Pete Clifford
@peteclifford.bsky.social
900 followers 1.6K following 270 posts
#FBPE #RejoinEU #GTTO #PR #SlavaUkraini. Retired IT pro. Retired Pro genealogist. Recent Uni of Glos. "mature" research MA graduate (Local History). Lover of birds and wildlife. Stochastic photographer. Cheltenham Town FC and Glos Cricket sufferer.
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I have a visceral hatred of racists, but I reserve my deepest contempt for the descendants of immigrants and refugees who would deny others the same opportunities her ancestors enjoyed, without which she would be nobody. I look forward to the time she is a nobody.
Reposted by Pete Clifford
BoE says Brexit weighing down the exonomy for years to come, but hey, dark bkue passports www.reuters.com/world/uk/bre...
www.reuters.com
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Trump's $100,000 skilled worker visa fee gives Britain a golden opportunity to attracted global talent. Needless to say, we're going to piss it away because we're scared of upsetting Nigel Farage.

inews.co.uk/opinion/trum...
Trump's migrant obsession offers Starmer a rare win - but Farage has scared him off
We have a golden opportunity to kick-start the British economy
inews.co.uk
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A reminder that this week the Conservatives announced they want a “British ICE”
Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.
Here’s video of the incident
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Dad’s books are full of empathy, common sense, and a healthy suspicion of the powerful. But at its heart his work is also about how systems keep people poor while pretending it’s their own fault. So I hope Kemi’s taking notes as well as reading the jokes.
Kemi Badenoch claiming Terry Pratchett as her favourite author is wild
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Four parties within a 5 point swing of first place and five parties on 12% plus.

This would be pure chaos under first past the post.
Westminster Voting Intention:

RFM: 27% (-2)
LAB: 20% (-2)
CON: 17% (+1)
LDM: 17% (+2)
GRN: 12% (+1)
SNP: 4% (+1)

Via @yougov.co.uk, 5-6 Oct.
Changes w/ 28-29 Sep.
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I know this is obvious when you think about it but we don’t think about it enough: fascists have to cow & persecute decent journalists to prevent them from reporting exactly what they, the fascists, are doing. Fascist-adjacent ‘journalists’ help by insisting that we shouldn’t call fascists facsists.
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Men in balaclavas set fire to a mosque in East Sussex last night. It's only appearing on the BBC's local coverage, rather than its main national headlines, despite coming just a week after the (also under-reported) firebombing of an asylum hotel in London last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime'
Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Do read all of this.
🔴NEW🔴

Thread 🧵

@bylinetimes.bsky.social can now reveal that, during the crucial period when convicted Reform leader Nathan Gill was most active, working directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most senior ally in Ukraine, he was also one of Nigel Farage’s closest confidantes 1/12
‘Thick as Thieves’: Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage’s Putin Problem
Far from being distant from the Reform UK Leader, insiders told Byline Times that the former MEP convicted of bribery was one of Farage’s closest aides, while we reveal how Gill worked on the Kremlin’...
bylinetimes.com
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Johnson’s cull of MPs prepared to tell the truth about Brexit consigned the Tories to the absurdity & irrelevance they currently enjoy. The media’s pitiful complicity in & failure to explain this lets Farage move in to the vacated space despite embodying the stupidity & bigotry that did for them.
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Imagine being the leader of the party which delivered Brexit going into a filmed interview with a Northern Ireland journalist at a time when your competence is being questioned, and not thinking to check how Northern Ireland voted in the EU referendum beforehand.
Fascinated by her exact blend of over-confidence, where you can see her doing that weird blinking thing she does when 'her complete lack of preparation or genuine intellectual curiosity' collides with 'facts she had not previously bothered to be across'.
no excuse for being this bad
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Such an embarrassment. The fact she'll never have any power makes it barely worth noticing her, but whenever you do she's doing something abysmal or moronic. She richly deserves the anonymity to come.
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Media figures who cheerlead & champion Nigel Farage every minute of every day are freaking out about Keir Starmer telling a few home truths about the whiny little liar’s racism.
And how the racism he disseminates every day affects real people in the real world. tinyurl.com/4rrn2mkx
James O'Brien Daily
Daily News Podcast · Updated daily · Welcome to the best bits of James O'Brien's LBC phone-in show. Listen back to all the highlights in a 60-minute bite sized chunk of his show with new episodes ever...
tinyurl.com
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Why is Starmer becoming more confident criticising Brexit? Because quietly, without any great drama, a consensus has been reached. It's a disaster inews.co.uk/opinion/brex...
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This is great. It naturally follows that Musk can only get out of our politics if politicians and political journalists stop using the social media site he controls.
Strong words from Ed Miliband at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool...

"Elon Musk: Get the hell out of our politics and our country"
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People often claim it's a mistake to call far-right figures racist. But it's extremely telling how much they hate being called racist. Farage doesn't welcome it. He is afraid of it. And he has benefited from people's reticence about using it to describe his policies.
Harry Cole here, suggesting that because someone in Utah shot Charlie Kirk 3 weeks ago, Keir Starmer shouldn’t be nasty about Nigel Farage in the U.K.
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This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..
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One paradox of our fragmented politics is that Labour going directly after Reform may make defeat to Reform more likely, if such a strategy alienates progressives who have exit options but doesn’t win any reform voters, who will generally prefer OG Farage to a half-hearted tribute act
By going after Labour>Reform voters, Labour is essentially trying to 'unwind the realignment' - arguably a much harder task, and win voters lost over many elections. True even of Labour's voters in Leave voting constituencies.

But Labour IS losing more voters on the left and to undecided.
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Nathan Gill is no fringe politician.

He was the leader of the Reform Party and before that UKIP in Wales.

A Brexit Party MEP.

A friend and ally of Nigel Farage, who in 2016 called him:

"terrific," and "as honest as the day is long."

This is a MASSIVE story

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reform UK's ex-Wales leader Nathan Gill admits pro-Russia bribery
Nathan Gill admits eight charges of bribery while being a Member of the European Parliament.
www.bbc.co.uk
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And yet - nothing about this is on the BBC main app.

It’s hidden under Welsh news.

Nothing in the Daily Mail, Express, The Sun, The Times.

Seems like Farage’s opinions on everything make front page news EXCEPT when one of his guys admits to taking Russian bribes….🤷🏼‍♀️

13/14
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