Ahead of the Tory leadership candidates’ flagship speeches this morning Nigel Farage has helpfully appeared on Good Morning Britain to provide his views.
“They’ll speak today in the conference hall to be the next Tory leader – they all think with a new leader it’ll all be fine, ‘the voters will come back to us’ and what they don’t understand is that the Conservative brand is completely damaged they have no chance of winning the next election.”
Farage does beat every single hopeful by a wide margin with the public on having “what it takes to be a good Prime Minister” according to Ipsos. Meanwhile a majority of Tory members want an official merger with Reform and 70% want a closer relationship. Nigel slapped down that idea again, too…
“I wouldn’t trust them anyway, they have a pattern of behavior – pretending to be one thing and then when they’re in government being quite the opposite. And and frankly what I’m trying to do with Reform is to replace them.”
Leadership hopefuls have been jollying around a Conference buoyed by Labour’s bad press. They have made almost no progress on articulating a real strategy for what to do about Nigel. Without one, if Westminster returns to the politics of two parties, the Tories might not find themselves one of them…
Ofcom has decided not to investigate the infamous Ed Balls softball interview with Yvette Cooper on Good Morning Britain, after ITV described it as “fair and impartial.” Not the most romantic description of the Coopers’ marriage…
Despite Ofcom receiving nearly 17,000 complaints—nearly double last year’s most complained-about show—the watchdog has decided not to even look into the husband/wife interview. Guido is surprised it decided against an investigation, considering its history of jumping at the opportunity to impose self-righteous rules on other outlets, namely GB News. Here’s a reminder of a few GB News shows that were found in breach of the rules in the past:
And Ofcom is “independent and impartial”…
Ofcom has received 16,812 complaints for the Good Morning Britain show aired August 5th which saw presenter Ed Balls giving his wife Yvette Cooper an easy ride, as well as a controversial interview with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana. That’s nearly double last year’s most complained about show, which saw over 8,800 complaints for Dan Wootton’s GB News interview with Laurence Fox…
Like Guido, viewers were more than a little shocked to see the husband and wife exchange that didn’t exactly see Balls’ doing his usual “over the top” bit to the home secretary, let alone any hard-hitting questions. Ofcom are usually happy to wrap GB News and other right-leaning outlets on the knuckles. Will they do the same over Mr. and Mrs. Cooper?
Viewers this morning were left with eyebrows-raised as they saw Ed Balls of Good Morning Britain fame interviewing…his wife, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Funnily enough, Balls refrained from his usual “talking over the top” bit, asking some soft questions to Cooper, one of which (about social media and rioters) opened with “We’ve talked about this a few times in the last few days”. Presumably Yvette would know the question already then….
While watching Mr. Yvette Cooper give the Home Secretary an easy ride this morning, Guido was reminded of when Balls interviewed James Cleverly when he was in post. He was much more keen to look tough than actually get any answers. Meanwhile, Cooper couldn’t find the time to go on GB News this morning. Guido can’t possibly imagine why…
UPDATE 7 August: Today Ofcom said the Monday programme attracted 8,201 complaints about Balls questioning Ms Cooper, and an exchange with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana.
Richard Madeley went in on Starmer this morning over his wilful blindness when it comes to Angela Rayner’s exonerating tax advice. Starmer rolled out the old “it was 10-15 years ago” defence and said: “I’ve given many legal advices over the years, they’re all confidential, and they’re confidential for a reason“. Madeley then points out that doesn’t hold water because people in Starmer’s team have seen the advice, and then, presumably, told him that it is fine. So much for confidential…
Madeley summed it up pretty perfectly:
“I’ll just put this to you: Is it a case of ‘see no evil, speak no evil’? Are you concerned that if you look at it as a leader you’re going to see something in there – a paragraph, a reference – which makes you think ‘whoop that’s going to cause problems and I don’t want that running up to an election I don’t want to know that I don’t want to see that I’d rather not know?‘”
Starmer tried a new line:
“If a member of my shadow cabinet tells me that they’re off to have an operation I don’t ask to see the medical advice, I don’t ask for their medical notes.“
Not quite the same as a police investigation…
Yvette Cooper has got no better at defending Angela Rayner since she was last hauled out to do so. She said on Good Morning Britain in defence of Rayner’s refusal to publish her exonerating “expert” tax advice: “We don’t routinely publish personal finance information in this country.” That’s despite hypocrite Rayner insisting that a Tory candidate publish their full tax return and Starmer pledging last year to publish Rayner’s on an annual basis…
Cooper was very quick to say that she hadn’t seen Rayner’s “expert” advice as Richard Madeley asked: “Is Keir Starmer frightened to look at it because of what he might see?” Labour politicians are too smart to look at it because they know it will not adequately support the facts…
The defence was floated last week that a kitchen renovation in Rayner’s Vicarage Road house (which would have to be worth £23,000) offset the capital gains tax liability. The reason that hasn’t appeared again is that, if Rayner were to use the defence, it would contradict her version of reality – that she was living at Vicarage Road while her family lived at her husband’s house – because you don’t pay any capital gains tax on your primary residence so “improvements” are irrelevant. To say that the renovation offset tax is to admit primarily living elsewhere…
A neighbour over on Lowndes Lane is this week insisting that Rayner lived full time at her husband’s property. This isn’t going away…
