Commons, so she will have to resist peer pressure to make common sense prevail. The British public have their doubts about the process itself, and don't think that carving a definition of islamophobia in legalese is really a necessity.

There are of course legitimate concerns about the Working Group itself, chaired by former Conservative MP Dominic Grieve KC. The group has been working in total secrecy for six months, with only five weeks at the very end devoted to a call for evidence. Grieve's earlier statements also unavoidably lead to suspicions he is not fair, balanced and neutral on these issues, but is biased in favour of a woke-leaning definition. It is also quite revealing that their Terms of Reference, or mission statement in real English, repeatedly stress that whatever they may propose will be non-statutory and for the Government's eyes only. All this does not exude absolute confidence from Rayner, as if she was preemptively getting ready to plead plausible deniability in case the Working Group produces something so outrageous it has to be broomed under the rug. This may also be self-protection against the public's perception that the Government may not be totally honest about its intentions, and tempted to weaponise a "working definition" for political gain.

Even Labour voters are split about Rayner's intentions, which is definitely not a good thing. You can argue that this level of distrust is fuelled by the far-right and the right-wing press, which is only partly true. Labour's actions also speak for themselves, like the years of obfuscation rather than examination, as described by the Casey Report, about the grooming gangs. And, of course, Labour adopted the APPG's definition from 2018 in their Islamophobia Policy, but the public are probably not all aware of that, as it's definitely niche knowledge that would fit in specialist subject questions on Mastermind. Also, they made that decision in 2019, so any media coverage it may have got at the time is long forgotten. This is one Corbyn-era policy that has survived Starmer's damnatio memoriae, an obvious sign of consensus from all factions in the Labour Party. Them JLP found that, on top of doubting the Government's impartiality, the British are not convinced that a new definition of islamophobia would be a good thing.

JLP erred on the side of caution here, to avoid criticism, as they asked only about the principle of a new definition of islamophobia, not its content, which would only have been speculation at this point. By the way, did you know that the term itself was coined in France in 1910, and was only loosely related to the meaning we assign to it today? It was in fact linked to the French colonial administration's policies in Western Africa. "Islamophobes" were those who opposed the strategy of solidifying French colonial rule through a better understanding of Islam and its values, and assimilation of the traditional local elites including the Muslim clergy. It did include criticism of the irrational dislike of Islam, rightly characterised as largely based on ignorance. But not on pure moral grounds. Just as an obstacle to the successful colonisation of these countries. How times change... I guess nobody in today's UK can claim ignorance any more, but we are now in a period of divisive debate, easily reframed for political gains, and likely to have political consequences if it ends up as a clash of extremes.

This includes the right to criticise, express dislike of, or insult religions, as well as the beliefs and practices of their adherents. The government has made clear it will not compromise on this principle which is essential in a democratic society.

(Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 7 July 2025)

The independent working group has been engaging extensively with a wide range of communities and will provide independent, evidence-based advice to Ministers.

(Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 7 July 2025)

An element of the likely political fallout is how the adoption of an official definition of islamophobia affects our opinion of our political leadership. The JLP poll also revealed that only 6% of Brits think that tackling islamophobia should be a priority for the government, the lowest in a wide array of issues that appear to have been selected honestly and without ulterior motives. Improving the NHS and helping people with the cost of living top the list, with 58% and 44% respectively choosing them as a priority, which totally fits results from other polls. So it is no surprise that the pursuit of a new definition of islamophobia does not improve the public's view of Starmer, Rayner and Labour MPs generally. Even a quarter of Labour voters admit it gives them a more negative opinion of them all.

But this is just the beginning. Next comes the part that generated the most sensationally catastrophist headlines, in the right-wing press only as The Guardian never mentioned that poll, or even hinted it existed in any of its articles and opinion columns dealing with islamophobia recently. I definitely don't think that ignorance is bliss in this case, or that the self-proclaimed metropolitan progressive elite should go on doing what they do best. Pulling down the rose-embroidered blinds and sealing the bunker when the oiks in the Northern Marches dare express an inconveniently heretic opinion. Which they tend to do in increasing numbers these days, as they see the distance between their lived experiences and those of the entitled London bubble grow far beyond the geographical distance between Rochdale and Islington. This is reflected in how the push towards a definition of islamophobia would change the people's likelihood to vote for Labour at the next general.

The wording of the question remained cautiously non-committal, only asking what would happen if the government introduced a new definition of islamophobia, without stipulating what it may be. This makes the results more striking and meaningful, with a net -20% on average and -26% in the North, where dozens of Labour seats appear to be vulnerable and considering a switch to Reform UK. This is of course already part of the political landscape, with or without a focus on islamophobia and Farage's deliberately incendiary comments on possible unrest during the rest of the summer, elevating xenophobic mob rule to the level of civil disobedience. It has become so unhinged that even The Telegraph felt they had to inject some sarcasm in their comments about the incoming Summer Of Doom. Too bad they weren't as cautious in their promotion of the JLP poll. Because we have now reached the end of the line. Finally comes the Crown Jewel of the poll, the key part that justified The Telegraph's and The Daily Express' Headlines Of Doom, or the thinly veiled jubilation at GB News. Voting intentions and the seat projection, without and with the enforcement of an official working definition of islamophobia, which are of course fucking disastrous for Labour.

That's where The Telegraph became disingenuous, if not knowingly dishonest. Their article frames the question as "the people polled were asked how they would vote if Labour brought in a definition of Islamophobia". But the actual question, straight from JLP's data tables, was "Imagine the Labour government enacted this definition. Which party would you vote for if there were a general election tomorrow?", which implies the panel were shown a definition. That definition is never shown anywhere, so we have cause to ask which one was used? Most probably the APPG's definition of 2018, which never had any official status as the Conservative government of the day quickly sent their proposals to the shredder. The only excuse for using it is that Labour adopted it in their Islamophobia Policy, but it is for internal use only and doesn't apply to the general population. Mentioning it, as if it were to become the law of the land, is thusly crassly manipulative, given its inflammatory nature for some quarters of public opinion, and can only lead to legitimate questioning of the results it spawned. But it is safe to assume that The Telegraph don't give a frying duck, as their goal was to be inflammatory, and provide a juicy clickbait headline in service of a specific political agenda.

Their work will be informed by a wide range of perspectives and expertise, ensuring that any recommendation is not only thoughtful and principled, but also grounded in the lived experiences and realities faced by communities across the country.

(Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 7 July 2025)

I only deal with people I trust. I don’t trust the Conservatives. I have no trust in them whatsoever.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

Labour have just pulled a new squirrel out of their hat, with the announcement that kids will be allowed to vote at 16 at the next general election. A brave and stunning dead cat, that nevertheless failed to switch attention away from the rest of the headlines. YouGov dutifully speed-polled it and, to nobody's surprise, found that the Great British Public are clearly against it. Only Labour voters support it, but just very narrowly. The TikTok Basement Wankers Generation, who you thought would have been very favourable, actually oppose it, albeit on a knife-edge. But the clearest signs come from Scotland and Wales, where it has already been enacted for the Holyrood and Senedd elections. Scotland is split and Wales is against extending it to the Westminster elections. If even us and them are not massively for it, that definitely tells you something. That it might be a fucking shit idea, maybe. And the start of a fucking useless divisive debate, when the government should focus on issues that really matter to the people.

Then we had a voting intentions poll, conducted by Focaldata in the hours that followed the announcement. For some reason, Focaldata felt they had to totally misrepresent their own findings, in a crudely transparent way, in the article they dedicated to it. They headlined with 'Left set to benefit" and captioned a chart "change cuts Reform's lead", where results of their 16+ and 18+ samples were displayed. The problem is that, when you look at the numbers in the chart, the differences between the two are minute, well below the margin of error of a poll with a sample of 1300. So the real headline should be "Proposed reform is fucking useless because it changes fuck all". Anything else is very unprofessional bullshit. I can support that with simulations of the number of seats, based on Focaldata's own results. Differences in voting intentions that are well within the poll's margin of error produce differences in projected seats that are well within any prediction model's margin of uncertainty. QED. Case closed.

It's easy to understand why. 16-17s would make about 2% of the electorate, so probably about 1% of votes cast if their abstention level is similar to the 18-24s. So the very tiny differences in voting intentions would impact only ultra-marginal seats, no more than a dozen across the UK. You don't overturn an election with so few seats at stake. Then, to be honest, I wouldn't trust the average 16yr-old to walk my dog and bring him back safe, so why would I trust them to cast a vote on military aid to Ukraine and the state pensions' triple lock? Besides, the Greens are in favour of lowering the voting age, and that should be reason enough to oppose it. Now, without the basement thumb-suckers in, the current snapshot of polls has gone back to pretty doom-and-gloomy for Labour, probably reflecting the British public's lousy mood. What we have here is a wee-ish sample of just four polls, as even the pollstertariat are allowed a Magaluf Break during Commons' recesses, conducted between the 18th and the 25th of July, with a super-sample of 11,280. Roughly the standard displacement of an Italian Zara-class cruiser of Second World War vintage, in long tons.

It does not look good for Labour, or anyone else for that matter, with my model predicting a seven-seat majority for Reform UK, because that's what 325 seats mean so long as Sinn Féin still refuse to sit. And Electoral Calculus makes it even worse. Bear in mind, though, that if things started looking better for Labour, this would be an incentive for the loony far-left to intensify their crusade to make Reform win the next election. I guess their next logical step is the Corbyn-Sultana-Jones Party joining forces with George Galloway and multiplying the "independent" candidates all across the UK. Just for the fun of "breaking Labour's back", whatever the consequences for the working class of propelling incompetent Trump-adjacent Putin-funded plutocrats to power. Quite coincidentally, on the other dark side, we now have one pollster, obviously preaching for his own choir, opining that the pollstertariat might indeed be underestimating the Reform UK vote. They actually did at the English locals in May, leading to many a rude awakening, but does that imply the same is happening for the next general. Possibly. But beyond any reasonable doubt? The jury's still out.

I think you’re witnessing the death of a party that’s been dominant for a couple of hundred years.

(Nigel Farage, Dispatches, 26 June 2025)

The BBC covers the tittle-tattle around Reform, the tittle-tattle. You don’t look at their policies, and if people are gonna vote for them, they need to know what they stand for. I’m afraid, if you look at their policies, there’s not a lot there.

(Ed Davey, BBC Breakfast, 16 June 2025)

I never watch BBC Breakfast because, to get directly to the point, I have better things to do with my time, like walking the dog or watching Boston Legal. Or maybe it was Jaws III. Anyway, I missed it on the 16th of July, the day Ed Davey called out the BBC for ceaselessly appeasing Nigel Farage, and indulging his bullshit without countering it. Thank Dog Mister Ed then posted the best bits on both his Twitter and his BlueShite accounts, as self-promotion is always the best promotion, and it is a fun moment which the BBC fully deserved. Mister Ed also has a special interest in adopting a more aggressive stance towards the New Model British Union of Fascists, and all those who have knowingly become their useful idiots in the media. Some recent polls clearly show that the turquoise brain rot is spreading in the Once Blue Still Leafy South, where it could soon threaten the LibDems' hard-earned seats of the 2024 intake.

The evolving patterns of the turquoise infection also challenge the usual oven-ready explanations for their success. It is no longer the disgruntled socially conservative working class oiks in the Far North, who can be easily dismissed as uneducated twats by the privileged metropolitan media bubble. If Reform UK reaches the same level of voting intentions in the South, the entitled Londonese punditariat will be forced to admit that it's now their own neighbours in the country mansions of Berkshire and Surrey who are switching. Probably because they are feeling in tune with Farage's Europhobic fantasies of Ghosts Of Empire Past. But the most worrying oddity is of course Scotland, where the current batch of polls credits Reform with one fourth of the vote and one sixth of the seats. Surely Scots need reminding that Farage is a lifelong supporter of neutering gun laws, which should be an absolute vote-killer in our nation still feeling the trauma of the Dunblane massacre.

On the current state of predicted voting intentions, my model does not project doom for the LibDems, quite the opposite actually. Just one loss to Reform UK in Devon, but one gain from Labour in Yorkshire, two in Hampshire, two in Surrey, one in Shropshire and one in Hertfordshire from the Rump Conservatives. But Electoral Calculus, who tends to be more Reform-friendly on higher vote shares, predicts one casualty for the LibDems in the South East, another four in the South West and one in Wales, counter-balanced by just one gain from the Tory Rump in Hampshire. But Reform's surge hits most where it hurts most, in Labour's heartlands in the English North and battlegrounds in the Midlands. This happens because the privileged metropolitan mediatariat fucking love Farage, as you can always expect one-headline-per-sentence hate-spewing rants from him, and that's all they're after. Not the truth, not enlightenment, just clickbait. And the more crassly offensive, the better, as it guarantees comments and retweets. This is what the news business has degenerated to. Their bar is raised no higher than an episode of reality television. Thank Dog for Mister Ed telling it to their botoxed faces.

When I look at the broad BBC coverage, Nigel Farage gets such an easy ride, and he gets covered when he says horrible things that aren’t producing solutions for peoples’ problems, like the cost of living, like we’re trying to solve.

(Ed Davey, BBC Breakfast, 16 June 2025)

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man, his enemies say he’s on their land

They got him outnumbered about a million to one, he got no place to escape to, no place to run

(Bob Dylan, Neighborhood Bully, 1983)

Bob Dylan released this song in October 1983 on Infidels. He said it was satirical and not political, as he knew nothing about the situation in the Middle East. Which was fucking bullshit, as it was making headlines then as it is now. Israel had invaded Lebanon sixteen months earlier, in self-defence, obviously. Thirteen months earlier, Lebanese militias had massacred hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, aided and abetted by the Israeli Defence Forces under Defence Minister Ariel Sharon. In late 1983, Lebanon was still devastated by a brutal civil war that would last for another seven years, with almost constant Israeli involvement. So definitely the worst moment to release a song that was, even allegedly sarcastically, shamelessly pro-Israeli, and was denounced as such. We are faced with an even worse situation today than forty years ago, with condemnation of Israel's actions more widespread and vocal than ever. YouGov has polled the British public about it this month, starting with our general attitude towards Israel.

There is no way to say it not bluntly, our opinion of Israel is fucking bad and getting worse. Even right-wing voters have a hard time showing any sort of positivity towards Israel. A general feeling of compassion and solidarity, in the hours that followed the atrocious 7 October pogrom, was quickly wiped away by Israel's totally disproportionate and deliberately mass-murdering retaliation. Public opinions reacted more quickly than our governments, always cautiously tiptoeing around the bush about these matters. We didn't need the loony Hamas-huggers who would still blame Israel if Iran nuked Tel Aviv, what we were seeing on the news day after day was enough. But there is a very bizarre sense of restraint when the British public are asked if they support or oppose Israel's actions in Gaza, which should be a no-brainer. A higher number oppose Israel than when YouGov last asked in February, but a quarter of Brits still can't say.

Parts of the poll's crosstabs are quite depressing, even if they were totally predictable. Reform UK voters strongly lean towards supporting war crimes and genocide, which is not surprising as they have the same attitude about the Russian genocide of Ukraine. In the opposite corner of the spectrum, the TikTok Generation massively oppose Israel's war on civilians, Dog bless their wee rainbow socks. I would nevertheless despise them less if they had the same clarity of thought about Russia, the same brand of genocidal imperialist rogue terrorist state as Israel, and didn't turn a blind eye to the atrocities in Ukraine, as the woke doxa prescribes. Then comes the gotcha question, do Israel's action constitute genocide or not? I can only direct you again to the United Nations' Genocide Convention of 1948, which again makes that a complete no-brainer. Israel fulfils all the criteria, yet two out of ten Brits still refuse to admit it. Interestingly, Reform UK voters have fallen directly into the trap. They know it is genocide, almost as massively as the average Brit, yet they support it. Oy vey... oops, sorry... fucking hell!

Some are now arguing the fine print, the lines below the definition that also mention intent, which is just a wee smitch obscene, You could try and plead temporary insanity on the very first day, though it probably wouldn't have flown even back then, given the sheer weight of the first broadside. But it has definitely run out of road now, after nearly 22 months of ceaseless pounding, mass destruction and mass slaughter. It has gone worse over the last couple of months, as starving children certainly proves intent, premeditation even, especially when you keep banning international media from the scene of the crimes. Israel's only line of defence seems to be that this is all Hamas propaganda, aided and abetted by the United Nations, and that the pictures of dying children have been taken somewhere else. I am just as careful as the next lad to never fall for Hamas propaganda, as there has been a lot in the early weeks of the war, but that line has been used by Israel way too often, and has totally lost credibility. What we are seeing now is fucking real, and this is fucking genocide. With fucking intent. Even Israeli human rights organisations say it, and so should every person with a conscience.

Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself. But you don’t blow up a whole country cos you get mad. Only the United States enjoys that privilege. We’re a superpower. God is on our side.

(Denny Crane, Boston Legal, 2007)

How do you nuke Iran without starting a world war? You claim it was an accident. Woops.

(Denny Crane, Boston Legal, 2007)

What is our next step? The obvious one is to demand an immediate ceasefire, without qualifications like "humanitarian" or "conditional". A fucking total and immediate ceasefire as, in case you hadn't noticed, there is pretty much just one side still firing. Israel. The British public know that this must be done before it is too late, and Israel has managed to do what the far-right fanatics in its government support, a full ethnic cleansing of the whole Gaza Strip. Which means either more mass murder or mass deportation, both of which constitute genocide, in case you had already forgotten the previous question. But we have 3% of Brits opining that there should be no ceasefire at all. That would be about 1.4 million, as the poll covers only the legally adult population, comfy with the only option that guarantees a complete unrestricted genocide. They walk among us, mates.

Then YouGov offered that weird option of a ceasefire happening "at some point when the time is right". That sounds like something the marginally less batshit-crazy in the certifiably batshit-crazy Israeli government could say. Fucking hell, the time has been right for like 21 months, mates. Ever since it became absolutely clear for everyone with a brain that the intent was not proportionate retaliation but complete elimination through mass destruction and mass murder. Of course, odds are that a ceasefire will not happen as Netanyahu has been granted an indefinite licence to kill by the United States, Biden and Trump alike. So why should he bother with what dwarf states have to say, as he also knows he will be protected at the United nations by both the USA's and Russia's vetoes against anything that might hurt his feelings? But we still can impose sanctions, can't we? Sadly, YouGov found that the British public are just lukewarmly supporting them, far less convincingly than against Russia.

Why should we shy away from sanctions against Israel, of the same nature and at the same level we are sanctioning Russia, when their actions are of the same genocidal imperialist nature? Of course, Netanyahu would squeal that sanctions are anti-Semitic, just as Putin squeals they are Russophobic. Of course, the Orange Baboon would reprimand us, and Likud-bribed British influencers would attack the government in pre-scripted unison with Kemi Farage and Nigel Badenoch. But should Starmer really give a fucking shit? Of course he shouldn't but probably will, as he is feart of any action bold enough to unleash a flood of Trump's deranged angry posts on Fake News Social, or mean trouble at the usually torpid PMQs. But shouldn't Keir instead welcome the opportunity to nail both Farage and Corbyn to the wall? One for always putting the interests of his donors first rather than those of the British people, and the other for his two-tier morals on genocides. Interestingly, the measure receiving the most popular support is also the one Starmer would find hardest to implement, banning arms sales ta a mass murderer. Yet this one should especially have been a total no-brainer for a long time, not handled with just half-arsed reluctant restrictions. The British public are telling you, Keir, show some fucking baws.

In that context of mounting public pressure, it is really shocking that our government, Starmer and Lammy hand in hand, are still tiptoeing on eggshells because they are feart of unappeasing the Orange Baboon. Recognising the Palestinian State is probably just a symbol now, seeing how its existence is in jeopardy with Israel illegally occupying 80% of its territory, but it's the symbol that matters. Don't get me wrong here, the Tories wouldn't have done better, and very probably worse, and the EU countries who haven't recognised the Palestinian State yet are as much to blame as us. Maybe Starmer was waiting for Macron to take the step and follow, and overlooked that maybe Macron was waiting for us to take that step, but grew tired of waiting in vain and moved forward alone. But shameful inaction, even when your own Cabinet and a third of MPs are urging you to act at last, is not the same as active complicity, which makes The Islington Gazette again and again platforming Shitweasel's increasingly delirious rants totally incomprehensible and, to put it bluntly, fucking cretinous. Especially when he is desperate enough to take his cues from a vulpophobic former Tory Minister. Shitweasel's obsessive-compulsive ramblings are oozing ulterior motives from all sides. The memory of the tens of thousands of Palestinians murdered by Israel deserves better than this self-serving gesticulation in the pursuit of domestic political gain. Don't take sloganeering for an answer.

You people have an overreacting problem, you do know that? You respond with overkill. That’s a problem.

(Denny Crane, Boston Legal, 2007)

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Jeremy's Den

27/07/2025

The Bullshit Never Stops

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The Bullshit Never Stops