Jeremy's Den: Sniff Your Shit In The Wind

For a man who fancies himself to be some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on Earth. To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come over to America and see what Trump and MAGA are doing to destroy our freedom, kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries, militarise our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities. You might think twice before you let Mr Farage “make Britain great again”.

(Jamie Raskin, 3 September 2025)

A lasting solution requires addressing the root causes of the conflict. Of course, Ukraine's security must be ensured. We are ready to work on that.

(Vladimir Putin, 15 August 2025)

I started out on Burgundy, but soon hit the harder stuff, Bob Dylan once wrote. I have given you lots of Burgundy so far, so let's transition to the harder stuff and the greatest masterpiece of the 21st century. Lulu by Lou Reed and Metallica. The full album, plus a German TV show where Reed and Metallica played half of Lulu and a fucking wild version of a Velvet Underground classic. With two extras at the end. Reed and Metallica doing another, and much more subdued, cover of another Velvet classic. Then just Metallica, doing an Elton John classic in the presence of Elton John. Crème de la crème. Fasten your fucking seatbelts, mates, and don't miss a fucking beat.

Why do I have to fucking repeat it every fucking time? Just fucking click on the fucking images!

It has been seven weeks now since the Kremlin's Nosferatu accepted the Orange Baboon's invitation to inspect the territory he will next claim is his, and discuss the dismemberment of the territory he already claims is his. And also since the leaders of Free Europe escorted Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House, like Stormtroopers around Darth Vader, or maybe it was Jedi Knights around Princess Leia, or whatever. The most important events since are that Trump has achieved jack shit, just as everyone expected. But also that the Coalition Of The Willing is still far from being a Coalition Of The Doing, so Ukraine has every reason to feel let down again. Actions are still louder than words, and the only action we see is again the Russian Reich sending its drones, V1s and V2s to strike hospitals, schools, residential buildings and now government offices. This is why we must keep the pressure on our government, so that support for Ukraine never falters, and instead becomes stronger. Lord Ashcroft's most recent poll shows again the the British public understand and support this, with a strong majority rejecting the capitulation of Ukraine.

Our reactions to the very weird succession of events in August has also been polled by Opinium, two weeks after the last meeting at the White House. They had a look in the rear-view mirror, which does matter, as how we assess the past influences what we think we can expect of the future. In the case of the war in Ukraine, one of the relevant questions is how much we feel the most prominent leaders have helped the peace process, or hindered it. Not surprisingly, a plurality of Brits think that Keir Starmer has made no difference. Which sounds a bit harsh at face value, but is actually quite realistic. Let's face it, Europe as a whole, despite the well-intentioned show of hands in support of Zelenskyy, have only had a minor part and little influence in the events of the last few weeks. Not just Starmer, but Von der Leyen, Merz and Macron too. And it is unlikely to change so long as Europe does not up its game and acts, instead of just talking.

Reassuringly, Volodia Zelenskyy does better here than our Prime Minister. Despite his flaws, and there are many, and his mistakes, and there have been many, Volodia still enjoys wide-ranging prestige and support in Western Europe. He is even more popular than Starmer in the UK, Macron in France and Merz in Germany. One of his assets is that he has learned from his humiliation at the White House in February, and is carefully cuddling Trump's ego, without giving up on any of his red lines. The extensive talks with the European nations, openly preparing for peace and options for the immediate post-war, also clearly work in his favour. The same cannot be said of Trump and Putin, and the findings of the Opinium poll show that the British public are fully aware of that.

Of course, a massive majority of Brits think that Vladimir Putin is hindering the peace process, and even Reform voters agree. One of the oddest parts of the war's fallout is the Russian Reich gloating they have now become the world leader in limb prosthetics "thanks to the Special Military Operation". This is just the kind of asinine propaganda that proves, beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, that the Russian Reich is not seeking peace and never was, only interested in steamrolling and enslaving Ukraine to achieve the first of Nosferatu's genocidal imperialist objectives. British public opinion is still split about Donald Trump, who obviously hasn't been of much help to a just and lasting peace because of his fascination for Putin's authoritarian rule, which he is trying to duplicate in the United States. This should just enough for us not trust either of them, and take matters in our own hands, meaning European hands, before Vlad The Butcher makes up another issue he has to resolve. Like Russia's unalienable birthright to rule the whole shore of the Baltic Sea from Viipuri to Königsberg. Violations of Polish and Estonian airspace are just trial balloons that should have triggered instant retaliation, but sadly did not.

If it is impossible to resolve the Ukrainian issue peacefully, Russia will have to solve the tasks set by armed means.

(Vladimir Putin, 3 September 2025)

Now, it's really up to President Zelensky to get it done, and I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit.

(Donald Trump, 15 August 2025)

The Great British Public are not totally deaf and blind, despite the relentless Putinist propaganda spewed every day from the far-right, the far-left and the White House. They know that Nosferatu's genocidal imperialism is not limited to Ukraine, and will know no bounds if we show only weakness and procrastination when strength and decisiveness are needed. One of YouGov's recent speed-polls proves it. An overwhelming majority correctly identify the Russian Reich as a threat, even Reform voters do. And there is clearly nothing "moderate" about it. Calling any action from the Kremlin "moderate" is like calling the Taliban kind-hearted or the Nazis benevolent. Putin's plan for a Greater Russia, similar to Hitler's dream of Großdeutschland as the Lebensraum the Nazi Reich needed, is the most serious threat the democratic countries of Western Europe have had to face since 1945. Our governments should openly admit it and act accordingly. Ruthlessly until the threat is eradicated.

In this context, it is more distressing than ever to see The Islington Gazette platforming again and again defeatists like Simon Jenkins, who is still in denial about the nature and strength of the Russian threat. While openly advocating continuing the Cold War era's policy of containment, instead of opposing Russia's policy of aggression with all means necessary, and making peace with the Russian Reich on their own terms. Isn't that the duplication of how we handled Hitler before reality knocked at the door most brutally? The policy that so successfully contained the Nazis, didn't it? It won't work today either because Putin is just like Hitler, obsessed with delusions of grandeur that can only succeed through permanent war. Just like the Nazi Reich, the Russian Reich is a shark on the prowl. If it stops moving, it dies, and the only move it knows is aggression. Fortunately, the Great British Public are less intoxicated by the fumes of appeasement than the sanctimonious faux pacifists. Opinium asked how likely we think the war in Ukraine will end in 2025, and we conclusively think it won't. Not because we or Zelenskyy want it, but because Putin wants it, and Trump is too weak and confused to do anything about it. Or could there be an unexpected bonus to the Orange Baboon's undeserved taxpayer-paid jolly to Windsor, that Keir Starmer has somehow managed to finally turn him against Putin? We can only hope.

Security guarantees for Ukraine have become an even more sensitive issue since Vlad The Butcher announced he would treat Western troops on Ukrainian soil as legitimate targets to be eliminated. Which is obviously not directed at our governments, like his earlier gesticulation about nuclear weapons, but at our public opinions. He wants to scare us and counts on help from the Kremlin-bribed Quislings like Nigel Farage, always willing to propagate Russian propaganda for a fee. Sadly, Western governments are often more impressed than their public opinions, and take Nosferatu's rants as an excuse to chicken out. The aforementioned Opinium poll has tested how the British public feel about the possibility of European nations extending the benefit of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty to Ukraine. Which doesn't mean we would be dragged into a nuclear apocalypse against our will, as the faux pacifists and the fake patriots claim, just that we would have to consider our options. Which is pretty much what we already do, and the British public have a relatively favourable view of it, except of course Reform voters. Even the Greens are for it, and Scotland more than any other part of the Realm.

Fortunately, Ukraine are also building their own security guarantees, a homemade supply of big sticks. The real game-changer may very well be the newly-commissioned Ukrainian Flamingo long-range cruise missile. It is definitely not the most sophisticated weapon around, it is even rather crude by Western standards, but why aim for a lightsaber when a machete will do the job just as well? With a production of 200 a month, it could plausibly wipe out the whole Russian oil industry before the end of the year, even if just a quarter hit their assigned targets. Exactly what the Orange Baboon wanted to avoid at all costs, to avoid jeopardising future business deals with the Russian Reich, and he can do jack shit about it. Because the Flamingo is totally made in Ukraine with no American components, so the USA have fuck all to say about its use. Unlike the allegedly "independent" British nuclear deterrent, which is crammed full of US technology and can't be used without the White House's permission. I hope that Keir Starmer has noticed, and duly enjoyed, the irony in Ukraine now being freer of American ukases than us.

Ukraine is now using its own weapons to hit Russia and no longer consults Washington regarding where it strikes.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 26 August 2025)

Wonder if Trump knows that Russian nationalists claim that losing Alaska, like Ukraine, was a raw deal for Moscow that needs to be corrected.

(Michael McFaul)

We also have two new polls for the next Ukrainian elections, presidential and parliamentary, the ones that will happen as soon as the Coalition Of The Stalling will get real and force the Kremlin's Nosferatu to end his genocidal invasion or face real consequences. Or as soon as the Orange Baboon sends a CIA hit squad to "do" Vlad The Butcher, whichever happens first. One was fielded during the period of protests against Volodymyr Zelenskyy's very ill-advised move to neuter Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies, and the other a month later, after Volodia had backed down and U-turned under pressure from the people defending a more ambitious vision of Ukrainian democracy. The amazing thing is that Volodia's voting intentions increased in both polls, not what I expected after the protests had shown a rift between him and the Ukrainian society, especially the younger generations.

It is surely no coincidence that Volodia gained ground again in the last poll, that was fielded after Putin's Red Carpet Ride to Alaska, Trump's farcical humiliation, and Europe travelling en masse to the White House as Volodia's human shields against J.D. Vance's abuse. But the real question remains. How much can we trust polls including the very hypothetical candidacies of Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Kyrylo Budanov, both of which hold key positions in the Ukrainian state apparatus? Other very hypothetical polls, that I did not include here, have explored what would happen if they did not stand. Budanov's votes would switch mostly to Zelenskyy, and a small part of it to more left-wing candidates. More interestingly, Zaluzhnyi's vote would split almost three ways between Zelenskyy, the right and the left. There is more to see in the few polls that also surveyed the second round of the still virtual presidential election.

The last two polls did not survey the second round, which is quite unfortunate, but a few earlier ones have, for what it's worth. Zelenskyy would conclusively defeat former President Petro Poroshenko, his unlucky opponent of 2019, who is probably too much of a man of the Old World Order. Volodia would win more narrowly against Budanov, and lose neatly against Zaluzhnyi. It would actually be quite a landslide, which illustrates Zaluzhnyi's ability to coalesce a wide Big Tent coalition with votes from both the right and left. But bear in mind that there is one key wildcard variable that is never factored in by any pollster. That Zelenskyy would simply stand down after a long and exhausting War Presidency, thusly avoiding the same kind of defeat as our very own Winston Churchill in 1945. Thanks to the war hero who led us through the years of darkness but, sorry but not sorry, now we want change. Far too soon to even think of it, but calling it quits after peace is signed, and Ukraine's future safety is guaranteed by unflinching and reliable allies, could be Volodia's smartest move and the best way to preserve his legacy. The recent polls have also surveyed a hypothetical future parliamentary election, giving us a picture of what the next Verkhovna Rada could look like.

Ukrainian electoral law, in its current incarnation, is pretty straightforward. Proportional representation at national level with a 5% threshold, so seat projections are very basic maths. They can't be compared directly with the results of the 2019 election or the current make-up of the Rada. Some parties have disappeared since 2019, mostly openly pro-Putin ones that have been banned totally legally by the Constitutional Court, and others have reconfigured themselves into opportunistic parliamentary combinaziones. The same caveats apply to parliamentary polls as to presidential polls. They survey hypothetical parties that do not exist, and may well never exist in the future, along ones that exist and will compete. But we can still identify some trends here. 10 to 15% of the vote would go to far-right nationalist parties, around 10% to more moderate right-wing parties, around 20% to left-wing parties, and finally 55 to 60% to the real or virtual centrist social-liberal pro-European parties. That's pretty much the big tent electoral base that took Zelenskyy and his Servant of the People party to power six years ago, and its influence has actually increased since, even if Volodia is no longer their favourite presidential candidate. The people of Ukraine clearly know which future they want for their country, and it is not enslavement and pillage by the fascist Russian Reich and Trump's MAGAligarchs.

Any reasonable person fully realizes that Russia has never had, does not have, and will never have any desire to attack anyone.

(Vladimir Putin, 1 September 2025)

Stores need to play their part in making sure that items that are high value are not at the front of the store, which obviously people will nick.

(Diana Johnson)

Thank Dog for Merlin Strategy, the newbie pollster that has sprung on the stage last April, fully armed and armourclad like Athena from Zeus' forehead. They have chosen to specialise in niche polling for the benefit of the right-wing press, feeding them oven-ready poll numbers to support their favourite obsessions, especially about crime in the UK. If you're looking for the foundations of Nigel Farage's obsessive campaigning about "lawless Britain", look no further. Here you have all the feelings-based, not reality-based, polling you need to boost any fearmongering far-right narrative. A recent, and quite transparently revealing, attempt is a recent poll about recent court cases, and how the public feel about the sentences. In the actual wording of the questions, the perpetrators were named, but I have removed the names as it serves no useful purpose. So let's just focus on the actual offences and how the public rate the sentences. Spoiler but no spoiler, it's massively "too soft".

The obvious bias here is that the respondents are fed only a short summary of the situation, a description of the offences and sentences that can be delivered in a short enough time to not exceed their attention span. All the elements of context and circumstances are missing, while the judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers had all of them in their files. This is how you get manipulative polling riddled with ulterior motives, and evidence of a concerted drive to spread the far-right infection in British society. It gets even laughably worse when the questioning switches to what kind of sentence the respondents would have handed in each case. Including the death penalty, which can't be reinstated in the UK so long as we are members of the Council of Europe, but is nevertheless a constant item in the far-right narrative. Death for shoplifting, really? I guess that's what they do in North Korea and Saudi Arabia, don't they? Of course, you can also get life without parole for that in a lot of US states under "three-strikes laws". Is this the kind of Wild West justice we want to import to an allegedly civilised Britain? Well, Nigel Farage does.

Another convicted felon has made headlines and the rounds recently, Lucy Connolly, when she was released after serving less than a third of her sentence. Nigel Farage did not protest and accuse the judicial system of leniency here, obviously, as he wanted us to believe that the self-described racist calling for arson and murder was a political prisoner and a martyr of free speech. Merlin Strategy did not include her case in their poll chastising judicial leniency, but More In Common polled her sur mesure. They correctly described her as having served only 10 months, not the 31 months of the actual sentence, for inciting racial hatred. When the facts, that she did not deny as she pleaded guilty, should have made that a terrorism-related charge. All this makes the results even more shocking, as the British public leaned towards peace, love and understanding, as a result of the intense far-right propaganda on Connolly's behalf. Not really surprising from Reform voters, and a wee smitch worrying when it comes from left-leaning voters.

Can't wait now for the poll about the sentencing on terrorism-related charges of Mo Chara, the bloke who has become an icon of resistance for the Lefty Loopies after he called for the murder of Tory MPs while waving the flag of Hezbollah, the Iran-funded terrorist militia who murdered a Lebanese Prime Minister on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Surely Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage will protest if he is sentenced to a prison term, and lobby for his early release. Or they won't because they have two-tier morals that allow, and even encourage, incitement to political violence when it comes from their own supporters, now including Elton Muck. This is the sorry state of the once civil Britain, when the far-left and far-right import opposing but complementary brain rots form the other side of the Ocean, the equally destructive fanatical woke variant and MAGA variant. Aping the United States will be the death of us, mark my words.

They're selling postcards of the hanging. they're painting the passports brown, the circus is in town

(Bob Dylan, Desolation Row, 1965)

I think white vans should be banned because the white van is the choice of criminals.

(Jack Dee, Room 101, 2015)

Let's say, just for argument's sake, that our justice system is too soft. Then who is to blame? Merlin Strategy submitted four options to their panel, all of which are directly lifted from the usual right-wing or far-right playbook. Of course "judicial activism" is to blame, a concept that emerged in the ranks of the American right and has become one of the cornerstones of Donald Trump's discourse of self-pitying victimisation. And another example of ideological bullshit that we should never have imported, as it benefits only the most reactionary political forces, and is also almost caricaturally representative of two-tier groupthink that labels judges "activists" only when their rulings broadly coincide with progressive options. This also fits with a regressive conception of the judiciary that implies that some rights are more rightful than others, which is also part of a broader pattern of conspiracist disinformation.

Merlin Strategy then surveyed a very short list of ways to improve out judiciary, which unfortunately are also quite biased. Of course unclogging the courts is a commonsensical way to improve the system, but it is obviously not the only one, and possibly not even the most urgent priority. We should first focus on the root causes of the backlog, and seek to eliminate frivolous and malicious cases that do nothing to improve public safety. First of all by questioning the modus operandi of the many police forces that act more as ideological enforcers than as protectors of law and order. Another way to make the justice system more efficient would be to merge the trades of solicitors and barristers, as in every civilised country except some parts of the former British Empire, and abolish the Silk, which is just a remnant of classist feudalism, and doesn't exist in any civilised country except... see above. That would both smooth the process and lower the costs, and surely infuse a more down-to-earth approach in our courts. But large scale prisons on abandoned islands around Scotland? What the fucking fuck? Guess we could tell whomever came up with that bullshit that he can have Rockall, and that's it, no way he gets Barra Head.

Now let's see what we would achieve if we deported all foreign nationals currently in British prisons, that's 12% of the prison population, the same proportion as last year. 40% come from "EEA Europe", that's the EU, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland. But we have no Liechtensteiner nicked at the moment. 15% are from the rest of Europe, including Russia, and I would definitely agree to send these back where they came from. There are only 29, so Putin wouldn't find that much a contribution to his meatgrinder war. Another 2% are from the USA, Canada or Australia. So that's 57% from countries who would surely discover overnight that it would be an excellent idea to send us back all British criminals they have in their own prisons. Another 18% are Africans, 12% Asians and 5% from the Caribbean. Which means mostly nationals from Commonwealth nations, so we could have summat of a big problem here too. Doesn't look that smart when you consider the actual numbers, does it? But there is still a huge effort of defaragification ahead of us, as another Merlin poll showed that three quarters of Brits of all shades, sadly including Scots, believe that old far-right tripe that migrants make our streets less safe. Three fucking quarters.

Now, riddle me this, how can the British public believe immigration begets crime when the official statistics say that violent crime of all shades is at an all-time low while net migration reached an all-time high just two years ago, thanks to Boris Johnson and his post-Brexit immigration system, and is still higher than it was in 2022? These very crime statistics the Clacton Clown warned you against preemptively, because they totally nullify his fearmongering narrative. So what now? Reverse correlation, really? Makes no fucking sense, does it? Or it does when the mainstream media narrative is drenched in xenophobic far-right propaganda, just because the Flatpack Fascists make for great ratings and juicy headlines. The "fair and balanced" BBC being first among equals here, because they want to be on the Poundshop Powell's good side in case, just in case, the media-fabricated self-fulfilling prophecy fulfils itself and he becomes Governor of the Londongrad Oblast, as befits someone serving the interests of a hostile foreign power more dedicatedly than those of his own country. Or is he more of a Kim Philby than an Enoch Powell, in his own special way, as a Russian mole metastasised at the heart of the Empire? Maybe we should ask YouGov to poll that.

How often when you hear of a crime and the report would say that the police are wanting to speak to a driver of a white van seen in the vicinity? So this is where I am coming from.

(Jack Dee, Room 101, 2015)

Morals. Invented by the power elite to keep the hoi polloi from enjoying themselves.

(Denny Crane, Boston Legal, 2006)

In these dark days, when the punditariat and the pollstertariat set the tone for endless doom and gloom, we definitely need pollsters to grant us some comic relief every now and then. More In Common have done just that with a poll about social etiquette, what is socially acceptable and what is not, unless you want to risk the magistratariat issuing an ASBO against you. Then who is going to define "acceptable"? I hope it won't be the Catholic Church or Rotherham Council, who have had rather a wide-ranging understanding of it in the past. Can't be the Labour Party either, now that their Working Definitions Czar Angela Rayner has been let go for avoiding less stamp duty inadvertently than Nigel Farage did deliberately. Nevertheless, More In Common did field a poll testing a dozen mostly unrelated ways of savagely breaking the peace, with sometimes unexpected results, and also a few strangely missing options.

The Great British Public massively agree that leaving dog turds behind is the most despicable offence, which already points to one of the missing items. What about picking up the turds and then hanging the poo bag in a tree? Isn't than an abhorrent hate crime too? If spitting in the street is unacceptable, then what about pissing in the street? If cycling through a red light is anti-social, what about deliberately cycling on a pedestrian lane? And don't even get me started on stuff that is not just frowned upon, but may also be a criminal offence if you look at it from a certain angle. Naw, don't, just guess. And, when in doubt about etiquette, just ask yourself what William Hanson would have done. There is also some fun stuff is the second part of More In Common's laundry list.

I am really glad to see that being shirtless on the bus is less unpopular than loud talking, presumably to your phone put on speaker for a larger audience, on that same bus. Except in Brighton, which is a bit odd coming from the self-anointed Gay Capital of England. Then why ask about talking loudly in the street, when we wanted to know what the public think of people talking to their dog in the street? I am also really surprised that More In Common felt they had to include not offering a cuppa to complete strangers invading the privacy of your home under a flimsy pretext, like leafletting for a by-election or a search warrant. Who still puts the fucking kettle on, anyway, in this day and age of instant coffee and ready-to-use pre-mixed piña colada? But we also needed YouGov to poll another of the age's pressing issues, the infamous strawberry sandwich.

A majority of Brits think that a strawberry sandwich is more of a cake, and it is even pretty much consensual across all demographics. This could be the beginning of a beautiful debate, like the one about what should be put first on the scone, the chicken or the egg. We should not let this be decided by a referendum, but refer it to the Treasury. It can thusly be studied by VAT experts in the same spirit as the proverbial Jaffa Cake controversy. They would duly send a 65-page report after a year to the relevant Select Committee, saying they cannot solve the issue either way, as both categories are zero rated, unless the item is toasted, which is what everybody does to a strawberry sandwich, and then it shifts to standard rated. Note the devious subtlety here, as zero rated is not legally exempt, just not exempt but not taxed either. Probably because moving an item from exempt to non-exempt requires a vote in Parliament, while it can be moved from one rate to another by a unilateral decision of the government using its executive powers. Cheeky bastards.

If you choose not to laugh at farts, your life will contain less laughter, but still the same amount of farts.

(Anonymous, 21st century)

Some people are like birds. You help them to fly, and once they’re in the air, they shit on you.

(Anonymous, 21st century)

In the country of my birth, they say that someone is trying to fart higher than his arse, which translates into biting off more than you can chew in English, and could well be the fate soon befalling the not-yet-officially-born Corbyn Party. It has certainly attracted some attention from the media, and this may well have been the worst that could happen to them. Scrutiny hasn't done them any good, quite the opposite. The only pollster who includes then in their prompts for voting intentions is Australia-based Freshwater Strategy, and then only in the preliminary round. In all polls featuring them, they bagged just 1%, so Freshwater erased them form the published headline results and bundled them with the other "Others". Even polls that probe alternative realities, one without an organised Corbyn Party and one with it, are not that good.

It looks like the early buzz about a new party boosted them, up to level with Labour on 15%, and then further exposure sent them crashing. One of the factors is obviously that this sequence of five polls showed the Corbyn Party snatching most of their votes off the established parties of the left. Quite amusingly, three out of five polls, including the only poll that had them above 10% of voting intentions, showed them also snatching votes off Reform UK. Which is an awkward fact that the Corbynista are in denial about, while it is abundantly clear that far-left and far-right "anti-system" share a lot more than they are willing to admit. Starting with a deep hatred for the institutions of representative parliamentary democracy, seen by both as rigged by the "elites". Unless they benefit them, which is why Reform UK have put their demands for proportional representation on the backburner in the bottom drawer. And our beloved first-past-the-post also shows how futile and counter-productive that whole Corbyn Party thing is.

The first obvious point is that the Corbynista would already gain quite a number of seats by sticking to their original "Gaza Independents" narrative, three to five more than their current six. Going through the whole tedious process of creating a new party bring just a few more, three to five above the baseline in most cases, and just eight more at their most successful. That clearly means that the Corbyn Party would have jack shit influence in Commons or over government policies, no matter who is sat at Number Ten. Their main impact is actually to help the right-wing parties, who could gain as many as 44 seats with the Corbyn Party splitting the vote, while the parties to the left of the Tories would lose the same amount. I have no doubt that Corbyn and Sultana have no problem with that, as their stated goal is to dalek any sort of left-of-centre alternative to Putinist fascism. And thusly become the useful idiots and little helpers of Putinist fascism. QED, I rest my case.

If all else fails, and you think you’ve lost, pretend you’ve won. Works for our President.

(Denny Crane, Boston Legal, 2005)

The main problem with bridges is that quite a lot of the time, when you say you’re building a bridge, you’re actually burning it to the ground.

(Annika Strandhed, Annika, 2021)

Could the Corbyn Party really be the little dog who can't get in, because the bigger dog has got his spot and elbowed him away? Do you remember what happened on the 26th of August, 2025? Not that far ago, is it? Nigel Farage announced his totally deranged, unworkable and illegal fantasy plan to deport anyone he doesn't like. Do you remember what Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana were doing on the 26th of August, 2025? If you say "hitting at Farage over his deranged deportation plan", you lose five points. Naw, they were very busy launching the competition about the future real name of Their Party, and making sure YouGov would speed-poll it. Which left only the LibDems lashing out at the Bargain Bin Fascists, as New Model Labour were too busy looking for a crack in the wall to hide in and avoid having to take a stand. For the tenth anniversary of Jezza's election as leader of the Labour Party, YouGov have dedicated a Full Corbyn poll to him, and it's fucking bad. The key question is to what extent we would trust Corbyn and Their Party to handle a comprehensive array of key policy issues. And the key answer is that we fucking would not.

It's getting worse now for Their Party, since Zack Polanski got himself elected leader of the Pink-And-Blue Party of England and Wales. Say what you will about Zack, he has totally stolen Jezza's thunder by campaigning for his new position on an unapologetically far-left agenda. Of course, he didn't come up with that stuff himself, as it sounds like an import from the country of my birth, namely straight from Jean-Luc Mélenchon's usual répertoire. In his first public appearance as leader, of course in The Islington Gazette, Polanski carefully avoided anything sounding like gender ideology and basically sought to outflank Jeremy Corbyn from the left. So we can still hope that the two Alpha Males from the Loopy Left will nuke each other out before the next general, and not split the vote to send Nigel Farage to Number Ten. But Polanski can't hide for long that he is even deeper down the rabbit hole of metropolitan woke absolutism than his predecessor Carla Denyer. What will Corbyn do under pressure? Switch from Burgundy to the harder stuff? From deep red faux socialism to woke communism? That would be a fucking dick move, when the Great British Public already do not trust him on issues that usually benefit the left.

Honestly, I would not trust Corbyn on anything myself. Not even on bin collection, and surely not on foreign policy and defence. He is a man of the past, permanently stuck in obsolete Cold War era faux pacifist politics that naturally led him to be both a Hamas appeaser and a Putin apologist. And now the bell has tolled for him, with Polanski ready to outfox him from an even loopiest fringe of far-left lunacy. Quite predictably, the pretendy-progressive woke pontificatariat that haunt The Islington Gazette's corridors, with Zoe Williams and George Monbiot leading the charge, were caught fawning and drooling over Polanski like Victoria Coren-Mitchell was fawning over Alex Hardwick. IYKYK. So long as Corbyn takes his cues from Shitweasel, and obsessively fixates on his bile-filled vendetta against Labour instead of broadsiding the real worst enemy of the working class, Farage's white supremacist Putinist fascism, he is bound to fail and end up in the same dustbin of history as Ken Livingstone. Mark my words. Or will Their Party go down because of scams, infighting and mudslinging, in a worse farce than Change UK six years ago? We even already have the splinter group within a splinter group of the splinter party, for fuck's sake, and it's made even more farcical by The Islington Gazette consulting their waning readership before taking a stand. Pathetic Little Dog.

Right. Err, so… erm. Right. OK… Right. OK. Yes. Yep. Right. Err, that’s… yeah. Oh… phew…

(Annika Strandhed, Annika, 2021)

If Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad, I'll go and live somewhere else.

(Nigel Farage, The Nigel Farage Show, 27 March 2017)

You may ask why Nigel hasn't done just that, as Brexit is definitely a fucking disaster, and migrated already. To Germany for example, since he has a passport from there granting him freedom of movement across the European Union. Or does he use his German passport only to jump the queue at the airport when going on a jolly to wineries in Southern France? Because, ye ken, even died-in-the-wool Brexiteers know that even the lowliest Côtes-du-Rhône is better than faux Pinot Noir from Kent. Farage, like all far-right "populists", loves to restrict the debate about the EU to simplistic sloganeering fed by prejudice and fake news. Thank Dog the British public are perfectly able to deal with a more complex approach, and we have a new poll from More In Common to prove it, complementing their earlier focus-group-based approach. MIC summed up various issues in one umbrella question about "pursuing deals with Europe, and working closer with them on issues such as trade, food standards and defence", and a convincing majority of Brits agree that this package will be good for Britain.

If Keir Starmer had any brains, and the baws that go with them, he would capitalise on results such as this, instead of cosplaying his Basil Fawlty persona and begging us to not mention Brexit. Because Brexit is the blue whale in the room, that deserves naming and shaming if we hope to ever steer British politics in the right direction again. Starmer should also ditch his obsession with triangulation, a total passé way of doing politics, and dare collide head on with both Farage and Corbyn on this issue. Everybody remembers Farage as the poster boy of Brexshit, but few remember that Corbyn also supported it. Or "Lexit", rather, the totally cretinous concept of leaving the EU "from the left", supported by Shitweasel in the aftermath of the Greek crisis of the 2010s. A concept so blatantly absurd and abysmally stupid that even lefty idol Yanis Varoufakis opposed it and supported continued membership of the EU. The MIC poll further shows that the British public are aware of the potential risks involved in dealing with an EU that remains as dogmatically neo-liberal as New Model Labour, and are willing to draw red lines to shield us.

It is reassuring to see the British public prioritising the protection of our living standards over the very fuzzy concept of sovereignty, that has lost a lot of its relevance in a globalised world dominated by economic powers. Of course, it would be better if the priority was chosen by a wider margin, but a closer result is what we should expect when the issues are reframed in more complex terms, rather than the popular but simplistic yes-or-no questions that are routinely used. MIC also asked the same question from a different angle, this time pitting EU rules, one of Farage's pet hates, against the illusion of British sovereignty. Again, the Europhile position wins, probably because the British public realises that EU regulations do protect us. Unless we are ready to abdicate any pretence of sovereignty and play by Trump's rules, which is pretty much Farage's real position once you have peeled off the layers of bombastic faux patriotism. Thank Dog the British public are not ready to live off chlorinated chicken and hormoned beef, that I wouldn't even feed my dog out of fear it might make him sick, even if the US Big Business sold it cheaper than real safe food.

Now, if you look at the bigger picture, there is a reason why both the floppy fascists and the loopy lefties cultivate Europhobia the way they do. It fully serves the strategic goal of their foreign puppet masters, the destruction of the European Union, that is clearly on the table at the Kremlin, their shared organ grinder, and at the White House, Farage's other role model. Brexit was the trial run, and it sadly worked, opening the floodgates to a whole swarm of frenzied anti-EU gesticulation, from Viktor Orban in Hungary to the neo-Nazi AfD in Germany through various shades of the Quisling left across the continent, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France and Robert Fico in Slovakia. Both the Russian Reich and Trumpistan would welcome fascist Europhobes taking power in Western Europe as it would neuter the pillars of classic European democracy, and make the whole continent more amenable to their toxic influences. That should be reason enough for Keir Starmer to don the fighting gloves, preferably with some heavy metal implement snuck in them, and not leave Ed Davey fight alone on behalf of the Europhile camp. Growing a pair may even be the magic touch Labour need to avoid an electoral Titanic next time around.

Well, it's very successful politics, isn't it? You know, we are the turkeys that have voted for Christmas.

(Nigel Farage, Today, 1 March 2017)

A big takeaway from economic history is that the past wasn’t as good as you remember, the present isn’t as bad as you think, and the future will be better than you anticipate.

(Morgan Housel)

The biggest news of the last few cycles may have been that Nigel Farage no longer opposed foreign aid. Well, for the Taliban, that is. Or it may have been the very same Nigel openly peddling the same life-threatening anti-vaccine disinformation and fake news as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at his freak show hearing by a Senate committee. But that was obviously overshadowed in a split nanosecond by Angela Rayner's resignation. It is clearly a deep blow to Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, which is obviously the reason why she was hounded down so ferociously by all shades of the right and their cronies in the media. Of course, Angie is not without sin, but her accusers should have let him who lives in a glass house be the first to cast a stone at her, or summat. What hurt the most was the Turquoise Quisling drooling with glee at the news, as he knows Angie's unquestionable working class credentials and her own success story made her the keystone of the Barrage To Farage, and her departure can only weaken Labour's already appalling performance in the trends of voting intentions.

There is a strong and obvious reason why Nigel Farage wants us to believe the UK is a fucking lawless shithole, and uses the Goebbels Method to propagate it. Repeat a lie often enough and it is accepted as the truth, pretty much. Nigel's organ grinders in Moscow want us to believe we are shit, because they want to weaken us. Not just us, of course, but the whole of Europe. It is Vlad The Butcher's long term plan, and the Flatpack Fascists are his little helpers. But voters leaning towards Reform should think twice. What do they make of a bloke who loves to pose as a patriot and a man of the people, while his most pressing urge was to skip Commons returning from the Benidorm Break, so he could fly to the USA to badmouth his own country hand in hand with MAGA Christo-fascists, get his photo-op with the Orange Baboon, and encourage a hostile foreign power to interfere in our democratic process? Maybe the Clacton Cockroach is not a Poundshop Mosley after all, but more of a Lord Haw-Haw 2.0. And also a tax cheat in a premeditated way, unlike Angela Rayner who is only guilty of a honest mistake. Now the Wheelie Bin Mussolini's problem is that, contrary to what the complacent media want us to believe, he is not really popular. At least far less than a Führer-in-waiting should aspire to be.

Nigel's popularity has been polled by the same pollsters as Starmer's and Badenoch's. Out of 138 polls including Farage since July 2024, only 10 have him on net positives. There seems to be some house effect at work too, as his net negatives range from around -5 to -10 with More In Common or Opinium to a rather constant -30 with YouGov. Interestingly, the power of attraction of the British Falange, as a collective, is not overwhelming either, as proved by a specific question about them in Lord Ashcroft's most recent poll. Reform UK's voting intentions in the same poll were 27%, barely above the core part of the electorate that could see themselves voting for them. There is interesting stuff in there, firstly that Reform's appeal is much stronger among Conservative voters than Labour voters, which nullifies the media's narrative about disgruntled Labour voters switching en masse to the Dark Side. Other polls clearly show that this specific category are much more likely to switch to the LibDems or the Greens in England, or the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the other nations. I also note, with some satisfaction, tat Reform's appeal is still at its lowest, and rejection of Reform at its highest, in Scotland.

The Ashcroft poll shows that Reform's voter base does exist and is rather strong, but it may also be more fragile than Farage wishes. If its voting intentions were duplicate at the election, Reform would get 239 seats to 208 for Labour, 89 Conservatives and 62 Liberal Democrats, which still leaves the possibility to avoid a Farage government. It could work if the media weren't so willing to cuddle Farage and demean Starmer, far beyond reasonable or deserved in both cases. I also find it quite odd that The Islington Gazette sent the usually better-inspired Marina Hyde on a mission to take the piss out of Ed Davey after he announced, in the very same paper, his decision to boycott the state banquet offered by The Crown to the Orange Baboon. It is fucking hilarious to see the most sanctimoniously virtue-signalling of all British papers accusing Mister Ed of virtue-signalling. What did they expect? That he would grab Trump by his tiny dick and make him promise to stop the genocide in Gaza in 24 hours? Just as he promised to stop the genocide in Ukraine, that is still ongoing 244 days after the Inauguration because The Donald is subjugated by the Kremlin's Nosferatu. For Dog's sake, let Mister Ed run free!

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading.

(Bertrand Russell)

The honourable member for Clacton is not here. He's flown to America to badmouth and talk down our country. And worse than that, he's gone to lobby the Americans to impose sanctions. You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. It's a disgrace.

(Keir Starmer, PMQs, 3 September 2025)

So now we have this stain on British politics, the Flatpack Fascists' mass deportation plan, the English variant of the Orange Baboon's xenophobic hysteria, which hasn't triggered half the outrage it should have. Not even from the government. Then you hear that Trump has sent hundreds of Russians back to Russia and you think, "OK, that's good, at last he's sanctioning them", until you read the next sentence that mentions they were opponents to Vlad The Butcher, and now face unimaginable hardship from Nosferatu's goons. Farage's plan would have the exact same results, and he would probably send back the Russian exiles first, even before the Afghans, to reward his role model in infamy. BMG Research surveyed that plan in their latest poll for The Independent, in a clever way. They didn't ask if their panel supported or opposed it, which would surely have delivered very disturbingly ugly results, but how likely they thought a Reform government would be able to carry it out. And the Great British Public are split on that one.

I guess there are two opposing attitudes here. One that says it will work because it will be the law and the whole state apparatus will get behind it. Another that says it will not work because we won't let it happen even if the whole state apparatus is behind it. Or maybe I'm reading that wrong, just hoping that England would behave like Glasgow did four years ago at the Battle Of Kenmure Street. Maybe just wishful thinking. In the meanwhile, another fucking big rock has fallen across Keir Starmer's path. Lord Guacamole and his ties with the grooming gang at Washington DC. Appointing Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States was always a big fucking mistake. His past spoke for him, or rather against him, didn't it? Even the way he was sacked showed poor judgment and defective leadership from Starmer, which was even amplified by his absence in Commons when this very damaging event was debated. The Great British Public, as always speed-polled by YouGov about how well they feel Starmer handled the situation, think that it was a total fuckup, and even Labour voters agree. Could Mandelson prove more effective than Rayner as Starmer's Nemesis?

Nevertheless, I must say nothing enrages me more than sanctimonious lecturing from The Islington Gazette. So now we are ordered to believe that Labour is responsible for Reform UK's extravagant amount of coverage during the summer. That's fucking bullshit, and just the establishment media attempting to cover each other's arse now that the monster they created is running amok. Which was totally predictable, as Farage thrives on every second he gets in the spotlight, and platforming him wall-to-wall is just as cretinous as feeding a mogwai after midnight when you already know what the consequences will be. Surely we did not deserve Newsnight turning into a reboot of The Jeremy Kyle Show, and we got it anyway because the spectacle of hate and division is good for the ratings. It has become even worse after the murder of a white supremacist Putinist hatemonger, which is not and should never have been allowed to become a British issue as it is definitely not our fucking problem, but has been instantly weaponised by our own fascist mob to import the American culture of hate and violence to the UK. Haven't we imported enough bullshit from the USA already? Just don't fake surprise and outrage at the latest batch of polls again showing the New Model British Union of Fascists topping the charts in the aftermath of the shitshows of the last weeks.

This snapshot is generated, AI-and-gluten-free, from the last five polls, conducted between 12 and 19 September with a super-sample of 12,901. It is Reform UK's best result and Labour's worst since the 2024 election. The laziness and complacency of the legacy media, as Elton Muck calls them, are not the only ones to blame here. Of course most of their columns sound as if they were generated by ChatGPT after they fed it with all their earlier columns of the past year, and it is fucking hilarious to see The Mirror becoming a more effective Barrage To Farage than The Guardian. But Labour also played some part in their own demise, as the recently-sacked former Ministers are now squeaking and squealing from the backbenches. All of a sudden, they are all feart that the next general election could be Labour's Charge Of The Light Brigade and make them suffer the fate of a battlecruiser at Jutland. Unsurprisingly, some are already greasing their shotguns in anticipation of the next Night Of The Long Knives, leaving Starmer the choice between a Macmillan Exit and a Thatcher Exit. Or Sly Keir might take his cues from Jeremy Corbyn, for once, and stay even if 80% of MPs disown him. Then what if the vestigial murmuration of unquestioning Starmerites, who still think that they don't need a saviour, finally realised they do if they really wanna be elected next time? What if that saviour was... wait for it... Angela Rayner?

Don't you feel that, since David Bowie died, the world's gone to shit? It was like he was cosmic glue or something. When he died, everything fell apart. So, yeah, I miss him.

(Gary Oldman)

Money and power can help you rewrite history until even you believe it. But, in the end, everyone needs the truth.

(Karen Pirie, Karen Pirie, 2025)

Nicola Sturgeon has managed to propel herself to the top of the news cycle for a while, not just in Scotland, but in England too. Or, more likely, within the confines of London's Hipstershire who make up The Islington Gazette's vestigial leadership. Only them and The Scottish Pravda still peddle Nicola's expertly crafted mythology, that her years as First Minister were summat of a New Age of Enlightenment. I won't try and rewrite history, though. I enthusiastically supported Nicola in the early years, like most of us, even when the cracks started to appear with the disastrous 2017 general election campaign. It took most of us a few more years to see the light, but not until it was too late and the SNP's transition, from a social-democratic pro-Independence party, Alex Salmond's legacy, to a woke social-liberal devolutionist party, had been completed. Our bad. Now we have a new Full Scottish, from More In Common, a newcomer to these shores, illustrating the price to pay for this, the continuous rise of Reform UK even on the bonny banks of Loch Lomond. And aye, this one is better than the later plod-paced live singalongs.

There have been seventeen Full Scottish since the last general election, probing Scotland's voting intentions specifically, and the story told by the trendlines is crystal clear. The SNP stagnating, Labour in free fall, Reform UK surging to plausibly become Scotland's second party. The most recent batch of polls also show that the Alba Party have sadly succeeded in electorally nuking themselves through their shenanigans, including the prominence granted to openly pro-Putin faux socialists. These polls also show that the SNP should be grateful for the much-maligned first-past-the-post electoral system. The seat projections only confirm how it enables a weak party to cruise to a landslide when it faces a fragmented opposition. It is even caricaturally worse than the 2024 general, as the SNP would get a bigger share of seats on a smaller share of the popular vote than Labour got UK-wide last year. And, if you still drool for proportional representation, remember it would grant the New Model British Union of Fascists thirteen Scottish MPs. Does anyone really want that?

Now our Great Leader, the First Minister of Scotland, has revealed the Scottish Government's new paper on Independence, which actually doesn't contribute anything new to the debate. The worrying part is that John Swinney quite rightly mentioned the Northern Ireland Act 1998, but still managed to get the exact provisions wrong. The Act does not say that a referendum shall happen "if the Secretary of State believes there is public appetite for one", but "if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland", which makes quite a fucking difference. It's pretty much governing by polls, and by the whim of the Scottish Secretary, the returning antique Douglas Alexander now that the atrocious self-pitying Ian Murray has been sacked for his blatant incompetence. Adding the More In Common poll at the tail end of the referendum voting intentions doesn't alter the general trend, which is still a tie between Yes and No.

It is actually getting worse if you consider individual polls. The last two polls, from YouGov and More In Common, both say it would be 52-48 for No, once the undecideds are removed. Of the twelve Independence polls fielded in 2025, seven have No leading and five have Yes leading. The last time we had Yes ahead in the trendlines, not just in individual polls, was December 2022. Then came the freakshow of Sturgeon's downfall, the shitshow of Humza Yousaf's, Scotland's Liz Truss, blissfully short tenure, and now the fucking intergalactic void embodied by John Swinney. The trendlines also show that the last period when we saw the Yes vote surge sharply covers the last year of Theresa May and the first year of Boris Johnson. The continuous clownshow in SW1 was enough to convince thousands of Scots to switch to the Yes side. Could our Independence depend on the amount of chaos in Westminster? If so, we may have a chance to see the trendlines again favouring Yes in the next few months, whatever the Scottish Government do, or cautiously avoid doing.

You don’t need to tell me what the miners’ strike was like, I have seen Billy Elliot.

(Jason Murray, Karen Pirie, 2025)

I do enjoy a wee bit of Scottish water, that’s the whisky. I went on a whisky diet once and lost three days.

(Johnny Vegas, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2016)

More In Common also polled the popularity, or rather the lack thereof, of a select list of top-tier political A-listers. Not all of them, mind you, just a representative shortlist that might explain why we vote the way we do. Angela Rayner is on it, as the last day of polling was four days before a honest administrative oversight had her downgraded to the B-list of backbenchers. What have we in there that we didn't already know? That we don't like the Conservatives, and the Labourites even less after our short-lived honeymoon of 2024. But we already knew that, didn't we? Then we don't really like John Swinney, though he does better than Humza Yousaf at the same stage of his career, but who wouldn't? But the one we like the most, brace yourselves for that, is Nigel Fucking Farage. And he is not even the most hated one, Rachel Reeves is. Of course that poll is incomplete as it lacks the LibDems and Greenies, who are usually the comic relief element of such polls, as people tend to have no opinion of them. Then we have one more mystery to solve. Why do a third of Scots think that Farage is good at his job? Unless the subtext is that he is good at being a fucking arsehole, who knows?

There are roughly nine-and-a-half months left before the next Scottish Parliament election, and there is still a lot of uncertainty about its outcome. The More In Common poll is part of that as its Holyrood part is significantly more favourable to the SNP and less favourable to Reform UK than its Westminster part, and has Labour in second place instead of third. Voting intentions for Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens are roughly similar for the Westminster vote and the constituency vote for Holyrood, which is definitely a bit odd. The simplest and most obvious explanation of the differences between the two votes, the McOckham Razor if you wish, suggests a direct transfer from Reform UK to the SNP, which would be a very interesting situation if true. It is probably not, though we would need a complex pattern of transfers to explain the differences another way. Anyway, the updated trends suggest that Labour's descent to the abyss has stopped, and that the Conservatives are the most likely to suffer heavily from Reform UK's surge.

The seat projection from the More In Common poll is quite different from earlier polls conducted one or two months ago. It suggests that the SNP would lose only a few seats, far fewer than what earlier polls translated into. It also confirms a quite strong surge for the Liberal Democrats, so that Labour and the Conservatives are the most damaged by the loss of seats needed to make room for Reform UK MSPs. Unlike the other Unionist parties, Reform UK has not rebranded its local branch as "Scottish Reform" or chosen a Scottish figurehead, and has not even started selecting candidates. Reform currently have one MSP, Graham Simpson from Central Scotland, who defected from the Conservatives, but their strategy for the 2026 election is far from clear, other than rabid opposition to Independence and the usual obsessive fixation on immigration, as Nigel Farage and his sidekick Richard Tice have issued contradictory statements. The current snapshot suggests the SNP could be quite close to a majority, even more so on uniform national swing. But will it last?

But the SNP's moral bankruptcy and ineptitude are not excuses for any Scot planning on voting for Reform UK, as a fifth of us do according to Westminster polls. Not because Nigel Farage is a ethno-nationalist Unionist, a Bargain Bin fascist, or a faux patriot Russian agent who would allow decrepit Soviet subs into Faslane. But because he is a strong advocate of loosening gun laws, and would welcome a British gun lobby similar to the USA's NRA. How can any Scot support a man who has been campaigning for a decade to make mass shootings in schools easier and more likely, claiming that post-Dunblane restrictions were excessive? Since 2014, the first year for which comprehensive statistics are available, there have been 5,614 mass shootings in the USA, 40 a month and rising, with 6,109 people killed. There have been 50 in the UK in the 29 years since Dunblane, 1.7 a year, with 62 people killed. There is a reason for the massive differences, strict and punitive gun laws. That's also a massive reason to keep performative fascists out of office, unless we want to import the USA's culture of out-of-control violence and look like them in a few years' time.

It’s easier to change what your party stands for than to change what people want.

(Tony Blair, The Special Relationship, 2010)

There are still parts of Wales where the only concession to gaiety is a striped shroud.

(Gwyn Thomas, Punch, 18 June 1958)

It doesn't look good for Labour in Wales either, and Nigel Farage knows it, as he has chosen to not appoint a branch manager for Reform UK in Wales. That's kind of a return to the goode olde days of English feudalism, when Wales was considered just a dependency of England, which is just what you can expect from the bloke who wants to take us back to the 50s, and just hasn't decided yet which century's. The trendlines of voting intentions, seen through Full Welsh polls since the 2019 election and through the 2024 election, clearly show the immense amount of damage to the Labour brand in Wales. And also, more worryingly, Reform UK sucking the blood out of the Conservatives in their triumphant march to the top floor. The very last Full Welsh, conducted by YouGov earlier this month, translates into 21 Welsh seats for Reform and only 3 for Labour in Blaenau Gwent, Cardiff North and Cardiff South. But also 6 for Plaid Cymru, who seem to be on a lucky streak, gaining Bangor Aberconwy for a hat trick of the Leafy North West and Cardiff West at the core of Labour heartlands.

Nevertheless, it may be way too early to describe Starmer's Premiership as "fatally wounded", as Opinium did this week in a rare piece of editorialsing that sounds just opportunistic. There are still 1,424 days left before the next general, and that is at least three eternities in British politics. Actually it's a maximum of 1,424 days, as this refers to 15 August 2029, the most distant date at which the election can legally be held. So it is probably more like a random number in the high 1,300s, summat like June or July 2029. Anyway Keir Starmer will have a biggest worry on his hands in 228 days, precisely this time, with the next Senedd election. Labour HQ may have already written off Scotland as unrecoverable, but they won't have the luxury of ignoring an implosion in Wales next year, which is just what the trends of Senedd polls currently predict.

This is an all too familiar situation and not really news, with Labour and the Conservatives both on the nosedive, and Reform and Plaid Cymru competing for the top rung of the foodchain. The seat projection from the YouGov poll is quite flabbergasting, with Labour relegated to third place, and a threesome of Plaid, Lab and LibDems emerging as the only feasible majority coalition. That would really be quite a hoot, as they say in Boston Legal, wouldn't it? Now this is definitely the stuff the narrative is made of, that predicts Keir Starmer going down after the Senedd election. Which I hope will not happen, just to piss off Jake Rees-Mogg who can't refrain from making up totally imaginary constitutional stuff that he never advocated in 2022 during the Year Of The Three Tory Prime Ministers. When he is not high on the harder stuff, and advocating giving away British democracy to an octogenarian with dementia.

There is an interesting surprise if you compare the theoretical seat projection if there was just one national list and the results based on the new six-member constituencies. Which comes directly and entirely from the geography of the vote. Just have a closer look at the numbers for Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. Aye, even under supposedly proportional representation, you can get more seats on fewer votes. Solely because the votes are spread very differently across the constituencies, with Plaid Cymru having more very weak spots. So even the sanctimoniously idolised proportional representation can be gamed, albeit inadvertently and serendipitously, and that's fucking hilarious.

Though it appear a little out of fashion, there is much care and valour in this Welshman.

(William Shakespeare, Henry V, 1599)

My message to Labour is very clear. We are not here to be disappointed by you. We are not here to be concerned by you. We’re here to replace you.

(Zack Polanski, 2 September 2025)

One of the biggest upsets of the 2024 general was the Greens snatching a seat at the heart of the rural Midlands, where the largest town has a population of barely 12,000, off a veteran Conservative who had held it for 23 years. The MP is now Ellie Chowns, whose duet with Adrian Ramsay has just lost the Green Party of England and Wales leadership election to Che Guevara... oops, sorry... Zack Polanski in a fucking landslide. His election may not be such good news for Chowns at constituency level too, as she was elected by rural conservationist nimbys who had previously voted Tory for generations, the exact opposite of the green-haired hipsters Polanski aggregated around himself during his years of carpetbagging tourism around London for a seat. Last year, the Greens also finished second in thirteen constituencies in the North and one in the Midlands. The Reform surge means all of them are probably out of reach now, the only plausible exception being Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, a Labour seat since 1945 that has become quite less safe than it used to be. Pretty much like all of the North and Midlands if current voting intentions are to be believed.

Predictably, the big winners at the next general in the North and Midlands appear to be Reform UK, if Labour can't find a way to reverse the current trends. So I must confess that I fucking love all incidents that expose Reform UK's true nature and may make them less attractive, like Nottinghamshire Council banning the Nottingham Post and their associated journalists from any Council-related activity. This totally mirrors Donald Trump banning the Associated Press from White House briefings because they wouldn't submit to his asinine ukases. In a way, it is reassuring that Reform have now expanded their definition of free speech, from "free to incite murder" to "free to always agree with Reform" and "free to hide Reform's incompetence and infighting from the public". Thank Dog they chose to ape only the Orange Baboon this time, and not their other role model Vladimir Putin, who is fond of more radical solutions like having journalists shot in the head by his goons. So the plausibility of big turquoise blobs all over the place from Berwick to Hereford remains high for now.

Of course, the biggest political event of the year may well happen in Greater Manchester, with a by-election allowing Andy Burnham's return to Commons and, more importantly, as a contender in the incoming Labour leadership race. SW1 rumours mention the plausibility of a Labour MP in the area retiring over health concerns. At first, I educatedly guessed it may be Graham Stringer in Blackley and Middleton South, the oldest MP in that neck of the woods at 75. But the SW1 grapevine says it will be Andrew Gwynne in Gorton and Denton, who is not even sitting on the Labour benches anymore after some definitely unwoke WhatsApp ramblings, but has reportedly asked the Speaker for a medical discharge. Both are first-tier Reform targets, but Gorton and Denton looks a wee smitch less risky. Time is of the essence here as Burnham's obvious strategy is to make things happen quickly, before the May 2026 elections. But the other likely contenders, let's say Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, certainly want to push that until after predicted disasters at the English locals and the Senedd election. Streeting to consolidate his support beyond its current "reasonable centrist" core, Rayner to recover from her stamp duty debacle. All we can expect for sure is a lively post-Conference season for the beleaguered Labour Party.

Farage has gone to the US to tell them Britain is ”awful”. If you don’t like it over here, Nigel, maybe don’t catch a return flight.

(Ed Davey, 3 September 2025)

The problems that my constituents face every day, Nigel Farage doesn’t produce solutions for them. And I have to say the BBC has to raise its game to expose Nigel Farage.

(Ed Davey, 16 July 2025)

There is another fun story unfolding in the Leafy South, that of The Curious Incident Of Reform At Kent Council. The newly elected Reform majority there has already proven crassly incompetent, as everybody with more than a pea as brain fully expected, but also totally unwilling to learn how to be better at the job. Instead they spend all their time biting each other's arse off, which would be funny if it didn't mean a total dereliction of duty, and one of the richest Councils in England falling apart. Even their own local organiser admits that they are all fucking wankers. But it still does not hurt their prospects in the most recent polls, which confirm that the turquoise stain has extended into the once reluctant South, at roughly the same levels as in the North and Midlands. They are even biting off chunks off the Labour vote in London, and totally chewing and swallowing them. The Labour vote has fallen by roughly the same amount in the Imperial Capital as anywhere else. But, as they started from higher, it represents a smaller proportion and will lead to less damage to their number of seats.

More raucus happened earlier this month at Great Yarmouth, the town that elected Rupert Lowe MP, formerly of Reform UK and now the founder and one of two members of Restore Britain, an outfit that makes Farage sound like a cultural Marxist. A whiter shade of beyond the pale will surely be of great help repelling and repealing small-boaters, just as our four fathers repulsed German battlecruisers on the prowl. It might even prove more efficient than blaring out Coldplay, cranked up to 11, off the White Supremacist Cliffs Of Dover. In the meanwhile, even incompetence and chaos don't seem enough to drive voters away from jumping off the turquoise cliffs of Clacton, as Reform are still predicted a massive harvest of seats all across the South, including gains in Starmer's and Corbyn's back garden. Once again the Liberal Democrats, losing a few in the South West and gaining a few in the South East, come out as the unlikely Barrage To Farage despite unflattering polling from YouGov. That's when having been out of the corridors of power for ten years proves an unexpected bonus, undoubtedly helped by Mister Ed's magic powers. Or summat.

But the Leafy South is now facing another clear and present danger, the return of Liz Truss. Don't break a rib laughing, mates, it is fucking serious, to the point that YouGov actually polled it. And found that only a tiny fringe think that Truss' return to frontline politics would be a good thing, even in her native Leafy South. Even Conservative voters don't cherish the thought of her return, and nobody at CCHQ Party has begged her to come back. Then she still has the magic option, coming back as a Reform UK asset, like Nadine Dorries before her, who went from writing the unreadable to thinking the unthinkable with no apparent effort. That would be the world telt how fucking serious she is.

To contextualise the ambitions of the shortest-lived Prime Minister in British history, remember that the good people of South West Norfolk sent her packing last year on a 26% swing to Labour. For more context, the UK-wide swing was 11% from the Conservatives to Labour, and regionally in East Anglia, it was 16%. Truss lost 68% of her 2019 votes, while the Global Conservative Party lost "only' 51% both UK-wide and locally in East Anglia. Bear in mind too that South West Norfolk had been in Tory hands for 60 years uninterrupted, as even the Blairslide of 1997 failed to toggle it. Truss probably thinks there is still hope for her, as she is only 50 and her obvious role model, The Donald, is now 79, even though it would be a wee smitch optimistic to call him alive and kicking. More to the point, presumably, William Ewart Gladstone started his fourth and final term at 82, and he was fitter than the Orange Baboon. But Truss' window of opportunity has probably slammed shut already. Her favourite talking point, Make Britain Great Again, has been hijacked by the Clacton Mussolini, and the MAGA mob she has tried so hard to seduce have put all their tenners on him, not her, So long, Loser Liz...

What I've always been obsessed with is I want Britain to be a great nation again, and I'm depressed about how far we've sunk, the fact that we don't make things the same way we used to.

(Liz Truss, The Master Investor, 3 September 2025)

Politics drive me crazy, and I don't like talking politics. Politics get in the way of things, they get in the way of getting things done.

(James Hetfield)

One important factor, that rarely gets mentioned, if at all, is how the British public's mood evolves when facing shocking events and unexpected developments. Are you more of a Glen Miller, or more of a Geddy Lee on that? Thank Dog for YouGov never missing a beat, as they have actually surveyed our collective psyche weekly for the last six years. They started during that nerve-racking interregnum between Theresa May's resignation and Boris Johnson's accession, which was kind of the right moment to start, and have done it every Wednesday since. Quite below the radars, though, as I noticed it in their library of trackers only a month ago. YouGov explored the various components of our mood with a list of twelve items, that I divided into three quartets for clearer charts, grouping those who are most consistent, adjacent and complementary. The game is to pick three items that best represent your current mood, so the total is never 100%, but more like 280% once you have weeded out the "other" and "don't know". First thing first, are Brits happy and energetic?

Now, if you click on the fucking chart to get a full-screen one, and get a magnifying glass from your Nan to see the dates more clearly, you can pinpoint quite precisely when our mood swings happened, and thusly guess why. The first big drop in our self-declared happiness coincided with the First Great Lockdown, which won't surprise anyone. Then we got happy again when Rishi Sunak told us there was no harm in spreading the virus so long as we supported business by eating out at Wagamama, and then felt bad when the inevitable happened and Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas. If you cruise down the green line closer to the present day, you will see that the next sharp drop in happiness happened during Liz Truss' blissfully short Premiership, and then we got happy again. Quite a pattern here, innit? Interestingly, we have never felt happier at any point since Johnson's early days than right now under Starmer. So much for the doomsayers. But that doesn't make us more energetic, though peak apathy was reached in the spring of 2021, when we slowly emerged from the Covid Hibernation, and didn't feel really happy about it. There is some intriguing stuff in the second batch too.

Brits are definitely like Capaldi. Jim, that is, not the atrocious Lewis, because we do feel so uninspired. Not just sometimes, but pretty much all the time. But who needs inspiration, when going through the motions is enough to earn your keep, especially if you're a civil servant at Whitehall? This is probably why we feel happy under Starmer, as he has made avoidance of risk evidence of sound leadership, and thusly set the tone for a nation of risk-averse Goggleboxers drooling over reruns of Bargain Hunt. The patterns of frustration and stress are quite revealing too, in that there is no pattern. No obvious one you could link to specific events, except for peak frustration covering the whole timespan of the two Great Lockdowns, which is bound to happen when you have nothing better to do than watching reruns of Bargain Hunt. So, we do look like a whole country of permafrustrated and permsstressed, and YouGov didn't even identify the permaoffended that have blossomed during the years of peak wokeism, because of the abhorrent cisheteronormative bias in reruns of Bargain Hunt. The final part of the tracker is surely the most important, dealing with our fears and boredom.

We were peak scared at the time of the First Great Lockdown, a lot less when the Second Great Lockdown happened after we had eaten out too much, and then there is another spike around the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, during that short period when it looked like Ukraine would be flooded by the New Model Soviet hordes. Other than that, nothing really scares us, not even the recently-discovered plausibility of a Russian agent getting into Number Ten. We are actually quite content, whatever YouGov intends that to mean, in a way that is fairly similar to the earlier trendline about our feeling of happiness. We are also more content now under Starmer than we were last year under Sunak. Eat that, naysayers. But the funniest part is embedded in the two most visible spikes during the Age Of Lockdowns. We were not scared, we were fucking bored, and even more so the second time around, just like we were fucking frustrated. That's what the BBC offering nothing better than mass reruns of Bargain Hunt does to your brain, mates.

I have a lot of faith in mankind that we will overcome and adapt. We have a lot of smart people on this planet that will make something good out of bad.

(James Hetfield)

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Jeremy's Den

21/09/2025

Sniff Your Shit In The Wind

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Sniff Your Shit In The Wind