Sam Laird

Don’t understand the constitution. Don’t understand standing orders. Don’t understand an amendment. Coming to a council chamber near you 🫵 #Reform

@nathansldennis @lewis_goodall But Comms trump an inconvenient past

@lewis_goodall You might want to look at the history of his suspended X account...

Again, a quality bit of comms. Reform operating on a different level of professionalism compared to Farage's previous outfits. Exactly the sort of candidate they need to run to be competitive. Going to be quite the contest.

You could start by walking down the hall. See why your boss keeps pardoning people convicted of money laundering, wire fraud, tax evasion, and securities fraud.

Repost if you think the BBC openly promotes and protects Farage and Reform UK!

🚨 @Lord_Sugar in Sun Times “Leaving Europe is the worst thing I have experienced in my whole time in business.” “Johnson and Gove should be in jail. As a chairman I am obliged to tell the truth to my shareholders.” “If I lie it’s a criminal offence. Politicians lie to the public — their shareholders — and get away with it.” “All that bullshit about the 350 million quid going to the NHS after Brexit.” #rejoinEU

@haustexracing @phn16 That must be Charade - I have to go and see it for myself

For a few minutes each year, sunlight makes this Yosemite waterfall look like a river of fire.😍

@TheSaviour @Cat_n_Bagpipes To be fair, he was at the Houses of Parliament yesterday

Why doesn’t the King visit any other areas where stabbings happen in the UK?

"There’s no money in politics, particularly doing it the way I’ve done it: 20 years of spending more than you earn.... I'm 53, separated and skint." - Farage in 2017 A few years later, he's buying a £1.4m house for cash. What changed? dailymail.com/news/article-5…

I'm delighted for Nigel Farage. According to @nberpubs, Brexit gave our country a 6-8% reduction in GDP per capita, a 12-18% reduction in Investment & a 3-4% reduction in productivity. But it gave Nigel Farage a gift of £5millon. So that's alright.

The main things I learnt working with @Nigel_Farage 1. His word is not his bond. 2. He does not write emails - no paper trail. 3. He has zero ability to do any detail: 1-hour meetings turn into 56 minutes of Nigel talking about Nigel and 4 mins on the subject the meeting was about. 4. Nigel has no real friends - everyone and everything is expendable. 5. Nigel has enormous energy, but a lot of it is wasted because he drinks and parties too much. 6. Nigel is not an intellectual - he thinks Jordan Peterton is boring. 7. Nigel has spies. 8. Nigel loves money and spends it like water. 9. Nigel surrounds himself with rather facile young men like the convicted posh George. 10. Nigel does not really like working if it is not him being a showman - I cannot even imagine him reading a policy paper. 11. Nigel dictates tweets to Dan Dukes. 12. Nigel has a powerful lawyer behind the scenes who keeps files on people. 13. Nigel is vicious - the plastic sheen is a facade that cons so many people. 14. No idea if Nigel actually has any morality or values or what he believes in except fame and money. @RupertLowe10

What a picture... 📸

Morning light from Glen Coe with Ballachulish Bridge. Pic: Quintin Lake

This is a brilliant investigative piece on Farage, the dark millions behind him and the double standards of so much British journalism. Read and retweet! Nigel Farage pocketing £5m from a donor shows he’s unfit for power app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/73421/co…

1 bit the dust already: Reform UK paper candidate who was elected in Bradford, Daniel Devaney, has resigned already saying he doesn't want to be a councillor and has gone away on holiday.

"The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion." — Bertrand Russell

The most interesting Scottish election commentary yesterday from @ailsa_henderson. Some good pointers for what the “independence majority” should do, at least in terms of tone, next: “I’m not talking about the rights and wrongs of holding a referendum or of independence, but just how people react to the issue. And we pick up in the data frustration about the way in which the constitutional issue has pushed other issues off the agenda. We absolutely see that in the data. But one thing we also see is that the Scottish electorate is much less nostalgic than the English electorate. And the same is true in Northern Ireland as well. And the thinking is that by having these important debates about our constitutional future, yes, they may well crowd out debates about how to improve education or how to improve health. But they also do shift our temporal focus from thinking about the glory days that we used to have to thinking about how can we build a different future. And regardless of what side of the constitutional debate you’re on, that shift in temporal framing does change the mindset. As a result, the Scottish electorate is also much less angry than the English electorate…”

@danielgoyal How many constituencies did Reform win in 2026 Scottish Parliament election? None

How to respond to fascists: “So, I want to reaffirm today the commitment I made when I took office. I will build a Scotland where everyone feels seen, where everyone feels at home, and where everyone is able to contribute to Scotland's story.” Swinney thenational.scot/news/26092749.…

Dear the BBC Politics. 'What Nigel Says' should not be your default for breaking news. Just sayin.

Marco Rubio Has Discovered That NATO Exists Marco Rubio stood at a podium recently and said, with the confidence of a man who has never read anything, that if NATO can’t be used to “project to other contingencies,” then “we have a problem.” He is correct. There is a problem. The problem is Marco Rubio. Article 5 of the NATO treaty has existed since 1949. It says, in language so simple a golden retriever could grasp it, that an attack on one member is an attack on all. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You don’t need a law degree. You barely need literacy. What Article 5 does not say, and what no page of the NATO founding treaty has ever suggested, is that 31 sovereign European nations signed up to serve as a strategic parking lot for American military adventures on the other side of the planet. Denmark did not join a defensive alliance in 1949 so that, 75 years later, it could help Washington bomb a country it got bored looking at. NATO is a shield. Not a sword. Not a taxi service. Not a valet for whatever impulsive geopolitical tantrum is trending in Washington this quarter. The Americans have now spent 15 months confused by this distinction. Their finest minds, their cabinet secretaries, their very best people, staring at the treaty like a dog watching television. Ears up. Deeply engaged. Understanding absolutely nothing. The good news is that Europe has finally understood something too: you cannot outsource your survival to people who find a single sentence intellectually challenging. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1