Gloucester Saint

Polanski calls him a grifter. Farage is, but it takes one to know one eh Zack? Lowe making clear noises that Restore will stand, that’s an issue Reform didn’t have to consider last time. Still think Farage wins but reduced majority.

I broadly agree but he also knows he has a highly volatile support base with more convictions than you could write on the Thames Flood Barrier. Referring to cold rage is bound to stir them up into violence against those two police officers who weren’t even there on the night of the Nowak murder and they don’t have a £5m bung to buy protection (or Ferraris) from his and Tommy Robinson’s thugs. So he might reflect on his own language use in relation to security matters.

If he’d said that the Russian attacks on Starmer’s house were unacceptable and cited the Amess, Cox and Pennington murders he might have had more of a point. It doesn’t justify however accepting a £5m bung, association with and funding from a money launderer in any way. There is a risk to all MPs and ministers, it’s not unique to him. He’s about as clean as Portsmouth FC during the 2000s and early 2010s. The Leveson enquiry should have led to much better regulation of press behaviour - but the government at the time didn’t want the Mail, Sun and Telegraph having their claws clipped slightly to be within the law of the land. Self-regulation never works. The amount of interference into court cases the tabloids have is awful and contempt of court isn’t used often enough. Rose West trial could have derailed in 1995 because of the bungs they were plying vulnerable witness with large sums. This not being tackled led them to think paying police officers was fine and dandy = Coulson and hack-gate.

Not surprised, Nick Robinson knows his stuff. It might head off the Standards enquiry to an extent assuming he wins (he will) but the stench won’t go away nationally and his reputation for being tetchy will encourage the press elements not in his pocket to go further. For a supposedly politically shrewd operator, the most attacked and at risk politician line is indefensible when you’ve had the Amess, Cox and Andrew Pennington murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Jones,_Baron_Jones_of_Cheltenham

It’s not behaviour I like from the press and I’ve opposed it but they’ve been doing it for decades to politicians of all stripes, celebrities, royals. I can’t recall a party leader reacting like that. If I’m his front bench, I’m thinking ‘how will he handle a general election campaign if we were in contention?’.

Nick Robinson’s take

Sky deny they have so one word against other at this stage. Given he’s even had a bad tempered interview round with Nick Ferrari who he’s normally friendly with, let alone all of the other outlets, even GB News who employ him tucking in, he is on a sticky wicket. I suspect the announcement is a temporary break due to unspecified illness/family issue. I very much doubt its resignation unless he thinks the Parliamentary standards enquiry is beyond salvage from his position.

The problem is that along with the petrostates, the smaller nations who have benefited from expansion have a majority within FIFA when it comes to Infantino’s re-election next year of around 20 votes over UEFA countries. The one-off centenary games in WC2030 also paved the way for Saudi 2034 as no-one else in Asia/Oceania was in a position to bid and as Morocco, Spain and Portugal are co-hosts, it meant under FIFA’s rotation policy that Europe and South America have taken their turn as it were https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cm2edy8kxpno

Getting very bad tempered https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/07/serious-consequences-farage-attacks-sky-news-after-question-about-george-cottrell

That would be quite the defection!

Issuing a statement on his role in public life at 2pm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ly51kzdz3o

It reminded me of why Jisheng Gao was initially blocked from buying Saints in early 2017 by FAPP (before the test folded under a bit of pressure). The alleged corrupt mayor was actually executed. Spoiler alert on the Guardian’s question in the headline - not very much. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/15/southampton-jisheng-gao-chinese-owners

If they learn the engineering techniques from Dallas, Houston and Atlanta to apply to the North Eastern stadiums in terms of actually having a roof, they’d be much better.

Good job JWP isn’t in the England WC squad otherwise Infantino would have been on the phone to Nuno and had JWP frozen out of the competition.

Mbappe putting a vile Paraguayan Senator back into her little box of hate. What a piece of shit she is. Give me ‘woke’ Gareth Southgate any day of the week. At least he can function like a normal human being and can live in a civilised society. https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/kylian-mbappe-hits-paraguayan-senator-182500407.html In other news, Spain v Portugal is pretty good so far.