[satnav]

I just came across this picture of Twitter of the launch of Students for Reform. They look like a fairly normal group of young adults.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Boiler]

I just came across this picture of Twitter of the launch of Students for Reform. They look like a fairly normal group of young adults.

Bobby Pickett's going round in my head again... (h/t to Bones McCoy for that)

[Killer Whale]

Subtext: It was only really poor, brown people who got incinerated.

[Youngian]

And we wouldn't have to build these ghastly tower blocks if they didn't let so many of them in

[Killer Whale]

Bloody hell. Farage has actually sacked him.

https://nation.cymru/news/farage-sacks- ... ll-remark/

[Bones McCoy]

Bloody hell. Farage has actually sacked him.

https://nation.cymru/news/farage-sacks- ... ll-remark/

The former spokesman will trot off to Rupert Lowe with his freshly printed CV.

[Andy McDandy]

He's not an MP. Fargle knows he needs MPs if he wants his Cenotaph moment.

[soulboy]

After Reform initially appeared to stand by Dudley, Farage said at a press conference to announce Reform policy on pensions that Dudley had “gone” as a result of his “deeply shocking” comments.

Dudley’s comments overshadowed the press conference on Thursday, which was called to announce a new policy on pensions.

After Reform put out a statement on Wednesday night seeking to defend Dudley, Farage said on Thursday he had been “dealt with” and was no longer a party spokesperson.

The Reform leader sought to put distance between himself and the appointment, saying it had been the responsibility of Richard Tice, his deputy leader.

Fargle throwing Tice under the bus. How will that go down?

[satnav]

No that Farage has set the precedence of sacking Reform officials for making controversial remarks he could find himself very busy in the next few months. Reform are likely to pick up lots of new councillors and assembly members in May many of whom have not been properly vetted because they have only been in the party for five minutes.

Unless all these potential councillors have all deleted their social media accounts there is bound to be plenty of stuff out there which is either racist, homophobic and linked to conspiracy theories.

[Youngian]

there is bound to be plenty of stuff out there which is either racist, homophobic and linked to conspiracy theories.

That's their USPs.

[Boiler]

Spotted underneath a LBC YT video;

Screenshot 2026-04-02 at 17-59-00 (2) Reform under fire for ‘appalling’ Grenfell comments LBC - YouTube.png (9.6 KiB) Viewed 139 times

Screenshot 2026-04-02 at 18-00-55 (2) Reform under fire for ‘appalling’ Grenfell comments LBC - YouTube.png (25.79 KiB) Viewed 139 times

[Tubby Isaacs]

No that Farage has set the precedence of sacking Reform officials for making controversial remarks he could find himself very busy in the next few months. Reform are likely to pick up lots of new councillors and assembly members in May many of whom have not been properly vetted because they have only been in the party for five minutes.

Unless all these potential councillors have all deleted their social media accounts there is bound to be plenty of stuff out there which is either racist, homophobic and linked to conspiracy theories.

Farage doesn't have to be consistent within the same election campaign. If you're Starmer, you get called a liar on the basis that you promised a load of stuff before Covid and Ukraine (let alone Iran). Those are the rules.

Rules partly set by some of the self-promoting Labour back benchers, admittedly.

[Abernathy]

Wondering whether Reform’s die-hard supporters, the sort that post moronic comments : “Reform all the way” on social media, like Farage’s tribe of arseholes principally because they are so racist/homophobic/mysogynist .

[Tubby Isaacs]

This stuff may not put all that many of "them" of, put it that way. But hard to know how many of their voters are all in on that. My (unscientific) guess is that quite a few are along for fewer boat people and burkas, and lower taxes, but might have a limit on what sort of implausible public finance projections they're prepared to swallow, and are mystified by the Matt Goodwin internet talk.

[satnav]

Reform at the moment is a protest party have has managed to pick up a number of ex-Tory MPs, ex-Tory councillors and ex-Tory voters. Reform appear to still be fighting local elections and by-election on the manifesto commitments it made when fighting the general election in 2024. The manifesto received very little scrutiny because political journalists knew that the party had no chance of getting into government.

Since the general election Farage seems to have dropped many of the economic policies in the manifesto yet certainly in the recent by-election the 2024 commitments featured heavily in the campaign. At the moment the party is making a lot of spending commitments like the triple lock on pensions but there are no detailed plans on how they will fund these commitments.

Reform are currently boasting about cutting waste in the councils they now control but in reality they have actually cut important services rather than waste. In Derbyshire they are selling off several care homes and severely cutting adult education. Usually council run care homes have been cheaper than private care homes so presumably anyone who is forced to leave a council care home will end up paying a lot more for a private care home. Cutting adult education is also a very short sighted policy because adult education helps to unemployed people gain the skills they need to find new jobs.

If Reform are still leading in the polls in 3 years time I would hope that the media will properly scrutinize Reforms economic policy because you can not fund government spending on money you might save in the next three or four years cutting net zero policies and cutting waste.