Simon

Ex keeper / coach. Husband to 1, Dad to 3, Grandpa to 5 superheroes - Henry, Billy, Thomas, Lucy, and Barney. 🐯Leic Tigers

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

This...

[Just me - Thomas @TomSoede]

This morning I asked myself, not for the first time, who is Nigel and I made some notes.

And it does add up.

Here is a man who sells himself as the ordinary bloke with a pint, the man of the people, the great outsider standing up against the establishment.

And yet somehow this ordinary bloke always seems to arrive with a camera crew, a donor network, a friendly broadcaster, and now a parliamentary investigation into a £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire.

Very normal.

Very grassroots.

Very “just one of the lads”.

The peoples revolt, apparently, now comes with lighting, branding, fundraising dinners, professional outrage, and a small question about whether millions should have been declared properly.

Everything is a betrayal when Labour does it.

Everything is “nothing to see here” when Nigel does it.

Housing? Blame Labour.
The NHS? Blame Labour.
The economy? Blame Labour.
Boats? Blame Labour.
A £5 million gift? Suddenly everybody must calm down and respect the process.

And then came Tuesday.

A young man died. A family was grieving. A country was trying to understand something horrific.

And Farage stepped forward.

Not with calm.
Not with care.
Not with responsibilty.

But with his announcement of “pure cold rage”.

That phrase matters.

Because anger is human.
Anger can be moral.
Anger can demand answers, justice, accountability and truth.

I understand anger.
A lot of people are angry.
They have every right to ask serious questions.

But rage is different.

Rage does not ask careful questions.
Rage does not wait for investigations.
Rage does not protect grieving families from becoming political props.

Rage looks for a target.

And that is where Farage always seems most comfertable.

Not solving the pain.
Not calming the country.
Not asking how institutions failed and how they can be fixed.

But standing beside the pain with a microphone, turning the temprature up, and calling it leadership.

Warm enough to repost.
Warm enough to donate.
Warm enough to vote.
But never calm enough to ask:

“Hang on, who benefits from keeping us this angry?”

That is the trick.

He does not need Britain to feel hopeful.
He does not even need Britain to feel informed.

He needs Britain permanently one headline away from rage.

Because rage is usefull.

It fills rallies.
It drives clicks.
It turns grief into theatre.
It makes slogans feel like solutions.

And while everyone is shouting, nobody asks the boring questions.

Where is the plan?
Where is the funding?
Where are the costings?
Where is the responsibilty?

Maybe that is who Nigel Farage is.

Not the man of the people.

But the man who knows exactly how to turn peoples pain into his own political stage.

The Reform & Tory Sitcom continues.

Same chaos. Different rosette.

Anger can demand answers.
Rage just sells tickets.

If this speaks to you, please add your comments, repost it, and maybe follow me — not for me, but because politics needs fewer slogans and more people asking proper questions.

#Farage #ReformUK

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@BBCRLSport Such a shame that Nicky Smith won't be one of that team.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@BBCNewsnight Coldly disingenuous and entirely shameful.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@BBCPolitics Kim Johnson showing why Labour are much better suited to being the party of protest as opposed to government.

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

A message to all sane Republicans:

He pardoned 1,600 violent criminals.
You said nothing.

He bulldozed the East Wing.
You said nothing.

He interfered with the release of the Epstein files. You said nothing.

He took over the Kennedy Center and renamed it after himself. You said nothing.

He accepted a $400 million airplane as a personal gift. You said nothing.

He threatened Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Greenland, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. You said nothing.

He tariffed just about everyone but Russia, causing inflation and instability worldwide. You said nothing.

He attacked a nation during mediated negotiations. You said nothing.

His ill-conceived war killed 175 children on day one. You said nothing.

He alienated and insulted our allies. You said nothing.

His ICE Army terrorized and murdered U.S. citizens. You said nothing.

He committed murder on the high seas. You said nothing.

He co-opted the Justice Department and directed it to prosecute his political enemies. You said nothing.

It’s time to start talking.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@WG_RumblePants Black & white; curtains shut but french windows open; soon as the umpire called "Over!" it was straight outside to recreate the best bits - bowled against the outhouse wall - then quickly back to the next over!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: NOT SO FAST! Federal judge reopens Trump’s IRS case and demands to know if her court was defrauded.

Judge Kathleen Williams has had enough.

In a brief but devastating order Friday, the federal judge in Miami reopened Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — a case Trump had voluntarily dismissed last week specifically to avoid her scrutiny — and ordered Trump's lawyers to explain by June 12th why she shouldn't find that the entire scheme was a fraud perpetrated against her court.

The judge's language was pointed and precise. She said she wanted to investigate "grievous allegations" that the deal to resolve the case was "premised on deception." She asserted that she was "empowered to investigate serious misconduct" and demanded answers to two devastating questions: was "the court the victim of a fraud," and did Trump collude with his own government to settle the case specifically "to avoid judicial scrutiny"?

The answer to both questions, based on everything that has already been reported, appears to be yes.

Judge Williams had been circling this case for weeks before Trump pulled it. She had openly questioned how Trump could sue an agency he controls, with government lawyers who answer to him, producing a settlement negotiated with officials he appointed. She ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually adversaries or secretly colluding. Trump dismissed the case the day before those briefs were due.

Then, after she closed it, the Justice Department released not one but two extraordinary agreements — a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump's allies, and a separate one-page document permanently barring the IRS from ever auditing Trump, his family, or his businesses. Agreements that had apparently been negotiated while the case was supposedly active before her court.

Judge Williams cited the New York Times report revealing that the IRS had prepared a 25-page memo outlining strong defenses against Trump's suit — defenses the Justice Department never raised in court, never filed, never mentioned.

Her order came directly in response to the filing by 35 former federal judges — appointed by presidents of both parties — who called the scheme a fraud and urged her to reopen the case.

She listened.

"We stand ready to work with the court as it investigates this matter," said Norman Eisen, who represented the former judges.

Trump tried to flip the table before she could see the cards. She just put them back on the table.

If you can’t wait to see the Justice Department try to explain itself, please like and share this post everywhere.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@QuinsFOTS It takes a lot for any player associated for years with a rival club to become a firm favourite at Welford Road. Mike Brown did just that - and more.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@WG_RumblePants @Irfanooq Oh I don't know - he bowled worse balls!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@danbarker Devilled kidneys, bubble & squeak and not a hash brown in sight - how bloody marvellous!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@LeicesterTigers Player of every season that he's been here in my book. What a contribution; what a shift. Thanks, Hanro!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@TheRealJamieKay My back.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@JohnCleese "...or..."? They are not mutually exclusive.

[RobertFella 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 @Bonkavision5]

Too on point not to share. This is great, but too bad the Orange Felon’s enablers won’t let him see it.
This Australian's reply to #Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."
- Tony Locke

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@NatalkaKyiv @realDonaldTrump To be honest, the more time the orange twat spends on the petty stuff, the better!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@realDonaldTrump Can't wait for you to be consigned to the dumpster of history.

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@LeadingEdgePod As a 14yo I was invited to a net run by then Leics capt, Tony Lock. My dad - warped sense of humour - suggested I ask the great man whether he straightened his elbow when he pushed his quicker one through. Oblivious, I did just that. He had a good left hook, did Tony Lock!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@Grahamblythe4 @TheBarmyArmy @jackrussellart @Sarah_Taylor30 Such a lovely man. I unexpectedly found myself at the players' reception in the banqueting suite after the final. Tom spotted me - I was clearly starstruck - and he took me round introducing me as his "good friend". Special memory!

[Simon @AncientKeeper]

@PeterHanna9 @TheBarmyArmy @jackrussellart @Sarah_Taylor30 Sadly not - but still going strong at 5 short of his century, I see!