Owen Jones has declared that Nigel Farage is certain to win in Clacton. But can Count Binface’s appearance on The Rest Is Politics turn his fortunes around?
Jones went to Clacton and reports that the Reform leader has huge support, which he attempts to unpack in his Guardian column. He says “pessimism and exhaustion” are the answers…
There was talk from anti-Farage commentators and even some Lobby hacks when the by-election was called that Farage was at risk. Jones says: false…
The Green Party hacktivist concluded: “Count Binface isn’t going to win here. I found about two voters willing to say they were voting for him.“ Were they from Hope Not Hate…
This may well win the Guido Gold Medal for Peak Guardian Journalism:
“The world’s most vulnerable people will be put at risk by Andy Burnham’s decision to use the aid budget to pay for cheaper bus fares in England, charities have said… experts say it will also leave people in the poorest parts of the world more vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis.”
Burnham’s policy is to reduce the cap from £3 to £2, as it was under the Tories for several years. On reflection, this deserves the Gold. Congratulations to the Guardian for their achievement…
The Guardian has only published three stories on Henry Nowak. His killer Vikram Digwa was convicted last week, sentenced under the first set of charges yesterday…
The death of George Floyd in another country was immediately jumped on by the media. The Guardian published 26 stories about Floyd in the 30 days after his death. There were such commissioned comment headlines as “The racism that killed George Floyd was built in Britain” and longer pieces: “The life of George Floyd: ‘He knew how to make people feel better’.” The Guardian last published an article mentioning him yesterday – meanwhile it has published three factual stories so far in total on Nowak…
Nowak was murdered in December 2025 but the facts of the case, the IOPC self-referral, and the force’s referral itself were reportable from the outset. Restrictions are lifted and the Guardian can’t muster much interest…
It’s not just the Guardian – former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie said:
“When George Floyd died The Sun cleared its front page.
When Henry Nowak’s killer was sentenced to a minimum of 21 years and his dad made his moving speech, the Sun gave it 256 words back on Page 16.”
Two-tier…
Former Guardian editor and media standards bloviator Alan Rusbridger has been spending his time appearing in broadcast studios and writing articles on his special investigation into GB News. He claims that the channel is “driving a coach and horses through the laws that were put in place to define broadcasting in the UK” and that Ofcom has “more or less given up the ghost”…
Rusbridger seems to have forgotten his own record on media accountability. In 2020 he was appointed to the Irish’s government “Future of Media” commission, which was tasked with upholding journalistic standards. One year later Rusbridger was was forced to resign from it over a piece that Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade had written in 2014 – while Rusbridger was editor…
Greenslade wrote a piece stating that the BBC had been “too willing to accept” a statement from Máiría Cahill, a former Labour Senator, that she was raped by an alleged member of the IRA when she was 16. Rusbridger reportedly said he knew at the time that Greenslade was a supporter of Sinn Fein. In 2021, the issue resurfaced when Greenslade admitted to being “in complete agreement about the right of the Irish people to engage in armed struggle.” Even the Guardian’s “readers editor” said Greenslade “ought to have been open about his position,” and Rusbridger’s successor Katherine Viner said it “was not handled appropriately.“ Something something glass houses…
Another fail at Guardian towers over an extremely unsavoury article which appeared to justify vandalism on a branch of Gail’s bakery. The paper suggested opening a Gail’s near a Palestinian-owned cafe was provocative and said the Israeli-founded chain’s expansion was “aggressive”…
A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy said the article was “an astonishing exercise in bigotry disguised as moral commentary.” Inevitably a correction has been issued and reads:
“This article was amended on 17 March 2026. A reference to the arrival of Gail’s feeling like “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression” has been repositioned to clarify it meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders. Also, a comment contrasting activism that is capable of influencing global events with “small acts of petty symbolism”, which was not intended to minimise local vandalism but rather to suggest its misdirected futility, has been removed to avoid misunderstanding.”
Sure it meant that. Sure it did…
All is not well on that great ship of British journalism known as The Guardian. There is dissent in the ranks…
The newspaper has been deeply embarrassed by being caught up in the Labour Together ‘smeargate’ scandal – now imploding as one of the many disasters Starmer is currently fighting. The paper’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, approached left-wing writer Paul Holden and Labour Together critic to accuse him of being investigated by MI5…
As lefty magazine Tribune puts it today:
“Holden has stated publicly that in February 2024, he received an email from Pippa Crerar of the Guardian, informing him that the paper had seen information that he was being investigated by the security services and that the Guardian intended to run the story. Holden stood firm and told Crerar that the claim was defamatory and warned that he would sue if it were published. The story then evaporated, and Holden heard nothing whatever from the NCSC. One can only speculate how the security services regarded these attempts to draw them into political disputes.”
“This is a total ****show“, one Guardian reporter crowed to Guido, complaining that the paper should have had nothing to do with the now infamous ‘smeargate’ document provided to Labour Together by consultancy Acpo. The paper’s journalists – who consider themselves paragons of moral rectitude – are now asking how it can continue to cover Starmer at all. Would never have happened under former Guardian associate editor Seumas Milne…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”