A carnival of mediocrity: the year in politics
This has been a 12 months for resignations, disgrace, duplicity and strife in Westminster
By @willydunn
https://t.co/urQrEtBfUR
Wrote about how our failing social care system is a symptom of a broken model of political economy:
👉outsourced, privatised services
👉0 state capacity + bankrupt local gov.
👉dependency on low-waged migrant workforce
👉spillover demand into NHS
👉hedge funds/PE reaping rewards
I cannot overstate what a gripping, breathtaking read the Kate Mossman feature in this issue is. Buy a copy, read it in print, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Oxford health professionals advise mothers to question “sensationalist” media coverage. The @NewStatesman has seen a letter sent to worried mums who raise concern about OUH maternity care, reminding them not believe everything they read in the papers https://t.co/2QHC9cAWTI
EXC interview with @wesstreeting by @PronouncedAlva. On *that* "drive by", his frustrations with the government — and playing Tiny Tim. Must read! https://t.co/xE18vr5xhN
Everyone knows that Nigel Farage is friends with Donald Trump. But his relationship with America is much deeper than that. My piece on his forty year love affair with the US:
https://t.co/zINZWPmnbV
This is genuinely unmissable: detailed, insightful reporting from inside the rooms (and smoking areas) where Farage and others have spent decades planning the future of British politics.
If I was a publisher I'd be throwing money at @freddiejh8 to do this at book length
NIGEL FARAGE'S AMERICAN DREAM by @freddiejh8
When Nigel Farage flew into JFK Airport, New York, for the first time in 1988, he was travelling into the future. Ronald Reagan was the global figurehead of a conservative counter-revolution sweeping the West, one that merged tradition with new money and black-tie balls with the mantra “greed is good”. America was what’s next. For Farage, it still is.
This love affair began decades before he met Donald Trump. Farage has been commuting to the US since the late 1980s, crossing the Atlantic more times than he can count. During our interview, when I asked Farage what he admired about America back then, he said: “The can-do. The applauding of success.”
Raheem Kassam, a former Ukip aide who has reinvented himself into a flamboyant restaurateur in Washington, told me “If England were the 51st state, Nigel Farage would be one of the senators.”
Steve Bannon was hosting a dinner in Manhattan in 2018. Kassam, who had organised rallies in support of Tommy Robinson, told Farage that he should stop criticising those to his right. “I was like, let Tommy be Tommy,” Kassam said. “Your problem is you’re a Dulwich [school] posh boy.” Then they “literally lunged at each other, and Steve had to put his arm in the middle of us”.
Now, Bannon says Farage “draws crowds the size of Ted Cruz… He’s plugged in to every senior person in Maga from the president on down. He couldn’t be more highly regarded, because the guy’s delivered. He’s a major player. He’s going to be the next prime minister.”
Over the past two decades, Senator Farage has built a gentlemen’s club of connections in Washington. The New Statesman has spoken to figures on the Hill, key players in the Trump administration and sources within Reform. The picture that emerges is of a future prime minister who sees Trump’s US as a blueprint for the country that Britain must become.
Infuriating and deeply unfair that Finn is able to turn a trip to Harrods food hall into such a brilliant column.
All I'd get from such a venture would be a third chin, and possibly gout
This week I investigated the explosion in the London luxury supermarket scene
Click through to learn exactly how much it costs to buy carrots at Harrods