This morning Nigel Farage was making a total fool of himself when supporting Elon Musk's utterly unacceptable comments on Jess Phillips (whether you like her, or not) and in the process implicitly supported Musk's call for the release of the so-called Tommy Robinson.
This afternoon Musk had this to say, the Tweet being accepted as reliable by reputable media sources:
First of all, that's quite funny because quite literally Farage is Reform. He owns and controls it.
Second, it's funny because of the total mess it leaves Farage in.
Third, and more significantly, this reveals the totally shambolic and destructive nature of the politics of the far right in which Farage, Musk, Trump, Reform and so on are engaged. These people only know about hate, enmity and chaos.
They have no idea what they do want.
They have no policies to offer.
There is, quite literally, no political question to which they have an answer.
But, as much as each of those statements is true, they also know no limits to which they will not go in their desire to destroy, including a willingness to sacrifice each other.
Maybe we should count our blessings that in the case of this fallout between big tech and the far right in the UK the only victim will be Farage, because he has no real power. In the USA, it is going to be very much worse. The descent into chaos may be just as rapid there, but the price will be very much greater.
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Richard, in a normal world you would now expect Reform to wither away.
Regrettably in the UK the main stream media and their owners are fixated on perpetuating Farage as the “voice of the people.”
“Third, and more significantly, this reveals the totally shambolic and destructive nature of the politics of the far right in which Farage, Musk, Trump, Reform and so on are engaged.”
“they also know no limits to which they will not go in their desire to destroy, including a willingness to sacrifice each other.”
I really think this is a great development because if the far-fight destroys itself (which it well) then it saves me the effort, time and money in having to become involved in this destruction campaign myself.
However, if my enemy is digging himself into a very deep hole, I may get motivate to buy him an extra shovel and lend him a hand.
FYI: As Trump continues to proclaim his polices with different conflicting polices appearing daily, many (and I mean a metric-F#*K-tonne many), die hard hard MAGAts and Democrat turned Trump voters are having MAJOR buyer’s remorse.
Are you seeing that?
YES!
Trump voters have been “slapped in the face” and woke-up to the fact tariffs (any tariffs) will have direct negative tangible benefit to their household.
Also, there are also have lots & lots of the people who realize that any changes to Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid will have a negative benefit on “Mama and Daddy” and they may have to step-in to take-up the slack and provide direct financial help to their parents.
The important thing is that this is publicised.
I can only keep my fingers crossed that it will all end in acrimony.
Tim Snyder points this out in his most recent book as well – The Right knows what it is ‘against’, and on that alone it can coalesce around that. But as we know, being in power is more about just that – there has to be an agreement about what you are ‘for’ in terms of answers.
I bet some of the centre Right think that Trump will moderate himself in power – just like they did when Hitler got into power – but this might be unwinding already.
It is a salutary reminder that we must be a bit more open minded and hopeful about these politicians and the misled souls who vote for them.
The belief that Trump will moderate is as misplaced as the one some had about Keir Starmer revealing what he would do once he won power.
The Far Right are imploding and self-immolating but poor Keir Starmer keeps getting criticised on all sides for things which he was ultimately not responsible for!!
This is why the right-wing and centre-right politicians will be perpetually in power, even when not in elected office. The far left, the left-wing and centre-left are obsessed with attacking each other and battling for ideological purity. They don’t quite realise what they are against.
You do realise that Starmer is nowhere near the left, don’t you?
I don’t think most leftward critics of Starmer require ideological purity, just some policies and actions that benefit people and planet. And Starmer IS responsible for being useless – can’t blame that on anyone else!
Musk is doing what he does, fighting with everyone and fumbling around but there is some kind of method there whether we like it or not.
The right definitely does have a plan, it’s all there to see if you read Project 2025. Each right wing group has their own angle but they are pulling in a similar direction and once they are in charge they can figure out how to buy each other off with the spoils from their ransacking of the state.
All this stuff about buyers remorse on the part of the Trump voters makes no sense, he’s not even in the seat yet.
My argument is they have no positive plan, only a negative one.
Musk is on a power trip
Only trump can take him down only trump makes him relevant
I found it all highly amusing, but I don’t think it will hurt F***ge much. Not yet anyway. He still has his BBC season ticket and selected audience on BBC Question Time and soft handling on interviews by ineffective media stenographers.
But Re***m’s main assets are the PM and LOTO and their complete inability to engage with the things voters deem important, or to develop anything sounding like a vision, let alone a policy.
He is still the undeserving beneficiary of “protest votes”, which he can harvest without having any of his own coherent policies either, and he knows that Starmer is too frightened to attack him.
Cost of living, NHS, Social Care, SEND, the courts & prisons, growing inequality. And the big one – how things get paid for.
Neither Labour, Tories, LDs, or Re***m have answers but we DO. 2025 – the year of communication, with a “We Can Do It” message.
Richard wrote “They have no idea what they do want.” I’m not sure that’s the case: what they undoubtedly seek is ever-increasing personal wealth and to achieve this they seek to control political power, but only as a means to acquire greater wealth; they have no real interest in the day-to-day minutiae of politics, hence their obsession with shrinking the state – they can off-load all that tedious toil to people and organisations with lower wealth expectations.
Becoming ever-wealthier will also satisfy another of their demands (although never fully): feeding their insatiable egos. We’ve all come across people with inflated opinions of themselves, but probably never on the scale of Trump, Musk, Farage etc. It would be interesting to read a psychiatrist’s report on these people: their self-obsession may well be classed a mental illness. Then people might realise they’ve been taken for fools.
You’re right.
I should have said they have no macro-concept of what they want. They only have micro, or personal, goals.
Lesson learned.
Crazy thoughts (must have been the glass of wine I just consumed). Musk (err Tesla UK) finances the next Reform leader of his choice to buy out Farage’s majority Reform PLC shares and … voila … it’s done, the next leader is in place. No messy democracy stuff to deal with. Farage presumably banks a tidy profit and shifts himself into the Tory Party; he’s happy. Musk (preceded by a Mar A Lago tete a tete with Trump) gets the leader of his (their) choice; they are happy.
This is Musk’s choice
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Lowe
He’ll get a very low rate of return.
For those of you near the South Coast, this is closest to the local view of Lowe:
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/18221981.ruperts-lowe-down-different-mine/
Well, Lowe crawled out of the sewer today to utter obscene inflammatory racist lies with the protection of parliamentary privilege. Fa***e was even worse, using violent language about rifle shots and shotguns.
Of course they are despicable, but they thrive on condemnation.
A reminder of another sort of extremist, an extremist for love (never to be confused with pious passive do-goodery & niceness).
Remeber, these words of Martin Luther King Jr’s were written from jail in Birmingham, Alabama.
https://npg.si.edu/blog/excerpt-letter-birmingham-jail
At 12.41hrs today, Lowe introduced a 10 min Rule Bill to prohibit QE.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-01-08/debates/8B7172B2-ADDA-4448-B830-D96FAF3FAD5E/QuantitativeEasing(Prohibition)
It’s a garbled mess, but you might find his comments give you a window to talk about money, interest rates, the role of the BoE etc.
But handle with care.
Reading his twisted logic it looks to me as if the advance of MMT in public awareness has been noticed, and the smeargame has begun. He mentions coin clipping, Henry VIII coin debasement, the Weimar republic inflation, the perils of hyper inflation in banana republics – every evil association you could imagine.
But there are opportunities there for the next time you are facing an MSM microphone, or looking at a blank scree preparing to write for your The National column. Or even a FtF video…
I gave been in the Palace of Westminster tonight. I will read this and comment, maybe, in the morning.
Something I forgot to include about Lowe’s speech introducing his anti-QE 10 minute bill on Wedneday 8th Jan.
He promotes gold.
His rhetoric may have the effect of inflating gold prices.
Interestingly he botched the formalities of naming the sponsors of the bill, perhaps to cover up that 4 Reform UK MPs are sponsoring it but he didn’t name Fa***e as a sponsor.
Which is interesting as Fa***e has a paid lobbying job promoting gold.
I wonder if any person of influence will follow that up?
I will get to this – but not today
Like his (for now) buddy Trump, Musk is tweeting obsessively at all hours of the day and night and he has clearly lurched hard right in the past year. He has lost many billions in buying Twitter, but it provides him with a unique bully pulpit to motivate his 210 million followers and influence the political debate in any country that he picks on. The fall-out with Farage shows his intolerance and meglomania, as if we needed more evidence.
The interesting question is how long will Trump put up with being in Musk’s shadow, which he clearly is at present. Despite the $270 million of campaign donations from Musk, I give the bromance a year at most, and when it comes the breakup could be very bitter indeed. Trump is notoriously thin-skinned and won’t like being on the receiving end of Musk’s daily attacks and insults. He is certain to respond in kind and may even try to cancel some of Musk’s highly lucrative government contracts.
I really can’t see it lasting a year.
A.R. Moxon has written an excellent blog post today. Well worth a read. He points out that the Right has strong leaders hell-bent on implementing their ideas (reprehensible though such ideas actually are), whereas the Left has been compromising up the wazoo in a futile attempt to woo the centre-right (which is a lost cause, because such voters love a strong leader). So Left-leaning voters have lost faith and interest in their ‘leaders’ and just stay home on polling days. Pretty much what we all believe, but well expressed…
https://www.the-reframe.com/being-more-like-republicans/
Perhaps Musk will buy Farage out, take over Reform and install someone else?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Lowe
This is his choice
A real asshole’s asshole. Climate denier, amongst other impressive beliefs.
At this moment most of the political energy is clearly on the Right, both in the US and Europe. In the UK we have a feeble centrist dad PM who is leeching support by the day through a combination of barely watered-down neoliberalism and sheer political ineptitude. The same story is true in France and Germany. In the USA a centrist grandad has been replaced by a racist rightwing grandad who will foment domestic and international chaos from day one.
And the biggest single issue driving this rightwing surge is immigration, both legal and illegal. Unless Labour honestly faces up to this issue in 2025, it will be heading for a huge defeat in 2029. It needs to make the case for legal immigration of essential workers into an ageing population. But it also needs to stop the boats and face down the open borders fantasists like Diane Abbott. I’m not at all optimistic that it will do either.
Go on then. Suggest a solution.
Make it legal.
Make it ethical.
Make it affordable.
And justify it.
And try doing so without giving those who want to come to the UK free tickets on ferries – which is the on,y way to stop the boats full of people, most of whom know they have a legal right to be here.
Do that, or please don’t call again.
Your choice.
This BBC story shows that most of the small boats people are from Vietnam. They are clearly economic migrants, not asylum-seekers:
“In the six months to June, Vietnamese made up the largest number of recorded small boat arrivals with 2,248 landing in the UK, ahead of people from countries with well-documented human rights problems, including Afghanistan and Iran…Yet most Vietnamese have learned to live with the ruling party, which leans for legitimacy on its record of delivering growth. Very few who go to Britain are fleeing repression. Nor are the migrants generally fleeing poverty. The World Bank has singled Vietnam out for its almost unrivalled record of poverty reduction among its 100 million people. Rather, they are trying to escape what some call “relative deprivation”.
Despite its impressive economic record, Vietnam started far behind most of its Asian neighbours, with growth only taking off well after the end of the Cold War in 1989. As a result, average wages, at around £230 a month, are much lower than in nearby countries like Thailand, and three-quarters of the 55-million-strong workforce are in informal jobs, with no security or social protection.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8y3l7e2vjo
You do realise that the number quoted is a very small proportion of those arriving by boat, don’t you?
I am wondering what your aim is. The vast majority arriving prove they have a valid claim to stay. Economic migrants do not? So what is your point? Please explain, precisely.
And since I come from a family of economic migrants, what is your problem with them?
I’d love to be in the room when President Musk and his assistant, Donald Trump fall out. Or have I got that a bit wrong? Anyway …
I’m amused by the assertion that the right wingers get in because of ideological purity arguments on the Left. Most people using that argument have NO clue as to where in the Overton Window these reside, especially when they describe a centrist authoritarian politician like Starmer as ‘left’. They also don’t know that most democratic socialist/social democrat policies are heavily supported by the UK population (as ascertained by polls even by right wing organisations), especially nationalisation of key services and kicking private health out of the NHS. That’s why Farage espouses some of them!
Don’t be too presumptuous about where the general population lie on the political spectrum and whether they have any genuine interest in political ideas. It is too simplistic for the chattering classes to ascribe labels to particular viewpoints and to then decide what it is that the average person is attracted to or not in favour of. Polling data prior to 2019 showed that the majority of the UK population sat slightly to the right of Tory Party MPs on many issues! [The odious Matthew Goodwin has openly discussed this.] Of course the Parliamentary Conservative Party are quite distinct from Conservative Party members and their right-wing activists… Most commentators have no idea where the Overton Window really lies, which is how they got the horror show of the Brexit referendum so terribly wrong.
It is rather 20th Century to divide the populus up into discrete labels of liberal, socialist, right-wing, democratic socialist, centrist, far left, anarcho-capitalist etc. The distinctions between people’s stated political beliefs and what they actually vote for are more blurred than ever. The modern phenomenon of extreme polarization has tricked commentators and some academics into believing that it is rather easy to divide voters up.
When people are asked by pollsters do they want more provided for them they rarely say ‘no thanks’. When potential voters are given the option of better public investment they rarely say no to that. Some even agree that they would be willing to pay more taxes to fund such projects. However, when it comes to the ballot box voters rarely back up their answers to polling questions. They are mostly reactive i.e. they want to punish the current administration and/or they are selfish and vote for what they believe is best for them and their immediate family. It is naked, raw, human self-interest.
Ultimately, most people would like what some used to call ‘more money in their pockets’. We want some freedom to decide what to buy and when. We want functioning public services, clean water, to be able to get a GP appointment, warmth, lighting and food. When these services falter or things become scarce we start to get angry. I had no running water last Christmas and vowed never to vote for the government after that. (There were a multitude of other reasons of course!!) That is why incumbent governments almost always fall after a big economic downturn. Bill Clinton’s adviser was absolutely on the money.
When times are hard the population leans towards more authoritarian ideas and yearn for some charisma and “leadership”, so they support ‘strong men’ with aggressive authoritarian policies. In contrast, when times are more prosperous the population look at libertarian policies and become more welcoming towards aliens and minorities. This classic humanity and has been repeated time and time again, throughout history.
I have no idea who you are, but I think you come with an agenda.
Almost all surveys show Labour’s 2019 manifesto was popular, especially on economics.
Most people support nationalisation.
Most are socially liberal.
They aren’t on tax and migration.
You seem to be over- generalising.
Dear Richard,
I don’t come with any “agenda” or ideology. I describe some of my own personal experience and look at a wide variety of sources – left, right and centre to collate evidence. As I said, due to how polarized our societies have become people readily jump to conclusions about different positions, on a variety of issues and then decide which side of the fence people lie, or that they may have a particular agenda. My particular standpoint is less authoritarian and more socially liberal than the average British citizen. That means that there are probably many people more libertarian and a bit more ‘left-wing’ than me. Well of course there are statistically, but so what?
I am an ethnic minority with a mixed family, whose ancestors were colonized by the British. Some of my ancestors were stigmatised and murdered for “collaboration” with the missionaries and Empire builders during the colonial era. Some of my relatives were murdered after the rapid de-colonization and my family had to flee. Technically, I was a political refugee but a large number of my relatives are economic refugees like members of your family…
I despise the likes of Farage, Tice and Lowe and feel repulsed that they are given so much airtime. I detest the foppish Etonian, David Cameron for agreeing to that absurd, binary EU referendum. I absolutely hate that clown A.B. de Pfeffel who pretended to be a politician for so long.
I would describe myself as proudly in the ‘centre’ and abhor the pejorative insults and condescending tone that many politically homeless people like me are routinely subjected to. Most of us did not grow up in political households, we did not study PPE or Economics at University and we have not worked in finance. However, that does not make us illegitimate and unable to form an opinion on how our society should function.
As for Rupert Lowe. He really is up there with the conspiracy cranks! Even his alleged direct quote of Woodrow Wilson, that is recorded in Hansard, is actually a well worn Internet mash up of different speeches… Woodrow said in 1913, BEFORE the Federal Reserve was created: “A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.”
I am hoping that more people will spend a lot more of their time sifting through complex ideas, reading the original sources, debating in detail and collaborating across disciplines than making barbed comments online. This particular site has many sound contributors with a wealth of experience. I am very grateful to read, absorb ideas and learn. However, at times it is often feels rather tribal and tin eared, like an echo chamber – more suited for people to hurl polite/impolite insults and moan about how crap everything and everyone is. We all know that things are shite in the UK and have been royally messed up over the last two decades. However, Britain did not achieve these things solely by itself. We are part of an interconnected World which is in turmoil.
Thank you for your time.
We have no obligation to accept people who arrive illegally and are fleeing from poverty rather than persecution. You appear to make no distinction between the two categories. There are legal channels for immigration – last year about 1.3 million arrived legally.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2024/summary-of-latest-statistics
Of course I can differentiate categories of migrant.
I can also spot a racist comment.
No one can arrive here illegally if they plan to make an asylum claim. International law makes that clear. In my experience onky racists ignore that.
We can deny asylum to those who have an invalid claim, but that still does not make the claim illegal.
You are banned. Trolls are taking longer to reveal their true identities. You took 30 comments. But I don’t care how long it takes, I will still not tolerate comments of the type you made.