He could be honest with the public about the scale of the challenges facing Britain. He won’t be Daily Telegraph 05/07/26 Link Even some Labour supporters who wanted shot of the hapless Sir Keir Starmer, and have flocked to Andy Burnham, quietly express reservations about the difficulties ahead. Some winced when he refused to take questions from the media after his fatuous devolution speech last Monday. Others note that his promises – such as finding more money for defence without attacking Labour’s benefit-dependent clientele by imposing “crude” welfare cuts – will require some unpleasantness if they are to be kept. Mr Popularity might all too easily become Mr Unpopularity, as many recent prime ministers have shown. Few, including some in Labour, would be surprised if by Christmas he were just as unpopular as Sir Keir. There are many reasons. As Mendès France said, gouverner, c’est choisir : to govern is to choose. Can he take the choices required? As well as keeping his promise...
In triggering a by-election in Clacton, he has disarmed the media elites and empowered working-class people. Spiked 07 July 2026 Link With righteous indignation, Nigel Farage has resigned today as MP for Clacton, triggering a by-election that he intends to fight. He’s giving up his seat in the hope he’ll win it back. Why? Because he believes it should be ordinary people, not the turbo-smug media classes, who determine his destiny. ‘Why should they be the people that decide my fate?’, he asked, spitting out the word ‘they’ with highly warranted contempt. Only ‘the people of Clacton’ should be ‘the judges of my actions’, he said. It’s a bold move. For it wrestles Farage’s fate – and the future of populism itself – from the whining and mudslinging of the cloistered media classes and returns it to the cool deliberation of the people. It was in a televised press conference that he made his announcement. His voice quivering with rage, he slammed the media for obsessing over allegedly dodgy d...