Altered State

Altered State’s mission is to foster intelligent debate and stimulating thought through live talks and podcasts ⚖️💡🌱🫂🌍.

[The Receipts UK ♿ @david_hollas]

Kemi Badenoch ditched net zero 2050.
Then it emerged her major donor Neil Record chairs Net Zero Watch — the UK's leading climate denial group.
A second donor gave £50,000 through a property company. He chairs Utility Warehouse — one of the UK's largest energy suppliers — which has faced two Ofgem enforcement actions totalling over £3.5 million.
She shapes Conservative energy policy. They profit from the sector she's pledging to deregulate.
Every claim sourced. Parliamentary register. Companies House. Ofgem records.
The Money Behind Badenoch:

https://t.co/SreqHkligN

[Jonathan Pie @JonathanPieNews]

There's lying, and then there's lying to the point of making yourself look like a complete bellend.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

The PBS NewsHour has documented the Trump family's unprecedented conflicts of interest. Jared Kushner, a 'volunteer' with no official position, has $6 billion in assets from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar-the same governments he is negotiating with on Middle East peace. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have invested in drone companies that are now competing for Pentagon contracts in the war their father started.

Forbes estimated that Eric and Don Jr., they were worth about $40, $50 million each before the 2024 election. About a year later, Eric at $400 million and Donald Trump Jr. at about $300 million.

They're using war and diplomacy to enrich themselves

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

'Man of God' Pete Hegseth tries to quote the bible - ends up quoting a fake verse from Pulp Fiction.

"He would have got away with it if it hadn’t been for all those people who, unfortunately, had seen Pulp Fiction."

@maitlis | @jonsopel

[dave lawrence 🐟🐟🐠 @dave43law]

Priceless 🤣🤣🤣

[Times Radio @TimesRadio]

“Reform did not promise to cut council tax in the local elections.”

“I’ve seen the leaflets!”

Reform’s Zia Yusuf says he personally reviewed leaflets for the last local elections, arguing none of them said council taxes would be cut or frozen.

@StigAbell

[Byline Times @BylineTimes]

🔴 EXPOSED: How Viktor Orbán Bankrolled the Network Around Reform UK

As Hungary’s Prime Minister suffers a historic electoral defeat, Byline Times maps out how his government’s funding arm channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds into organisations at the heart of Britain’s hard right.

https://t.co/9IFdHy1zT1

[Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 @reformexposed]

Imagine thinking this is funny, two days before Christmas, then posting it.

@TheBembridge is a Reform UK candidate in Westminster.

[Lars Christensen @MaMoMVPY]

I suspect there are quite a few politicians sitting in various corners of Europe and North America who are rather anxious these days about the prospect of information emerging in the coming weeks and months regarding how they received funds, channelled through the Hungarian government and Hungarian state-financed organisations, to conduct subversive political activities in their home countries.

And yes, Orbán himself has in all likelihood received a substantial portion of this money directly from Russia — primarily through Gazprom.

The evidence for the broader Kremlin-Hungary nexus has grown dramatically in recent weeks. A major consortium of investigative journalists published transcripts of phone calls between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian officials, strongly suggesting that Budapest functioned as a fifth column within the EU with Szijjártó allegedly coordinating with Moscow to undermine sanctions and sharing intelligence on Ukraine's EU accession process.

Szijjártó himself visited Moscow no fewer than 16 times following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The financial architecture underpinning this relationship is also becoming clearer. Investigative reporting has traced Orbán-linked financial forces specifically connected to Hungarian state-affiliated banks to the financing of far-right parties elsewhere in Europe, including Marine Le Pen's campaign in France and Spain's Vox party.

The money trail does not appear to run directly from Gazprom to Orbán to foreign parties, but rather through a layered system of Hungarian state intermediaries.

The deeper Russian connection comes via energy deals: between 2011 and 2015, Hungarian gas purchases were routed through an opaque intermediary company, MET International, with both Russian and Hungarian ownership and documented ties to Putin's inner circle and Orbán's government.

This brings us to CPAC Hungary. Magyar has now confirmed publicly what many suspected: CPAC was paid for by the Hungarian state. In his words, "the state should never have financed them in the first place — it was a crime."

The same applies to related institutions such as the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, which served as a key vehicle for spreading Orbán's ideological influence across Europe and beyond.

I am not suggesting that every politician who attended CPAC Hungary knowingly received Russian-linked funds.

But the financing chain is now confirmed — Hungarian taxpayers' money, quite possibly supplemented by Russian energy revenues, was used to host and cultivate a global network of like-minded politicians.

If I were a journalist in any country whose politicians attended those events, that would seem a rather pressing line of inquiry.

The urgency of that inquiry is underscored by what is reportedly happening right now. According to Magyar's international press conference, Szijjártó has barricaded himself with close colleagues and is actively destroying and shredding documents specifically evidence relating to sanctions against Russia.

If accurate, this is not the behaviour of an innocent man. It is the behaviour of someone who knows exactly what those documents contain and who those documents implicate.

One hopes the new Hungarian government moves fast enough to secure what remains.

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

All hail @PrivateEyeNews

Brilliant story about how one of the proposed new owners of Thames Water is offering up a £25 million "Community Benefit Trust" (CBT) to "support" local environment and community groups but only on condition that TW are exempt from environment law and any threat of prosecution for at least the next 5 years.

In other words we'll pay a £25 million bribe to local river groups and charities to shut them up, it's hush money, it's blood money, it's a bride.

The Evenlode Catchment Partnership (ECP) knows better of course, they've already handed back £135K to Thames Water after they realised they were simply been used and the only people benefiting from the arrangement was Thames Water.

Other river charities would do well to follow ECP's example, don't accept the hush money, don't accept the blood money, it is after all nothing more than a bribe.

[House Of The People @HoTPOfficial]

There is no way of knowing how often Parliament votes against what the public actually wants. Until now.

https://t.co/QpJCcn3FBH tracks every bill going through Parliament. You vote. We compare it to how your MP voted. The gap speaks for itself.

[Don McGowan @donmcgowan]

Yesterday, Reform UK dropped a billionaire bombshell via their pet [paid] media channels.

Ben Delo — one of the UK's youngest self-made billionaires, declared that he would re-migrate to the UK in order to donate to Nigel Farage's pension fund.

I had questions — I went looking.

A mathematician and tech entrepreneur, he made his fortune in cryptocurrency as co-founder of BitMEX alongside two others in 2014.

By 2018, he was reportedly the UK's first Bitcoin billionaire. So far, so standard for this type of guy.

But when you start reading about those he has donated money to, and the circles in which he moves, things become a bit murkier.

There are few firm details about Delo's philanthropy, but among other things, he helped fund Toby Young's Free Speech Union.

He maintains a suite of offices called The Sanctuary, close to Westminster Abbey, in which he allows 'guests' to use his facilities for free. Podcasts, office space, networking events.

The notorious Triggernometry podcast, hosted by Konstantin Kisin, records from the Sanctuary. From which he told the world that Rishi Sunak could not be British because he is a brown Hindu.

Other notable purveyors of Ben Delo's generous office complex are: Rupert Lowe, Ben Habib, Kemi Badenoch [multiple times], Claire Fox [and her Academy of Ideas] and his close friend, Jordan Peterson.

A genuine smörgåsbord of right-wing, free speech warriors.

Another feature of Delo's philanthropy is his summer party in Westminster Abbey. Attended last year by such notables as Matt Goodwin, Maurice Glassman and Paul Coleman — director of ADF International, the Christian law firm that opposes abortion.

When Nigel Farage gave testimony to the US Congress last year, he was flanked by Lorcán Price from ADF. The ADF helped topple Roe V Wade in the US and have cosied up to Farage in recent years. Watch this space for Reform UK's forthcoming anti-abortion stance, I'd suggest.

Of course, it's widely reported that Delo pleaded guilty to financial crimes by failing to implement anti-money laundering controls within his company and received a 30-month probation sentence alongside a $10 million fine.

In 2025, the crypto president pardoned him.

According to the Guardian, Delo has been biding his time, burnishing his reputation since receiving the seal of Trump approval [and by extension, of course, Farage's]. He is now launching himself into the UK political sphere as the latest white knight to attach his steed to Nigel Farage's rickety bandwagon.

The timing yesterday was not coincidental, nor was its method of delivery. It's no secret that Reform UK have been fighting to keep the spotlight in recent weeks. Dropping poll numbers testify to that.

Farage and Delo coordinated their announcement yesterday to coincide with a lull in the war [supposedly] in order that they maximise the headlines. And it worked.

But, as you can see from the examples above, Delo runs in the same right/far-right circles as all the others. Propping up some of the most hardline anti-immigration and Christian Nationalist figures.

This isn't a story about money — these people run together. It's an assault on our British freedoms. We need to be VERY wary of them.

[YouGov @YouGov]

How popular is Donald Trump in Western Europe? March 2026

🇫🇷 France: -64 (+4 from Feb)
🇬🇧 Britain: -67 (+3)
🇪🇸 Spain: -68 (-2)
🇮🇹 Italy: -68 (-2)
🇩🇪 Germany: -76 (=)
🇩🇰 Denmark: -91 (+1)

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[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

In honor of Vance's visit to Hungary, where he will campaign for Viktor Orban, I am reposting this article: Orban's Hungary is one of the poorest countries, and certainly the most corrupt and least free country, in the EU. Vance wants this for America?
https://t.co/Qx1CaKNL2E

[Liz Webster @LizWebsterSBF]

🔥 Farage roasted again by 🇺🇸 Rep Jamie Raskin

“This is the guy that delivered Brexit to the UK. How he shows his face in public after that debacle is beyond …Isn’t that considered a disaster in the history of England?

I cannot imagine a society that produced some of the greatest writers, poets and musicians… falling for a free speech imposter and charlatan like that.”

Absolutely 💯

[Dr Paul Dorfman @dorfman_p]

University of Oxford : maximising oil and gas extraction here would only save UK households up to £82 (€95) per year. A UK fully powered by renewable energy, would save households up to £441 (€510) a year on energy bills.
https://t.co/B50EZdDrJJ

[Will Hutton @williamnhutton]

Ed Miliband gets relentless bile from the right for his ‘ideological’ commitment to clean, cheap renewable energy - just as Nye Bevan once did for creating the NHS. Yet on March 25 97.7 % of our electricity was from renewables. A revolution is unfolding. https://t.co/BdGG1gkHuD

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

Named and shamed, the water company fat cats that refuse to explain themselves in pubic. And we put up with this nonsense.

Time to take back control. Time for public ownership.

[Channel 4 News @Channel4News]

Nigel Farage is challenged by Senior Political Correspondent Paul McNamara over Reform UK's promises to voters, as his party launched its campaign for May's local elections.

[YouGov @YouGov]

Just 11% of Britons think people should be allowed to make donations to political parties using cryptocurrencies, as the government announces such donations will be banned

Should be allowed: 11%
Should not be allowed: 51%