How the media created Reform

GB news Nana Akua
The debate about would reform be as popular without Nigel Farage and for all you GB News haters there is as usual someone from the left and someone from the right….

Watching the C4 piece I was struck by the wealth and luxury on display. Lunch at Rules, champagne reception at a Mayfair club and champagne any oysters in Clacton. Farage said 4 oysters wasn't enough lets have half a dozen. Such a grifter. I wonder how many of his constituents can afford champagne and oysters?

I hope they were Mersea oysters. Support for an Essex based company from an Essex MP 😆

MaizieD

I hope they were Mersea oysters. Support for an Essex based company from an Essex MP 😆

Mersea Oysters are seasonal September-April (I remember this as only months with an r in)

There are rock oysters available all year round if one is brave.

Few in Clacton I agree mrsmeldrew.

Farage lives in his exclusive establishment world - expensive restaurants, champagne and oysters, public school educated advisors like himself, attending exclusive clubs, banking at Coutts, owning a large property portfolio, frequent jet travel etc. Hobnobbing with the global powerful elite and billionaire businessmen eg Trump, Musk, Harborne. et al. This is his day to day existence.

He doesn't fool everyone when he claims he is seeking to overcome the establishment as he really would not wish to leave his elite establishment day to day life style behind! He claims he is picked on and a victim of the establishment when he is adversely scrutinised as defence but the obvious answer to to behave in a proper way to avoid adverse scrutiny in the first place. He's been in politics for many years and knows that scrutiny comes with the territory.

On the contrary, he moves freely in elite establishment circles and craves to be at a higher pinnacle of the establishment by courting attention and shaping and bending the establishment to suit his own will. Meanwhile seeking to line his £pockets further. It's a cushy and privaleged life he leads.

MT62

nanna8

I think the media love it, quite sickening really. Serve them right if Farage gets voted in as PM ( sure he won’t,though, despite their efforts )

You never know, I thought KS would be there to the very end, but that wasn’t to be.
Anything can happen in the world of politics.

He won't, he won't.

If it starts to look as if Reform might win in the next GE, there's bound to be some discreditable revelation the media're keeping up their sleeves for just such a circumstance.

Reform supporters are now saying they are concerned that Farage disappeared throughout the summer. However the accusations of financial misconduct don't appear to bother them, (extraordinary.) Reform are less happy as they didn't get the chance to detail their policies. What policies? Apart from the usual inflammatory asylum seeker attacks, no tax under £15,000. I can't remember the other one.

Wasn't one of the speeches about 'protect our women'?

Thanks Maremia...I don't know why I didn't remember that one!

Maremia

Perhaps they were panicking?
Seriously MT62, that looked like rage to me.

Who knows, I only saw a tiny clip.
Yes I agree it was way over the top. They should be prosecuted.

Maremia

They did at first look 'normal'.
Just some citizens attending the Conference of their chosen party, to hear the new policies.
But, is anyone saying that assault is a 'normal' reaction to heckling, when there is paid security to deal with it?

That’s the worrying thing! They just looked normal pensioners which shouldn’t be excused.

Is anybody excusing them? I've only heard condemnation of the few of them involved.

Catching up, many thanks to LemonJam and Graphite for your posts.

one of the ex-GB news presenters is now a senior BBC politics manager, I couldn't find his name but that accounts for their plentiful appearance in good terms on their, much of the news papers are owned by billionaires who don't want to be in the eu cos they have been tidying up tax issues hence the media's soft ride for farage & reform

Farage had a pretty soft ride in the media up until disclosures about the £5 million sum received. However now its not giving him such as easy ride.

The BBC, as a national broadcaster, must be seen to be impartial. As Reform UK, until Burnham came to power was leading in national polls for an extended period and did so well in May local elections, The BBC could legitimately be accused of not being impartial if it did not report about Reform UK's insurgent rise.

Plus, that reporting momentum is intentionally propelled further by Farage's agitating, provocative actions and behaviours as he skilfully seeks to secure media attention for himself and his cause (though not quite as much as usual during a period in the summer).

We have the media to thank- largely the Guardian and the Times and last week Channel 4 News (supplied by Verbatim) , for scrutinising Farage and Reform UK (as they should - public interest journalism) to bring concerns to the public's attention. e.g. the party's foreign donation culture.

Farage is not exceptional- all politicians are scrutinised. The closer they get to power and when in power, scrutiny ramps up increasingly.

Plus Farage has £contracts with GB News and The Telegraph so their coverage is mutually beneficial and evidently can not be seen to be impartial.

Farage values and highlights his positive media coverage, e.g. The Telegraph and GB News and undermines those who are not favourable towards him and more partial and investigative in style, e.g. 'Fake news' - just like Trump.

Is John McAndrew the name spabbygirl is thinking of?

I don't think his history and the favour shown by the BBC towards Reform is any coincidence.

Nick Watt has been particularly bad mannered and cringeworthy of late. He was scuttling around in Birmingham last week after Reform MPs like Uriah Heep.

Will the new season of BBCQT due to start soon, it remains to be see whether it remains the Zia Yusuf show. After his humiliation on his last appearance where Fiona Bruce upbraided him for calling her a liar and he was forced to admit Farage won't let him stand for election, maybe he won't be so keen to appear.

This morning I was talking to a person who was full of admiration for Reform mainly due to getting rid of the illegal immigrants which I tried to explain to her that Nigel Farage is all talk. His ideas I believe won’t be possible. As for running the country I don’t believe he has much idea at all especially after trying to back off with the media finding out about his finances.

LuckyGirl13

Are you rather obsessed?
How on earth will you cope when he's PM?!!
.

Its amazing really how people think Reform UK just saying it will get rid of asylum seekers in small boats who actually are legally permitted to come to the UK to seek asylum by the way* that it will magically happen!

Reform UK has no detailed plans with steps to get there or how it will overcome predictable obstacles current and previous governments faced, legal and otherwise will be addressed.

Seems naive and too trusting to me. It won't happen as Reform claims. Just like Trump wasn't able to stop the war in Ukraine in a day! But it won't him votes and now there is much reported voters remorse as just look what's happening in the US...

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Listening to Tim Montgomerie, he identified some of the problems within the party. Not least is that Farage has never appointed a Chief of Staff and rarely communicates with his senior people. No wonder they talk such nonsense when sent out on the media rounds to defend him.

Poor communication and people management skills does not bode well for a man who allegedly wants to be Prime Minister. He would have to communicate regularly with a cabinet of 23 Senior Ministers who have Junior Minsters and Parliamentary Under Secretaries working under them. 150 ministers altogether.

He’s a solo operator who is totally unfit for senior office just at Johnson wasn't either. Let’s hope he walks soon and this charade of a political party, which becomes more unpleasant by the day, will fall apart and the serious people can get on with things.

Olivebranch

What do people expect if they disrupt a Reform conference. I’m not even a Reform voter but I might have pulled her hair. Stupid woman.

Crikey!

It was not social media. It was the boomers who voted for Brexit

LemonJam

Olivebranch

What do people expect if they disrupt a Reform conference. I’m not even a Reform voter but I might have pulled her hair. Stupid woman.

Crikey!

And posters here express concern about young people of today 🙈