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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 29m

Shame matters far less to Tories than power and party loyalty. They despatched shame when they backed Johnson, even as he threatened and kicked out their allies. They can’t remember what shame should feel like any more.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 40m

Particularly brilliant description of X, Musk and “throb-veined” Yaxley-L..

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1h

“I’m old enough to remember when mainstream British politicians, who should know better, stirred up racial hatred as a path to power. You’re old enough to remember too because it was last Tuesday. And it was Robert Jenrick”

Cathartic anger at flag-flying racism.

www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

Stewart Lee: The thugs have taken my flag. So I’ve taken theirs

What do you do with a lot of cheap banners hanging from motorway bridges once you’ve torn them down?

www.thenerve.news

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Reposted by Sarah Murphy

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 15h

Glad to see Nigel Farage has finally remembered Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform in Wales - found guilty of taking bribes from Russia.

Maybe he'll now remember how much he took from Putin's propaganda broadcaster Russia Today for all his TV appearances when he was a MEP?

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 14h

Jenrick would make a pact with fascist thug Yaxley-Lennon if it got him into power. He’s a moral abyss. And the harm he does by pushing our political debate further and further to the ugliest, darkest corner of the far right is forever unforgivable.

However, if the polls do tighten and the chances of an outright Reform victory recede, then it is very possible that we could see some form of new alliance between a
Jenrick-led Conservatives and a Reform-led Farage. After all, if Jenrick is willing to get into bed with the likes of Elon Musk and
"Inevitable West" then a coalition with Farage is not going to trouble him too badly.
However, even if Jenrick does fade into obscurity, his current rise is still a highly alarming moment in our politics.
After decades in which the mainstream right of British politics has sought to maintain a cordon sanitaire between themselves and the far-right, that barrier now appears to have been irretrievably broken.
The result is that formerly moderate politicians like Jenrick, whose nickname in the party used to be "Robert Generic" due to his middle-of-the-road views, now sees a lurch to the far-right as being the only viable way for him to gain power.
Indeed far from being a disqualifier for high office, it now appears that sharing the extreme views and associations of the far-
right has become an actual requirement for advancement on the right of British politics.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Yes. With Farage leading in the polls and yes, an unbelievably infantile and partisan press, we’re still unreliable dickheads at the moment. Probably have to suffer quite a while longer before we properly wake up to ourselves.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

The country knows it’s a failure. And I suppose there is now political advantage in saying so. But what a tediously slow and painful trudge back to sanity.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Good to blame Farage for the dull-arsed, ruinous, tedious failure of Brexit.
Not that good to keep punishing us for that failure, rather than looking to swiftly boost our prosperity by asking to rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union.
But yes. It’s a start.

www.thetimes.com/article/8875...

Starmer and Reeves are expected to argue that if it hadn't been for Brexit this type of downgrade would not have been needed - and cite official figures suggesting that if Britain had not left the European Union the economy would be about £120 billion greater by 2035 than current forecasts suggest.
The message is simple: Farage is ultimately to blame, as the man who delivered Brexit with "easy sloganeering" then walked away from the aftermath rather than putting in the hard yards.
Or to put it another way: Farage, not us, is responsible for putting up your taxes.
The theme will tie to the main thrust of Starmer's argument at conference, that the Reform leader is selling easy solutions that are just a fantasy.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Ugh. Can’t like that. It’s disturbing.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Even if they don’t do this, they need a convincing answer to that question.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Yaxley Lennon is a Jenrick fan. Say. No. More.
I hope the gutter that Jenrick has carved out for himself sinks him.

bsky.app/profile/sund...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

Tommy Robinson is more impressed by Robert Jenrick's support for Koran burning, while shouting "Fuck Islam"
bsky.app/profile/did:...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

Tommy Robinson has endorsed Robert Jenrick's decision to turn up in person to offer support and solidarity to the asylum seeker Hamit Coskun, who shouted, “Koran is burning”, “Fuck Islam” and “Islam is the religion of terrorism" while burning the Quran.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

Yes. Neither is good, is it…
Both Farage and Jenrick need to be wiped from our political map.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

The only descriptions of Jenrick and the Tory party you’ll ever need….
What a dismal way for a party to die.

Jenrick is a far more pernicious figure than Nigel Farage. For a start, Farage does not go as far as Jenrick. He remembers - from the old days, when fascism was frowned on rather than celebrated - how dangerous explicit talk of race is. More importantly, Farage is seen by the public as someone operating on the edge of the political spectrum. But Jenrick has none of these restraints. He is perfectly happy racialising our discourse. And he operates in the mainstream right, contaminating British society from the height of the orthodoxy.

This is the underlying issue, the substrata underneath Badenoch and Jenrick. It's not
just that they are pathetic and empty and cowardly and immoral and petty and useless and inept. It's actually somehow worse than that. It is that the entire British conservative project is dying. It is hollow. It has no ideas and those it does have are undermined by the very policies it puts forward. It has no principles and those it retains are made into a mockery by the statements it allows to go unchallenged. It has nothing to offer, but a haunted terror at the sight of Farage and an unrequited love-song at the sight of Trump.

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Reposted by Sarah Murphy

Reuters @reuters.com · 2d

'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Sure. But media allows polls to lead debate, rather than doing the harder work of scrutinising these politicians and their policies. I want to hear about Farage’s Russian and far right US links, his corruption and the unworkability of his ugly policy ideas. Not just be told that polls say he’ll win.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Private Eye offers up an excellently scornful commentary on the relentless polling. It’s become ridiculous and has oversimplified our politics to dangerous levels of stupid and irresponsible.

SHOCK POLL:
NIGEL FARAGE WILL BE PM TOMORROW
IN an amazing poll conducted
by The Pointless Polling Company, it was revealed that voters' intentions
may well change over the next three and a half years and at present it's 100 percent impossible to guess what the next government might look like.
However, 99 percent of journalists
agree that it would be much more fun if we had an election tomorrow and everybody resigned and everything was chaos and Farage had a go at being PM, just for the hell of it, because it was so much fun when
Brexit happened and then the government kept falling every five minutes and we could write endless pieces about (cont. p94)

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Reposted by Sarah Murphy

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 2d

So refreshing to see someone challenge the smug, nasty Reform narrative

Anita R @venividiverily.bsky.social · 2d

I could watch Zack Polanski utterly wreck Zia Yusuf ALL DAY LONG.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Fucking loathsome.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Why isn’t that in the article, ffs?
The man is toxic. A constant threat to our wellbeing. He does real harm every day and we cannot have him in power. Media *must* start scrutinising him properly. Not let him promote his hideous agenda, unchecked, with people having no real clue what he’s up to.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

What the hell does Farage thinks he’s doing, going off to America *again* to maliciously slag off British teachers at some private Christian college, while offering to peddle their courses over here?
What a repulsive, grubby little traitor.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Nigel Farage accuses teachers of ‘poisoning our kids’ on race issues

Exclusive: Reform UK leader’s remarks at event for private US college criticised as ‘grossly irresponsible’ by NEU leader

www.theguardian.com

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

Sarah Smith #r4today says Trump gave no details about (didn’t know or care) what happens next with the Gaza/Israel peace deal but she can confirm that Trump will be “furious” on Friday if he isn’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wow.
Priorities.
Inspirational.

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Reposted by Sarah Murphy

Toby Earle 🇺🇦 @tobyontv.bsky.social · 3d

if you’ve ever watched the apprentice, that’s the world without arts or humanities degrees

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

Yes. After Trump, it seemed unthinkable that he would ever have power again… and yet, here we are.
Do you think that has been driven more by a cult of personality than a slavish loyalty to party? Because I cannot see how anyone from this woeful bunch of Tories could command that kind of following.

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Reposted by Sarah Murphy

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 3d

"15 years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity. Now Poland is growing twice as fast as we are," says Kemi Badenoch.

Any ideas what may have happened in the interim?

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 4d

Really? You think *this* Tory party can win the next general election from here?

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