Angela Rayner’s dubious housing situation from 2009 to 2015 was the talk of March. After it was revealed she sold her former council house – bought through the Right to Buy scheme – for a £48,500 profit, the question of whether she should’ve paid capital gains tax on it didn’t escape Guido’s eye. Rayner had registered her Vicarage Road home in Stockport as her main residence, yet her children were listed at her husband’s property just a mile away on Lowndes Lane. Her neighbour didn’t hold back, calling her a “f*cking liar” and claimed she was actually living at Lowndes Lane…
Guido also pointed out she would have breached electoral law by voting in multiple elections if she had been living with her husband, but still remained on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road. After Guido counted 43 days of dodging the media, Rayner finally faced the press, tearfully stonewalling and asking for “privacy” for her family. Meanwhile, any tax advice she received remains under wraps – despite her previous calls for Tory candidates to publish their tax returns. Perhaps that’s what finally pushed Owen Jones (40) to leave Labour that month…
It was further trouble in Talk Towers after Guido revealed that TalkTV is shifted off broadcast linear TV, becoming an online live streamer only instead now simply called Talk. Mass layoffs took place afterwards with two-thirds of the staff let go. They’re all YouTubers now…
Meanwhile the ever-rising GB News continued to be targeted by Ofcom after it ruled five GB News programmes hosted by Tory MPs broke impartiality rules. GB as usual didn’t shy away from slamming the “chilling” judgements while Farage blasted their “dirty tricks” to rule whether he was a ‘politician’ or not. Guido also revealed that economics editor Liam Halligan had quit GB News. He’s still proving hard to replace…
It was a tough month for the BBC, with “Disinformation Correspondent” Marianna Spring’s top scoop that “Trump supporters have been creating and sharing AI-generated fake images of black voters to encourage African Americans to vote Republican“ actually were just photos coming from an X parody account. The broadcaster also had to apologise for describing Reform as “far-right”…
Reform’s momentum rolled on, with Lee Anderson officially defecting to Reform to become their first MP, as did Tory Mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester, Dan Barker. Reform began to close the gap with the Tories in the polls, narrowing the difference to just four points that month. A trend that has only grown stronger since…
Honourable Mentions:
- Ofcom’s Publications Editor is Blatant Anti-Sunak, Anti-Tory Anti-Brexit Lefty
- Jenrick Confirms To Friends He Will Run for Tory Leader
- Lockdown Partygoers Let Off Despite WhatsApp Invite, Booze and Nibbles
Headline of Month: Dan Wootton Wins Substantial Damages from Daily Mirror
GB News received an early Christmas present with the latest BARB figures showing it has beaten rival Sky News again. Now a recurring theme…
Between Sunday 15th and Saturday 21st December, GB News secured a larger audience share than Sky News for each day of the week for the first time. This included beating Sky on a Saturday for the first time – with 62,700 viewers compared to Sky’s 58,800. Big…
And GB News is now closing in on the Beeb. Across the week, BBC News averaged 73,000 daily viewers with GB News closely following on 71,400, with Sky News trailing on 60,200. The BBC will surely fail harder in 2025…
Despite numerous politically motivated attacks, the People’s Channel continues to go from strength to strength. Happy Christmas…
So it’s now official that Rachel Reeves’s omnishambles budget has left the UK on the brink of recession thanks to the ONS downgrading growth figures. On the back of that comes this morning’s CBI report lambasting Labour for creating a “hostile environment for aspiration, investment and growth,” with all fingers are pointed at the budget. More specifically at its punitive tax hikes…
The Treasury claimed in the Budget red book that “Inheritance Tax Reform,” including APR changes and BPR changes, will raise £520 million annually by 2029. Questions have been raised about how exactly it arrived at this figure. There is a strong suspicion in SW1 that many of the figures were lifted from far-left academic Arun Advani’s CenTax report, which was reproduced for the IFS. The Treasury has already admitted Advani has provided the basis of their IHT hike…
Now in response to an FOI the Treasury admits that it hasn’t even worked out what each tax change will raise:
“HM Treasury does not hold a disaggregated cost projection for the revenue raised from the measure announced at Autumn Budget 2024 to restrict these reliefs. This is a combined policy across the reliefs, rather than separate policies for each relief.”
Some might say it beggars belief that Reeves doesn’t have the figures required for any remotely detailed calculation of her own policy changes. Agricultural tax specialist Stuart Maggs tells Guido: “The fact that they haven’t disaggregated them doesn’t surprise me at all. Until we have an impact assessment, we’re not going see the detailed work that should have been done before this policy was instituted. It’s odd to refuse to listen to people who are extremely willing to engage in a detailed consultation to produce improved regulation on this.” Reeves has stuck her head firmly in the sand after dropping a blunt-edged tax bombshell…
The virtue signalling response of many leftists to Elon Musk’s breakout role as an unofficial Trump advisor has been to quit X. This is nothing other than welcome for X users, who are finally getting a break from accounts such as The Guardian…
The exodus of leftists have mainly embraced an alternative platform called Bluesky Social. Among them is Stop Funding Hate – the lefty campaign group that attempts to silence media it doesn’t like – such as the Daily Express, Daily Mail and GB News – by targeting its advertisers. Over on Bluesky, Stop Funding Hate is regularly sharing content criticising Elon Musk and X. Meanwhile, it continues to utilise X itself to promote its own campaigns, of course…
Hypocrisy isn’t unfamiliar to Stop Funding Hate. Its 2023 accounts show its financial income dropped from £107,000 to £74,000, yet at the same time, its sole remunerated director enjoyed a 27% pay rise. Clearly, “go woke, go broke” doesn’t apply…
A feature-length outing this morning from Kemi on Radio 4’s Today Programme, who clipped a long segment from an interview she’s given for their podcast. Amol Rajan was in the chair…
Repeatedly asked to outline her positions on topical issues such as Thames Water and British Steel, Kemi pushed back, arguing that it’s not right for her to set out any positions as yet: “My view is that I don’t have very much time but I have a lot of things that need doing.” Something of an early Christmas present for the government which events may overtake…
Kemi also claimed high migration is “not my personal record” before taking aim at visa demands from DHSC and DEFRA – blue on blue there. She rolled the pitch for a “very difficult” set of local elections, and refused to go there when asked why voters should choose the Conservatives over Reform. She explained:
“I love metaphors… it’s like opening a restaurant in four years time, people say what’s on the menu… when it’s ready you will see the menu… in four years time the restaurant will be ready, they’re already eating elsewhere now; they’re eating Labour and they don’t like it.”
Got that?
February was a turbulent month for Labour, as internal divisions over the Israel-Hamas war came to a head. It kicked off with Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali, who suggested Israel had “allowed” the Hamas attack. Labour stood by him for a time, though when a recording surfaced in which Ali blamed the “Jewish media” for criticising pro-Gaza MP Andy McDonald, Labour belatedly withdrew their support. Though not in time to remove his name from the ballot…
Guido soon got hold of the recording, revealing that Labour PPC Graham Jones had repeatedly referred to “f**king Israel” and even ranted to Azhar Ali that Britons who volunteer to fight for the Israeli Defence Forces “should be locked up”. After the story quickly gained traction, Labour swiftly suspended the candidate…
In Parliament, tensions ran high after over 60 MPs signed a letter of no confidence in Speaker Lindsay Hoyle following his decision – against his own aides – to allow a vote on a Labour amendment to an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Penny Mordaunt said Hoyle was a victim of being bullied by the “fickle” and “ruthless” Starmer. He managed to survive that storm…
As usual, Labour’s finances were in freefall. They continued to flounder on their own green energy £28 billion annual spending plan – a black hole Guido had been highlighting for a while. After weeks of waffle and so-called “clarity” on Labour’s position, they finally ditched the £28 billion figure, all while maintaining allegiance to the “Green Prosperity Plan”. The now-familiar excuse that it was the “Tories’ fault” for the U-turn didn’t exactly go down well with Labour’s supporters…
TalkTV wasn’t spared the spotlight either, with Piers Morgan unceremoniously sacked two years into his three-year deal with Rupert Murdoch. Despite “Uncensored’s” prime-time slot, endless hype from The Sun and The Times, and a large promotional budget, Morgan failed to deliver the audience. Despite Morgan’s face-saving spin that it was his decision, Guido heard it was Rupert himself, from New York, who pulled the plug. Morgan’s pivot to YouTube seemed like a soft landing, though as Guido noted at the time, YouTube ad rates are just pennies per view. And with Morgan averaging around 500,000 views a show, it’s not exactly putting bread on the table…
Meanwhile it was trouble in Tory towers. Lee Anderson was suspended after refusing to apologise for claiming “Islamists” had “got control” of Sadiq Khan, Guido revealed yet another Tory faction, the Popular Conservatives, had been created and then came a double by-election loss to Labour that also saw Reform surging in the polls. A sign of things to come later in the year…
Honourable Mentions:
- 2024 Election: Full List of Nepo-Baby Candidates
- Powell’s Aide Says She Wasn’t Drunk When She Alluded to VAT Cuts
- Sky News’ Inzamam Rashid Suspended… Again
Headline of the Month: Labour PPC Graham Jones Recorded Ranting “F**king Israel” Wants British Jews Fighting for Israel “Locked Up”
