[Bones McCoy]

I see that Fargle is claiming that the election was rendered unfair and illegitimate because Byline Times and many others drew attention to Goodwin's racist, fascist and misogynistic social media history.
And that Muslim women were deterred from voting Reform by their families even though Reform has spent years denigrating and insulting them.

Cunt.

A wiser man might consider selecting more likeable candidates.

But its Farage - not as wise as he thinks.
And it's reform - where likeability is like a downpour in the Atacama.

[mattomac]

Picking Goodwin does confuse me slightly, surely they had better choices, their previous candidate here was elected as a councillor in Wigan when I looked it up.

[Bones McCoy]

Picking Goodwin does confuse me slightly, surely they had better choices, their previous candidate here was elected as a councillor in Wigan when I looked it up.

The spud head "Patriots" and bots on Facebook were excited at the prospect f a "Full Professor" in the shadow cabinet.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

And dogwhistles like a shipyard siren.

[Youngian]

Picking Goodwin does confuse me slightly, surely they had better choices, their previous candidate here was elected as a councillor in Wigan when I looked it up.

If Zia Yusuf stood for Reform, wouldn't the alleged sectarian Muslim voters have supported one of their own instead of a blonde plumber led by a gay Jew?
A rhetorical question of course. There's scant evidence affinity candidates sway political loyalties in this country. This isn't America.

[Tubby Isaacs]

When UKIP came quite close in Heywood and Middleton back in the day, they ran someone called John Bickley. No idea what he was like, but less high profile. Diane James in Eastleigh was more presentable than the Tory candidate.

This might be a better tactic than running a Goodwin.

[Oboogie]

I recently saw a clip of a young Matt Goodwin taking part in a TV debate with Tommy Ten-Names (judging by their ages it must have been about 15 years ago) and I was struck by how reasonable Goodwin seemed and how robustly he condemned the EDL, he's certainly been on a journey.

Edit: Found a different clip of the same show I saw.

[Youngian]

Spencer's victory speech was all about the cost of living crisis but there's radio silence from Goodwin and Farage in response. They learned nothing and just carried on with race baiting and culture war crap.

[Samanfur]

My first exposure to Goodwin was him co-authoring this with the mostly rational Rob Ford. I definitely wonder what Mr. Ford thinks of him these days, and what that writing process was like.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They fell out long ago.

[Samanfur]

That's a relief.