In a grim sign of the times for Kemi, the Tories were beaten by Reform in the Bromley Common & Holwood council by-election last night – handing the party their first ever elected London council seat. Reform took 34% of the vote, while the Tories collapsed by 11.8 points to 29.4%. That’s a brutal 22.9% swing…
Despite Kemi herself campaigning for the Tory candidate yesterday, Reform’s Alan Cook is now the newly elected ward councillor. A Reform source told Guido:
“Kalamity Kemi and CCHQ threw the kitchen at this campaign and still lost. We look forward to seeing the results next May across London.”
No sign of the reshuffle shifting Tory fortunes yet…
Corbyn and Sultana’s new party website is branded with an image from a violent 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in London. Must be the inspiration for the project…
The one image on the site is of a series of fists held aloft in a crowd – which it turns out is taken from a series of photographs from the 2020 London BLM protests. The BBC reported at the time: “A total of 27 police officers were hurt during anti-racism protests in London.. Protests on Saturday – sparked by the death of George Floyd – were largely peaceful, but were marred later by disturbances outside Downing Street.” Subsequent photos in the gallery show protesters clashing with the Met…
Guido isn’t sure the British public are that keen to return to the bizarre lockdown-fuelled violence of the imported US protests from five years ago. The launch of ‘Your Party’ – which isn’t registered with the Electoral Commission – was rocked yesterday by the fact that its name is apparently only temporary. Couldn’t organise a…
Birmingham Council is on its 136th day of the bin strikes, so far costing the council £8 million. It also has £3.9 billion in debt -declaring itself effectively bankrupt in September 2023 by issuing a Section 114 notice. No concern to asylum seekers…
As part of Guido’s Asylum Freebiegate series it can be revealed that at the same time the council is offering up to 25% discounts for asylum seekers for leisure activities in its jurisdiction through a ‘Passport for Leisure Scheme’. Freebies include:
- 20% discount for swimmers during general swimming sessions all day, every day
- 25% discount on some instructed courses, including swimming, gymnastics, golf, football, trampolining and martial arts.
- 10% discount at most leisure sites
- ‘Varying’ discounts at some museums, theatres and other attractions in Birmingham.
The scheme can only be accessed by:
- People in receipt of benefits
- Asylum seekers/refugees
- Looked after children/care leavers
- Aged 60 or over
- A full-time student
Birmingham taxpayers have waited 20 weeks to have their bins collected. They may wonder why their council continues to spend cash on trampolining for asylum seekers…
UPDATE: Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said:
“This is a bankrupt Labour council, in the middle of a bin strike, racking up billions in debt, hiking council tax by 21 per cent, and their priority is trampolining perks for illegal immigrants.
It is a slap in the face to hard-pressed taxpayers that are being forced by a Labour council to subsidise perks for illegal immigrants crossing the channel who then claim asylum. Families are struggling to make ends meet thanks to Labour’s tax rises and working families in Birmingham can’t even get their bins collected, yet Birmingham Council can still find money for freebies for illegal immigrants.”
Peter Kyle threatened to shut down X on Newsnight last night. This is where it has go to…
Ofcom rules requiring age verification for explicit content – with the onus on platforms – came into force at midnight. A gift to scammers and a massive threat to privacy which can be avoided by anyone tech-savvy enough to download a VPN…
In a bizarre conversation on Newsnight Paddy O’Connell offered to “go on X now, we can look on it together and I can find some porn” for Kyle and pressed the Science Secretary on whether he could shut down the platform if it didn’t comply with new requirements to withhold pornographic content from children:
“Britain has the power to shut down any platform.”
Onerous restrictions moving responsibility for content on platforms to the companies that run them are already threatening access to Wikipedia. If Ofcom and Labour keeps going the UK will end up a privacy-free digital desert…
Kyle promised to platforms who did not follow Ofcom strictures “we will go after you” and added “access to the British society and economy is a privilege and not a right.” To be controlled by Labour from now on…
After Guido revealed thousands have been handed free luxury cars for ailments including “tennis elbow,” “frozen shoulder,” and “failure to thrive,” outrage has rippled through politicians, the press and taxpayers alike. Labour is still refusing to review the scheme…
Nigel Fletcher, CEO of the Motability Foundation, has now complained about media coverage of the scheme as “hostile” and “harmful,” grumbling about an “unprecedented level of misinformed, misrepresented and often hostile” narrative. According to Fletcher, the cars are “not a luxury”…
Now, a website called Motability Check has surfaced – letting users plug in number plates to see if a car’s funded by the taxpayer. A simple tool for a bit of long-overdue transparency…
Dignitaries swiftly joined the meltdown. Work and Pensions Minister Baroness Sherlock claimed she was “shocked” by the site’s existence, while crossbench peer Baroness Grey-Thompson described it as “terrifying” and “despicable,” declaring it “crosses a line to incitement”. The pearl-clutching continues, but the scandal rolls on…
New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that UK retail sales rebounded by less than expected in June, coming in at 0.9% compared to economists’ expectations of 1.2%. For the warmest June on record that is poor…
This follows a 2.8% contraction in May. Industry commentators at Premier Miton Investors say the shortfall is thanks to the fact “consumers are still more cautious about the future given all the noise around tax increases coming up in the autumn.” Inflation is sitting at an 18-month high and a new GfK consumer confidence report shows yet another decline to -19 for this month. Downward spiral…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”
