Finola

20+ years influencing policy & legislation. #PublicAffairs #Politics

[Lance Lachlan ✌🏻 @lancelachlan]

Here's Nigel Farage's daughter. If you type her name into Google, she comes up everywhere. He even used her to promote his appearance on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.

He's not angry because a reporter turned up at his last known address before he moved into his £1.4 million house in Surrey. He's angry because he's losing control of the narrative.

He's angry because the £5 million gift keeps raising new questions and fresh evidence is emerging.

And now we've discovered that an alleged money launderer referred to him as "Daddy Farage".

That's what he's really upset about.

[Wokerati Marty @WokeratiMarty]

I notice Nigel Farage had no problem at all with thrusting his daughter into the public spotlight when he was paid £1.5 million to be on I'm a Celebrity.

It’s always about the money with dodgy Nigel.

[Finola @Finola_Kelly_]

@TinyWriterLaura I've seen a few similar ads for policy people

[Martin Williams @martinrw]

Last year, I revealed how a group of MPs was funded by an Israeli state-owned arms company.

It was the first time an All-Party Parliamentary Group had ever been found in breach of the rules on foreign influence.

After my investigation, the group disbanded and the company filed to close down.

But unfortunately, it's now come back from the dead.

It still claims to make missiles in the UK - despite seemingly having no factory here, and only one member of staff.

Full story here ⬇️

[Gabriel Pogrund @Gabriel_Pogrund]

BREAKING🚨

The Telegraph reports George Cottrell's mother made a ***£1m*** payment to Richard Tice's company, half of which was donated to Reform

And that George Cottrell loaned £80K to Tice

We approached Fiona Cottrell about the above before our piece - she wouldn't comment

[GBC @GBC_Press]

🇸🇪🇵🇸 ​Swedish billionaire Roger Akelius announced the largest single donation in UNICEF Sweden's history, donating $76 million for Palestine.

​This will fund and rebuild 400 schools, helping over 100,000 Palestinian children deprived of education due to the Israeli genocide.

[Jody McIntyre @jodymcintyre_]

James Purnell is Burnham’s Morgan McSweeney.

His Flint Global firm employed James Clark in its defence division.

Clark set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Defence Technology. It was later shut down after revelations of funding from an Israeli state-owned arms firm.

[Dale Vince @DaleVince]

Farage identified a hotel housing asylum seekers in 2024 - the Hilton Bromsgrove. He made a video of himself there, he made the location public. And far right mobs attacked it. People and their families, location identified by Farage, right wing mob stormed the place....again I say, F ing Hypocrite.

[Fig Newton @TopTerf]

To the London black cab driver who found me bloodied in the chaos of central London and drove me all the way to Reading: thank you.

Thank you for cleaning my face. For the sugary tea at the BP garage. For delivering me safely to my friend's front door and refusing to charge me a single penny.

In the trauma of that day, I never asked your name. I don’t think I even thanked you properly, and I am so sorry for that. But I hope you know that I remember you every single year.

You were a hero when London needed one most.

#SevenSeven
#NeverForget
#LondonBombings

[Krishnan Guru-Murthy @krishgm]

A Farage reset will mean the clock on his declarations also resets - so if there are other declarable "gifts" he received in the year before the 2024 election that we don't know about he will no longer have to tell anyone. The inquiry into the £5 million - when it resumes - could ask him direct questions about that - but he may or may not answer

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Taiwan solved tax evasion in 1951 with a trick so cheap it should embarrass every tax authority on the planet.

The problem was an all-cash economy full of small shops. A merchant pockets the cash, skips the receipt, and the sale never existed. Auditors can't catch what was never recorded, and hiring enough of them to watch every noodle stand costs more than the missing tax.

So finance chief Ren Xianqun flipped the incentive. Print a lottery number on every receipt. Draw winners every two months on live TV. Top prize today: NT$10 million, about $310K.

Suddenly the customer and the shopkeeper want opposite things. The merchant wants the sale off the books. The customer wants the ticket. And there are millions more customers than merchants. Every transaction now carries a built-in witness demanding the paper trail.

Year one, reported tax revenue jumped 75%, from NT$29 million to NT$51 million. Seventy-five years later, roughly 70% of Taiwanese still play. Convenience stores redeem the smallest NT$200 prizes at the register, so even a coffee receipt feels like a scratch card.

The elegant part is what the audit force costs. The prize pool runs about NT$7 billion a year, roughly $20 million. In exchange, the government gets 23 million unpaid auditors working every checkout line in the country, forever. No inspector general on earth delivers that coverage at that price.

Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Slovakia all copied it. The most effective compliance tool ever built looks like a game, and that's exactly why it works.

[Novara Media @novaramedia]

A luxury hotel in Ireland has cancelled a “retreat” for a secretive group of wealthy, famous and powerful people founded by billionaire Peter Thiel.

The Powerscourt Hotel was due to host a conference for Dialog in August – but called off the event after hackers released details of its membership and activities last month.

The invite-only organisation, founded in 2006 by Thiel and tech entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, was set to discuss preparing for a third world war, battlefield technologies, nuclear energy and how to build cults, according to a leaked schedule.

Guests would have included a Nato commander and senior Trump administration officials, the Irish Times reported.

Thiel is co-founder of Palantir, a spytech firm that has worked with Israel’s military throughout its genocide in Gaza and with US immigration agencies accused of severe human rights violations against migrants and people advocating for their rights.

Prominent Dialog members revealed in the leak include Texas senator Ted Cruz, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, Israeli finance ministry economist Shmuel Abramzon, actor Josh Brolin, author Sam Harris and longevity influencer Bryan Johnson.

The Powerscourt Estate, which owns the land on which the hotel sits in Co. Wicklow, said it was “relieved and pleased” about its tenant’s decision to cancel.

“Following a period of great concern for Powerscourt Estate and on foot of discussions with the Powerscourt Hotel, we are relieved and pleased to announce the Dialog event planned for August at the Powerscourt Hotel has been cancelled,” it said in a statement.

“Powerscourt Estate wish to thank all of those who supported us through this difficult and challenging time. Including our staff, neighbours, friends, supporters and legal team.”

A hotel spokesperson confirmed the event had been cancelled, adding: “We have no further comment.”

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Having spent five years visiting most of the Christian communities in the Middle East for my book From the Holy Mountain I am in a position to say with some authority that what you say is more or less the opposite of the truth. Christians in the West Bank, especially in Beit Sahour & Taybeh are currently under daily assault from violent Settlers- their situation is worse than anything in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon or Egypt. Are you unaware of this, in which case why are you presuming to speak for the beleaguered Palestinian Christians, or are you just deliberately spreading propaganda which you know to be untrue?

[The Finance Guy @OneFinanceGuy]

@Nigel_Farage @SkyNews The property where your daughter lives now has been known to be yours for years - you used to take posy photos there when you were still married to her mother. Sky did not reveal anything that wasn't in public domain. Only now after your corruption scandal privacy is an issue?

[The Finance Guy @OneFinanceGuy]

Hey @IsabelOakeshott, your Isle of Wight flat has a personal secured loan from Simon Dolan, who has hosted George Cottrell and his friends several times in Mustique at the Mandalay property. You were with Cottrell when he was arrested. You are highly suspicious, to put politely

[The Finance Guy @OneFinanceGuy]

Out of curiosity, given you say you are such close friends with George Cottrell: did you ever meet Milos Radonjic, @RaheemKassam? Given Cottrell was dating his sister, surely the conversation about Milos' arrest for international drug trafficking must have emerged at some point?

[Will Hutton @williamnhutton]

A sad day but few care, especially the British right obsessed by the ECHR and its faux threats to British sovereignty. Today we lost ITV to US media group Comcast and EasyJet to US private credit company, Castlelake. Britain is ever more a vassal economy in thrall to the USA.

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

Not many people know that in May 2024, at the Maestral Casino Resort in Budva, Montenegro, during the Triton Poker Series (a high-stakes poker tournament), it was reported that George Cottrell lost £16 million in one night.

It is shameful that this story caused so few ripples at the time when it should have sounded the alarm bells and been properly investigated.

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

The guys who most complained about wearing masks during Covid now wear bigger ones to intimidate people and to hide their identities.
Effing cowards and hypocrites . Shame on all of these racist asswipes

[Victoria Derbyshire @vicderbyshire]

NEW: Newsnight has learned that Pizza Express held its own inquiry into ex-Prince Andrew's claim he went to Pizza Express on the date Virginia Guiffre says she was forced to have sex with him 

• it found no evidence to suggest Mountbatten-Windsor had visited and was telling the truth - and also nothing to suggest he was not

• Newsnight’s made extensive inquiries to see if there’s any record of any customer or any staff member having seen him there on March 10, 2001 - we found none 

• we submitted FOI requests to the Met Police asking if royal protection officers had accompanied Andrew to Pizza Express on that date 25 yrs ago. They told us: ‘Confirming or denying that information is held, would reveal whether protection had been afforded to a specific individual other than the King and the prime minister’

• that’s despite the Met previously referring to Andrew’s royal protection officers - including in a press statement in Feb this year 

• Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey told us: ‘I really can't see how revealing that Andrew had police protection 25 years ago would play into the hands of terrorists as the Met claims’