Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

Richard Tice claims vote was not ‘free and fair’ and says his party’s campaign was subject to death threats and racist abuse Source - Daily Telegraph - 01/03/24 Richard Tice has claimed the Rochdale by-election was not “free and fair” after Reform UK’s candidate and campaigners allegedly suffered abuse and death threats. The Reform UK leader also questioned a sharp rise in the number of postal votes cast, saying they were “unquestionably open to significant abuse”, though he did not provide evidence of voting irregularities to support the claim. In an angry speech at the count in Rochdale leisure centre he reeled off a series of allegations about the mistreatment of his party’s campaign team. Simon Danczuk, a former Labour MP for the Greater Manchester town, has been representing Reform UK in an ill-tempered by-election battle. Mr Tice said that Mr Danczuk and his team had been “subjected to death threats” and “suffered vile racist abuse” during the campaign He added that they had been...

From Simon Danczuk to George Galloway – here is the full list of those appearing on Thursday’s ballot in Rochdale Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/02/24 Link Voting to elect a new MP for Rochdale will take place this week, following the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd in January. It will mark the third by-election this month, with votes in Kingswood and Wellingborough having taken on Thursday Feb 15. Rochdale has been held by Labour since 2010, though former MP Simon Danczuk briefly represented the constituency as an independent MP after his suspension from the party in 2015. Sir Tony enjoyed a majority of 9,668 at the 2019 general election, meaning many people had expected Labour to take victory. But Labour’s decision to withdraw support for candidate Azhar Ali has meant that all bets are off. Here is the full list of candidates standing in the Rochdale by-election on Feb 29. Azhar Ali Labour withdrew its support for councillor Azhar Ali after he was embroiled in an anti-Semitism row a...

Budapest parliament approves the Nordic nation’s accession following a deal to buy Swedish fighter jets Source - Daily Telegraph 26/02/24 Link Nato leaders hailed a historic moment for European security on Monday as Sweden joined the alliance, drawing to a close a two-year process marred by resistance from Hungary and Turkey. The last hurdle stopping Sweden from joining Nato was removed after Hungary’s parliament approved the Nordic nation’s accession following a deal to sell Swedish fighter jets to Budapest. Rishi Sunak said the moment marked “a historic day for our alliance”, while Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said it would “safeguard our collective security today and tomorrow”. Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, whose country shares a land border with Russia, said Sweden’s accession “sends a signal to Russia: attempts to blackmail Nato away from its neighbourhood have failed”. Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato Secretary General, also welcomed Hungary’s ratification. Nearly...

Rishi Sunak starts yet another week in damage control mode as he battles to contain the fallout from the Lee Anderson furore, with pressure from all sides to get the balance right. Source - Daily Telegraph 26/02/24 Link PM denies Tory Party has ‘Islamophobic tendencies’ Sunak may have been hoping to kick off the week of the Rochdale by-election on the offensive, taking Labour to task over the fact it has had to disown its candidate over an anti-Semitism row. Instead, in a grilling bright and early on local radio, he was forced to deny the Conservative Party has a problem with Islamophobia. It comes after Anderson - a deputy party chairman until six weeks ago - claimed “Islamists” had “got control” of the Mayor of London. Labour has urged Sunak to call the remarks Islamophobic, with equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and her shadow Anneliese Dodds getting into a spat on social media over how to define the term. Asked if the Conservative Party has “Islamophobic tendencies”, Sunak told BBC...

Israel-Hamas conflict is ‘generational moment' of radicalisation, police chief warns as Sunak says protests being ‘hijacked' Source - Daily Telegraph - 24/02/24 Link Private security is being deployed to protect MPs amid warnings that the Israel-Hamas conflict is a “generational radicalising moment”, The Telegraph can reveal. Security personnel working for private firms are guarding constituency surgeries and providing close protection for a growing number of politicians who are assessed to be at risk by the authorities. One MP who has accepted Parliament-funded protection at constituency meetings warned that “people are underestimating” the threat to politicians from extremists. Some female MPs are also now being driven in chauffeur driven cars as part of a move to “close the gap” between protection given to Cabinet ministers as standard and measures for backbenchers now also considered highly vulnerable. The number of MPs requiring protection is believed to have risen in the ...

Draft manifesto unveiled by party leader Richard Tice piles pressure on Chancellor to go further with tax cuts in spring Budget Source - Daily Telegraph 23/02/24 Link The Reform Party would raise the 40p income tax threshold to £70,000, The Telegraph can reveal. In a draft election manifesto due to be unveiled on Saturday, Reform proposes changes to ensure seven million people pay no income tax at all. Richard Tice today unveils his party’s election promises to reverse Rishi Sunak’s stealth tax, piling pressure on the Chancellor to go further and faster in next month’s Budget. The document also calls for marked reductions in stamp duty, inheritance tax and corporation tax, as well as tax relief to incentivise going private for education and health care. The proposals together go far beyond the tax cuts being looked at by Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, and Mr Sunak for the March 6 Budget, possibly the last before the general election. Tory MPs are clamouring for major tax cuts but economi...

 Regardless of his intentions, Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s grievous ruling has shaken the foundations of our democracy Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/02/24 Whether Sir Lindsay Hoyle can survive as Commons Speaker will depend largely on the extent to which he is now viewed as a Labour Speaker. That label did not provoke much difficulty for Sir Lindsay’s predecessor in the chair, John Bercow, who compounded his blatant bias towards the official opposition with an unambiguous opposition to Brexit and to Donald Trump. That was enough to keep any challenge at bay, even after Bercow had outstayed his welcome by serving far longer than the period he had promised when he first stood as Speaker in 2009. The fact remains that on this occasion, Sir Lindsay has been convicted, by his own apology, of making the wrong ruling yesterday, and it can hardly be denied that it was both unprecedented and a huge relief for the Labour Party. To cut a very long and process-driven story short, House of Commons conv...

Commons will debate today three different proposals for how the fighting between Israel and Hamas should end Source - Daily Telegraph - 21/02/23 Link Sir Keir Starmer faces another major test of his authority as MPs vote for a second time on Wednesday afternoon on backing a ceasefire in Gaza. The Commons is set to debate up to three different proposals for how to end the fighting which have been put forward by the three main parties. It will be a huge moment for the Labour leader, who last November faced his biggest rebellion in office when 56 MPs revolted to vote for a truce. On that occasion, 10 frontbenchers, including eight shadow ministers, resigned from their posts to support an SNP proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. Now a vote has once again been triggered by the SNP, which has used one of its opposition days to table a motion calling for an “immediate ceasefire”. Labour has put down a similar amendment of its own as Sir Keir shifts position once again to try and avoid another da...

 Nice democracy you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it. Source - Low Status Opinions 20/02/24 Link   Please don’t call them ‘anti semites’. They are instead ‘pro Palestinians’. Which is very different. I’m guessing. Sure, they concede, on October 7 2023, Hamas snuck across the (suspiciously unguarded) Israeli border. Raped a few privileged kids at a music festival. (When was the last time kids in Gaza got a music festival??!) Shot up a few nanas at a bus stop. Meh. Beheaded hardly any babies. Killed twelve hundred people. (Although I’m not sure I can actually quote that number with any authority, after all, I’m not a coroner.) And kidnapped a few girls, who literally waved to their captors later, when they were quickly released. Yes, they admit, all this did happen. Apart from maybe the rapes. Because I’ve not seen any video evidence. And the rule of course is #believeallwomen and #doubtallJews. Anyhoo. All that might have possibly occurred. Maybe. But in its re...

 Where Britain's new populist revolt could hit hard Source  - Matt Goodwin 19/02/24 There’s a new third force in British politics. And it’s going to have a major impact on the country’s rapidly approaching general election. That’s the key message from the by-elections last week, which saw the insurgent Reform party, led by Richard Tice and overseen by honorary president Nigel Farage, surge into third place, well ahead of the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Critics will note Reform is nowhere near as strong as its two main predecessors, namely the Brexit Party, which polled 30% at the 2019 European Parliament elections, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which averaged 38% across the final by-elections before the 2015 general election. And they have a point. Reform’s 10% of the vote in Kingswood and 13% in Wellingborough, alongside its average rating of 10% in the national polls, pale in comparison. And these numbers don’t bode well. Put it this way, if Nigel Farage and UK...

 By- Elections, recession and a party in decline.  Source - Matt Goodwin - 16/02/24 When Rishi Sunak was appointed prime minister his supporters proclaimed the ‘adults were back in charge’. After the experiments with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, the Conservative Party was back in the hands of grown-ups. What the party needed, what the British people wanted, what the country craved, we were told, was a return to pragmatic, polished and professional Tories who knew what they were doing, who understood what the British people wanted. That was the narrative in Westminster. That was the narrative pushed on by the likes of William Hague and the commentariat. That was the narrative cultivated by Team Sunak and countless critics of Johnson and Truss. And that was the narrative which underpinned the appointment —not the election— of Rishi Sunak. But now take a look around. How are the adults performing? Last night, at the latest by-elections, at the latest test of the public mood befor...

 Economic inactivity was instrumental in pushing Britain into recession   Getting people into the labour market has proved an insurmountable ideological challenge   Successive governments have failed to make the tough reforms needed to get people into work Source - Capx 16/02/24 Link It’s rare at present for conservative commentators to agree with the Office for National Statistics. But its recent focus on the role of this country’s high level of worklessness – especially in response to yesterday’s news that the United Kingdom has entered a recession – is an exception. The basic argument is perfectly orthodox economics: lower employment means lower earnings, which leads to lower consumption, which leads to less growth. Grant Fitzner, the ONS’ chief economist, put it thus: ‘If more people were in work, consuming, producing, we would have higher GDP numbers, so the fact that economic activity fell significantly post-pandemic and has only partly recovered is one of the facto...

 Source - Daily Telegraph 16/02/24 Richard Holden, the chairman of the Conservative Party, described the Tories’ twin by-election losses as “very disappointing” after Labour cruised to victory in Kingswood and Wellingborough.  Labour snatched both seats away from the Conservatives overnight in a major blow to Rishi Sunak, with the Tories having now lost more by-elections in a single parliament than any administration since the 1960s. Mr Holden said he believed there was still a “good while to go before a general election” but he conceded it had been a bad night for his party.  He told Sky News: “Very disappointing results in both, no need to shy away from that, in both Kingswood and Wellingborough. I think one of the most disappointing things for me though was the turnout in the by-elections was so significantly down compared to the previous general elections in both seats and I want to see people actively participating in democracy.  “I think that shows that we have...

Hint that £28 billion U-turn is cutting through to voters as Sir Keir Starmer’s party’s lead falls by seven points Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/02/24 Labour’s lead over the Tories has fallen to its lowest level since last June as Sir Keir Starmer faces one of the most difficult periods of his leadership. The Savanta survey, conducted in the days after Sir Keir Starmer radically downgraded his flagship green spending pledge, put Labour on 41 per cent of the vote, down five points on two weeks before. Meanwhile, the Conservatives made a small gain of two points, placing the party on 29 per cent. It is Labour’s narrowest lead in any Savanta poll since June 2023, while its vote share is at its lowest since September 2022. The findings suggest Sir Keir’s dramatic change of heart on the £28 billion commitment, ridiculed by the Tories, may have cut through to the general public, spooking his supporters. Pollster Chris Hopkins said it shows Labour’s lead is not “infallible”, but warned agains...

 The Government’s belated new plans are all very well, but will hardly make a dent, given population pressures Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/02/24 Michael Gove fears that, if young people are unable to own their own properties, they will abandon democracy and fall into the clutches of extremists and autocrats. The Housing Secretary, who has had an almost unbroken tenure in the Cabinet since 2010, frets about the paucity of affordable housing and the impact this is having, as though it just recently became a problem. If only he had been in a position to do something about it these past 14 years. With an election looming, ministers now profess their deep sensitivity to the issues that are most likely to determine its outcome, yet are strangely in denial about their own role in bringing these circumstances about. Housing, or the lack of it, has been a potent political matter for 30 years or more without any discernible improvement. The Government’s target of building 300,000 new homes...