10 days ago
Vernal Scott is the head of Equality and Diversity at my old place, Oxford University. And as you can see below he only believes in free speech for folks he agrees with.
93 days ago
As I noted at the time, there is one rule for the great and good and another for we dirty plebs. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has today ruled that former NatWest (NWG) CEO Alison Rose, not once but twice, breached data protection laws in leaking details of Nigel Farage’s bank account to the BBC reporter Simon Jack. Well there’s a shock. You don’t say. But is the ICO going to do anything about it?
173 days ago
I explain what I mean in the opening salvo. Perhaps I am paranoid. That brings me to Chill Brands (CHLL), then AMTE Power (AMTE), Supply@ME Capital (FRAUD), Regtech Open (JOKE), and finally a long segment on Tortilla Mexican (MEX) where the valuation is surely a rum ‘n’ coke?
273 days ago
Her position was untenable after she admitted – as I suggested was the case here – that she was the person who leaked to the BBC details of Nigel Farage’s bank account at Coutts and a claim that he was not targeted because of his political views. Many banking experts and media types have such Farage derangement syndrome that they defended Alison Rose the CEO of NatWest (NWG) the owner of Coutts. I disagree with Farage on much but what Rose and Coutts did was wrong. I could see the wood for the trees.
274 days ago
I discussed the scandal of the closing of Nigel Farage’s bank account by Coutts on political grounds in a podcast yesterday HERE. Like the heroic Peter Tatchell who has opined on this matter, I really disagree with Farage on many things, but I argue that what Coutts has done is scandalous. But this scandal now looks like it is ratchetting up and very well could cost Dame Alison Rose, the boss of NatWest (NWG) which owns Coutts, her job. Here’s why.
283 days ago
Whatever you think of Nigel Farage he is the hero of today’s epiosde where the liberal GroupThink in the business and media world are the villains. If you care a jot about liberty and freedom, on this day you stand with Farage. Because next time it could be you!
289 days ago
Yes she is back from her conference and stops recording. Before that I talk about Nigel Farage and Coutts and the sex education talk at Joshua’s school yesterday. Then it is onto Naked Wine (WINE), MGC Pharmaceuticals (MXC), Eden Research (EDEN) and trakM8 (TRAK).
291 days ago
I have many criticisms of Nigel Farage but it seems that he is being persecuted by the banksters. Before you laugh, it could happen to you too. This is not good. I then look at Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) where Gary points out a minor error I have made, Eden Research (EDEN), Echo Energy (ECHO), Premier African (PREM) and Tinybuild (TBLD). I forgot to ask in this podcast how Zeus Capital can be advising both Boohoo.com (BOO) and also Revolution Beauty (REVB) as they engage in such vicious verbals?
778 days ago
I discuss with reference to Tulsi Gabbard, who I admire immensely, and Nigel Farage, who I don’t, what makes someone a Russian asset. Neither Nigel or Tulsi are but that won’t stop certain loons from saying they are. Then a bit more on dangerous fake news. Then I look at Pearson (PSON), Novacyt (NCYT), Nightcap (NGHT), Deepverge (DVRG), Chill Brands (FRAUD) and Supply@ME Capital (FRAUD).
780 days ago
I take a tour through four weekend press articles starting with that greedy scumbag Nigel Farage – I refer in the podcast to THIS PIECE. Then to two great pieces on Ukraine and on the decadent West by Peter Hitchens and Matthew Syed respectvely before discussing the Sunday Times article on CBD and pot stocks. Finally I discuss Chris Bailey’s excellent piece on this website and my own approach to shares I own, mentioning Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX) and some news breaking in the USA.
884 days ago
It is especially when you see the smiling face of a little kid who drowned yesterday in the channel that your heart melts. Or it should. Some of those on twitter appear to have no hearts while, for others, the important matter at hand seems to be weaponizing the deaths and playing the blame game. It is the fault of the Tories, or Labour or the Frogs and little Macron.
922 days ago
The murder of Tory MP David Amess is shocking and horrible and, naturally, one thinks of his family. But the reaction of the media and political class has been telling, a sign of just how completely and utterly out of touch they are with we dirty plebs. The same could never have been said of East End born David Amess but he was an unusual fellow inside the Westminster bubble.
958 days ago
It is like National Velvet but far better, the rank outsider coming through to win a major sporting event. Emma Radacanu seems such a pleasant young lady discussing how honoured she is to have had a message from a role model that is the Queen, after her win. Wearing that crucifix, so unfashionable in Britain today, this is a girl who has worked hard to get A’s in maths and economics A levels just a couple of months ago and who talked of celebrating with chocolate frozen yoghurt with added chocolate. So like the whole nation I wake up thinking how wonderful this British sporting heroine is. But if there is a bandwagon there is always Nigel Farage.
1048 days ago
I should be the ideal target for Andrew Neil’s new GB News which launched last night. I am right of centre, think the BBC is a disgrace, Channel 4 is fake news and that ITV is woke nonsense whose reporting of Trump should have been an imprisonable offence. And for that reason gave up on TV news a while back. But I did not watch GB News last night. And I doubt I ever will. Despite its celebrating winning the ratings war, here’s a secret: I am far from alone. Here are the stats GB News is celebrating:
1182 days ago
I start with ShareSoc backing an investor action group at bust mini bond outfit Wellseley. I warned folks explicity about this almost two years ago HERE and many times thereafter so have scant sympathy. I discuss the role of the floor shitters at the FCA in this debacle. That brings me to Supply@ME Capital (SYME) after today’s dynamite expose HERE. The email is genuine. I ask what next? Finally I discuss comments by populists seeking cheap love, such as shamed Neil Woodford promoter Jeff PressTrip of the Mail on Sunday and Nigel Farage, about GameStop. Do they both really support bubbles and capital misallocation?
1209 days ago
We start 2021 as we left 2020 – the year when drinking coffee, knickers, sand, women’s hockey, covid, dating a person of colour, not dating a person of colour and numerous other things became racist. First up this year is that old favourite Dad’s Army (the version starring Clive Dunn, Arthur Lowe, Arnold Ridley etc.).
1218 days ago
I have not read the full 1500 pages of the Trade treaty between the UK and the Evil Empire. I am sure that buried in the detail are a few dastardly measures from inserted by stormtroopers from the Death Star. I don’t need to fall asleep reading it; I just look at the reactions of those who have.
1413 days ago
Last week started with the woke mob coming for the statues. Often they got the wrong guy, as in this case, but we live in a post fact era. Then they came for the comedians. I had thought that the book burnings would not get underway for a fortnight or so but, as ever, the inolerance of the Marxist Madrassas formerly known as British Universities continues to be world leading.
1547 days ago
The 12 EU flags I had bought to burn on Brexit day seem to have disappeared. I have my suspicions. The Mrs may have voted the right way but has still not dared to admit as much to her lefty pals who, being public sector workers, have nothing better to do than post comments on facebook about how 17.4 million of us are stupid, ill educated racists and how they are considering a permanent move to Tuscany. She does not wear her beliefs, on this one, on her sleeve. That is probably wise as it cannot be long before University lecturers who are found to have voted for Brexit are no platformed and accused of being members of the alt right. But I am not a man to give up easily as you can see below.
1796 days ago
Like millions of others, I voted for the party which is now the largest single party from any country in the EU Parliament and which won the British Euro elections by a country Mile – Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. The reaction of the Westminster and media classes has been predictable: “Didn’t the Lib Dems do well! This is a vote against Brexit.” You could not make it up. But they did.
1806 days ago
As I am often abroad at election time I organise a permanent postal vote. Thus from Bristol in the South west region my ballot paper arrives and has been filled in ( and posted0 as you can see below. It is a treble pleasure.
1846 days ago
Happy Birthday Dad. I hope that you enjoy your "medicinal" apple based gift. I am about ten days from moving house and have just completed a mail relocation form so I shall get my postal vote for the Euros forwarded. I dislike many of the creeps who surround Nigel Farage but his Brexit party has my vote in the bag and I explain why. I look at Management Resource Solutions (MRS) as another red flag emerges for this insolvent piece of crap. I cover Westminster Group (WSG) run by loathsome swine Tony Baldry, Audioboom (BOOM), Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) and his other dogs and Purplebricks (PURP) in a Joshua interrupted podcast.
1967 days ago
I see that The Guardian and others are blaming Brexit for a fall in UK house prices. But hang on! House prices are crashing in Oz and Canada and sliding at an ever faster rate in the USA. What's that got to do with Brexit. The housing bubble in China is popping - how can you blame that on Nigel Farage? I explain why lower house prices are a good thing and what is really going on in today's podcast.
2120 days ago
A Survation poll taken on Saturday shows the Tories falling fast to 38% and Labour rising to 40%. And the Brexit betrayal backlash is only just beginning. For starters, Mrs May’s henchmen have so far managed to gag most Tory MPs with threats while they spin the line that her betrayal is a good deal for Britain and is essentially what we 17.4 million voted for. That gag and that lie won’t hold for long. And secondly many of us were too bothered about the World Cup and associated drinking to take on board the full scale of the treachery, of the red lines and ,manifesto pledges abandoned. Only now is that sinking in.
2334 days ago
Oh well, apparently he is a very astute businessman. But as for his other half... As a diehard Brexiteer I have to question at least one aspect of Neil Davidson's judgement, his better ( well sort of) half in action below - the bit where Nigel Farage duffs her up on ship building is especially good. But I still think the shares are very cheap! None the less I must now acceptr that the chair of our biggest single investment is sleeping with the enemy.
2455 days ago
Marie Claire showed commendable liberal idiocy for its take on the film Dunkirk. USA today was almost on a par. But the winner of the liberal metropolitan elitist idiot commentator on this war movie depicting an actual historic event is Robert Fisk of the Independent, a man who has real form when it comes to being a stranger to the truth. It is thanks to Robert that we have the phrase "to Fisk" meaning to go through a newspaper article to discover the series of statements from the post fact era.
2455 days ago
The last time I felt under attack from Sir Vince Cable was when he called on the FCA to deal with myself and fellow critics of that Great British company Quindell (QPP). As, even Sir Vince now knows, Quindell was the UK's biggest stockmarket fraud for 30 years, the regulators have thanked me for my work exposing it but Sir Vince worked hard with Lord Peter Hain of sleaze and others to get me sent to jail for market abuse.To the man who has predicted 17 of the last 4 recessions I say thank you once again for your efforts. Now he calls folks like me, hardline brexiteers, "jihadis" in an article in the Mail on Sunday which, even by the standards of that paper, is lie filled fiction.
2501 days ago
I was driving on the road that heads up into the mountains heading from Kalamata to Kambos. Of course it does not end in Kambos, the nearest village the Greek Hovel. Kambos is just a settlement, of no particular historical significance, beauty or importance, sitting on the road as one heads to Kardamili, the ghastly tourist fleshpot of Stoupa or the regional capital Areopolis. But Kambos is as far as I usually go.
2609 days ago
After Donald Trump's comments on Sweden and immigration, the Swedish home secretary Ylva Johansson gave an interview on the BBC News channel when she said there was no connection between crime and immigration and the level of rape in Sweden is “going down, and going down, and going down.”
Fair enough. That interview took place last week. The BBC did not challenge the minister at all since her pro immigration Trump bashing agenda is that of the UK state funded broadcaster. There is just one problem. The Minister lied.
2701 days ago
Many on the left are, these days, prone to label any populist right wing leader as a fascist. Or when that loses its meaning since it now covers so many folks they use the term Nazi instead. There is no evidence that Donald Trump or Nigel Farage or the editor of the Daily Mail want to gas the Jews or invade Albania and Ethiopia but hell why not lump them with those right wingers of old. And thus we are today being warned that Austria might elect Europe's first fascist leader since Franco in the shape of Norbert Hofer.
2706 days ago
I am not a UKIP voter although I am 100% eurosceptic. I have explained many times why I don't vote for the party but listening to taxpayer funded Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today I almost stareted to feel sympathetic to the fruitcakes.
2802 days ago
Nearly every conservative on this planet is rooting for Donald Trump against Crooked Hillary this autumn. Those of us who loathe the self proclaimed elite, the establishment of big business, the liberal media, the career politicians, Goldman Sachs and Monsanto, the crony capitalists, the bailout junkies are even more likely to back Trump...after all just look where Clinton's funding comes from. And thus as a conservative who rails against the establishment it is no shock that Nigel Farage of UKIP is backing The Donald and turned up at a rally last night. One "conservative insurgent" supports another: and you are surprised? What was even more predictable were the social media whinings of the liberal whingers.
2823 days ago
Yesterday's news was all about how the Metropolitan Police is dressing up more and more of its officers to look like RoboCop to keep us all safe. Remind me, what was the name of that Brazilian chappie the Met shot dead for no good reason? If you trust the State you would have been reassured until about 10.30 PM when reports came in of a stabbing in Russell Square in the heart of the capital: 1 dead, five injured.
2824 days ago
Labour is falling apart, The Tories might just renege on Brexit, Theresa May certainly is not moving fast, the Lib Dems are a joke - UKIP really should be in upbeat mood. But it is not. Its own leadership contest makes that in Labour seem well organised and good humoured. Not only is it tearing itself apart but it is also showing itself just to be unspeakably nasty.
2836 days ago
When poor Jo Cox, the late Labour MP for somewhere Grim in the North was murdered the British Liberal media did their utomost to pin the ghastly crime to the Brexit campaign. So what if the killer had spent ages in an asylum was on medication and called social services in a right old state the day before? That did not matter. Not once was the phrase "lone wolf" used. If the liberals could not link him directly to Brexit it was enough to find a few posters erected several hundred miles away by UKIP and Leave or a few harsh words from Boris Johnson and claim these "turned the poor chap".
2843 days ago
Oh no, Wildes is going to have to report me to the FCA once again for market abuse in awarding the prize, a signed photo of Oakley, to myself. This contest was on my mind following news that once again a "foreign cat" has entered the house through Oakley's cat flap. What would Farage say? "These Bulgarian cats get everywhere, political correctness gone mad...mine's a pint." Anyhow the winning entry - from the many submitted HERE - to the photo below is from me and is:
2855 days ago
The charming woman next to me on the plane back from Kalamata was a Greek living in Cardiff. She said that she was frightened. So were her friends: Italians, Poles and other bubbles living in Britain. How could they plan for the future when it looked as if they would be booted out post Brexit?
I asked: Who said this was going to happen? Which of the leaders of the vote leave campaign: Boris, Gove, Priti Patel, Nigel Farage, Carswell, Gisela Stuart, who?
2859 days ago
Nigel Farage was on good form today as he sticks it to the overpaid parasites in the EU parliament. Enjoy his victory speech
2871 days ago
It appears that in our absence, Oakley's cat sitter junior doctor Johnny has done his best to watch TV with the morbidly obese three legged cat. First it was Nigel Farage, Oakley was attentive but naturally he is an "outer" already.
Then it was the football.
2941 days ago
As ever the BBC Question Time panel was nauseating. The two mainstream Westminster Politicians, Tory Anna Soubry and Labour's Chris " Bryant talked over the orther panelists as the establishment always knows best. On the subject of the EU they agreed. They are inners. And liars.
Chris Bryant told eurosceptic economist Ruth Lea that the trade deal she wanted the UK to agree with once outside the EU was like that which rogue pariah State North Korea has with the Evil Empire. That
3067 days ago
We were all told that a Labour disaster at Oldham West would see the Party's MP's ignore the mandate of party members and launch a coup against Comrade Jeremy Corbyn. Sadly for the Blairite, pro-war elements within the party, Labour triumphed in the poll - its share of the vote went up by 7.5% to 62%, UKIP gained a few votes the Tory vote halved. So Labour is stuck with Corbyn but there are two ways to look at this.
3082 days ago
No it is not my Mrs but a comrade of hers who wishes to go to volunteer to help the migrants landing up in Greece from Syria and other places made hell holes as a result of misguided Western meddling. I know being nice to migrants is not popular in all quarters. I don’t expect Nigel Farage to donate. But we are in this household and if you have some compassion I ask you to consider a small donation.
3216 days ago
I cannot imagine that the neo-commie Alex Tsipras thought that his biggest fan in the EU was UKIP leader Nigel Farage and poor Tsipras looked a little uncomfortable as Nigel lavished him with praise in the European parliament today. Tsipras does not wish to leave the Euro but Greece needs him to "lead it out with pride" as Farage rightly said.
3289 days ago
News that the Moors Murderer Ian Brady is backing UKIP must delight Nigel Farage. Will he now admit that at least one of his supporters really is a fruitcake? But that is not the theme of this week's poscard it is Greece and the challenges I face this summer - starting in less than two weeks - and the challenges Greece faces. Mine are physical at the Greek Hovel. The country's challenges are financial and - I sense - coming to an uncertain head.
3310 days ago
In the leaders debate Nigel Farage raised a legitimate question about immigrants with HIV and AIDS. But he did not think through the logical implications of what he said, nor did he care. He raises wider issues about how we treat and fund the treatment of those with HIV which I explore and ask as a libertarian does he have a point? I think he does. But I think he does not care about that point he is just a ghastly man what wanted to prop up his core support. The way he said what he did was dreadful
3319 days ago
I am rather cross with my capitalist cat Tara. Whereas my morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley treated the UKIP pamphlets thrust through our door with suitable respect by defecating on Nigel Farage’s face, Tara failed to respond in a suitable manner when the Labour party pushed three flyers through the letterbox. Bad Tara.
Thus the Mrs, a lifelong deluded lefty, thrust them into my hand smirking at the failure of Tara to follow orders and I dutifully had a butchers. There was one from a dreadful harridan who leads Labour on the City Council and thinks our pompous arse of a red-trousered mayor George Ferguson is awful. He is but her rantings made me feel almost sorry for the Mayor. The level of petty squabbling just made me want to see the whole lot of them at City hall strung up with eco-friendly piano wire.
Then there was a glossy pamphlet from our Labour MP Kerry McCarthy. Oddly I could find no picture of her party leader Mr Miliband on the flyer and cannot imagine why that is. She had a long go at the Tories for failing to tackle the deficit. You what? Suddenly the party that always runs out of other people’s money when in power is the party of Austrian economics? Pull the other one Kerry luv. Kerry also boasts that she has mentioned Bristol 200 times in Parliament in the past five years. Wow… my taxes are well spent on you aren’t they?
Finally there was a pamphlet from my local council candidate who was wearing a trainspotter’s uniform and looked about 150. By this point I was losing the will to live but comrade Mike Langley grabbed my attention by flagging up the real issue in this election: the seagull menace here in Bristlington. And
3323 days ago
I do not support UKIP and I find much of what Nigel Farage has to say on matters such as immigration truly nauseating but those folk who mobbed his family car yesterday are even more nauseating.
Ben Gurion said that for Israel to be a grown up country it needed both prostitutes and fascists. Mr Farage is not a fascist but would have understood the sentiment. In a mature country we tackle the economic illiteracy at the heart of UKIP, we point out why its policies on immigration make no sense and are just fundamentally nasty. One engages in a free debate. You do not mob the car in which he and or his family sits.
I find the views of Polly Toynbee or Owen Jones even more offensive and repellent than those of Mr Farage but
3326 days ago
On Tuesday I heard a loud noise inside Free Speech & Liberty Pizza and came in to find a young cook shouting loudly while a senior cook sat on a chair mopping blood from his head. The younger guy, Amin, had done a Jeremy Clarkson.
You are fired said I. And so he was. He shouted. He pushed me a bit but he was out of the building within ten minutes and will not return. Given he has only been on the payroll a few months he can have no comeback, you cannot hit a colleague.
That is what Jeremy Clarkson is alleged to have done. He seems to think
3327 days ago
The Mrs and I were away for the weekend and so were not able to file a couple of UKIP flyers that came through the door in an appropriate place. However my morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley made his own political statement on top of them as you can see below.
Normally, when he opts to use the space where we once had a front doormat before he soiled it repeatedly as his inside lavatory, the Mrs – the woman formerly known as the deluded lefty - responds with an ASBO, that is to say locking him in the kitchen. But on this occasion she expressed a degree of pride and rewarded the old boy rather than punishing him.
Now let’s wait for the Labour flyers. I have had words with my capitalist cat Tara on how to deal with them
3331 days ago
No-one in this house will be voting UKIP and indeed our morbidly obese three legged cat Oakley has made a visible anti UKIP statement of which more later. But Nigel Farage is right on scrapping all race discrimination laws at work - indeed he should have gone further. The BBC's coverage of this here in Bristol is a total shocking disgrace paid for with my taxes and I am livid.
3390 days ago
In 1930s Germany the Jews were in the early stages marked out by having to wear a yellow star. Today UKIP MEP Gerard Batten has just demanded that all Muslims sign a charter saying they denounce violence. Go on fellows just form an orderly line. My stomach turns.
Who does UKIP describe as a Muslim? Is the utterly non-believing but Muslim born (public school and Cambridge educated) husband of my dear cousin Heather going to have to sign the charter? What about their kids, brought up by their devoutly Christian mother and non-believing (but Muslim born) father? What about their kids? The Nazis used to get terribly worked up about these sort of issues. Will UKIP give an exemption to Muslims who have fought for this country just as the Nazis initially did for WW1 Jewish veterans?
Will this stop one act of terror?
3394 days ago
In audio format because I cannot be bothered to make myself look even vaguely presentable, my weekly postcard starts with the murders of fellow journalists at Charlie Hebdo. I look at the reaction of the political establishment to the fact fascist pig Marie Le Pen and her Front Nationale and of the factually innacurate claims made by Nigel farage of UKIP. The left's double standards on free speech are again examined but then we move onto the demonisation of the Muslim community but our failure to be honest about the scale of the problem we face.
To read my article on Charlie Hebdo to which I refer click HERE
To read Richard North's excellent piece to which I refer click HERE
3618 days ago
As predicted in last week’s postcard, and indeed for months, UKIP won the European Elections. A Lord Ashcroft poll just out reveals that most UKIP voters will NOT go back to Lib/Lab/Con at the next General Election. I suspect that by 2015 that might change a bit.
However in this week’s video I examine the response of Lib/Lab/Con to the rise of UKIP and find it unconvincing. On all the issues that drove folks to Nigel Farage & Co, the old parties are mouthing platitudes but no-one believes them.
My financial video this week covers the tragedy of delistings and other aspects of the AIM Cesspit. It can be viewed HERE
3628 days ago
Apparently Nigel Farage is rather upset by this stream of paradoy tweets on twitter. Come on Nigel you are going to win anyway so just sit back and laugh as there are some real gems there. In case you are not on twitter I bring you the best and also a note to My Mother in law (Dr Devedason) that my own contribution was just a little joke on my part and I am really looking forward to you coming over tomorrow.
Gary Oliver @HarerTheDog 14s
#ImVotingUkipBecause my parents didn't come here from Ireland, to have to mix with bloody foreigners
I AM GIROUD @Andy_Orbell 7h
#ImVotingUkipBecause Mr sheen left smears on my mirror and it says on the bottle that he's polish
Paul Stevenson @Gweilouk 14m
3632 days ago
It is entirely likely that thanks to Labour dirty tricks, that is to say the Mrs neglecting to put me on the electoral roll, I shall not be able to vote at all this week. We will troop over to the polling station near her old flat on Thursday and find out.
If I can vote what should I do? As a dyed in the wool Eurosceptic and someone who believes that the entire political class should be strung up with piano wire my natural inclination is to vote UKIP. After all the European elections do not really matter do they? My guess is that enough folks will view it this way to ensure that Mr Farage and his supporters will be celebrating triumphs in both the local and European elections as I explained HERE earlier.
I do not care if UKIP contains more than a smattering of prize loons that does not deter me.
However, I find that when Mr Farage moves away from Europe, where I agree with him 100%, to other matters I get rather agitated. He is clearly now trying to appeal to traditional Labour voters and so he supports a minimum wage (a tax on jobs) and there is talk in UKIP circles of backing the living wage. This is not a pro-business agenda but it will also not assist the poor since it will destroy jobs.
I remember wincing when I heard him at UK Investor Show 2013
3632 days ago
Reading this morning’s press I am inundated with reports about the latest “UKIP car crashes” and the mainstream press now questions first whether UKIP will win Thursday’s poll and second, if it does win, how soon the bubble will pop. About the only person calling this right is Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
I write this as someone now almost 99% certain NOT to vote UKIP, more on that later.
The “car crashes” are in reality nothing of the sort. Some chap in Gloucester has made a comment about shooting a “pooftah” to get the others to turn straight, another fellow in Sussex seems to have an unusual degree of sympathy with the Third Reich and both are standing in the local elections for UKIP. So what, there are a few fruitcakes in UKIP. What’s new?
Nigel Farage was given a good duffing up in an LBC Radio interview. He lost his temper as did his PR man and he sounded a little less clear cut than usual. The interviewer ruffled him. But again so what? 99% of the population did not listen and since Farage was banging on (yet again) about immigration one suspects that his general theme probably played well with many anyway.
What Tim Stanley flags up is something those inside the political and media bubble in Westminster just do not appreciate. The great unwashed, that is you and I and the other plebs and peasants, are sick to the back teeth
3681 days ago
In my weekly video postcard I discuss the three reasons why I plan to hold my nose and vote UKIP in the Euro Elections on May 22nd. The only thing that might dissuade me from this is some of the utterly bogus scaremongering that some of the fruitcakes following UKIP Fuhrer Nigel Farage over the top come out with. For scaremongering to work it has to be vaguely plausible and that brings me to UKIP loon of the day, Councillor Suzanne Evans who is apparently UKIP’s National Communities spokesperson (whatever that is).
Cllr Evans (@SuzanneEvans1) tweets today:
“So it has finally come to this: Euro-court outlaws criticism of EU - http://fw.to/MGg3gIM Be afraid. Be very afraid. #EUSSR”
Cripes will I be sharing a cell with Uncle Chris (Booker), Ms Evans and Farage before long? Time to be fearful.
But then hit the link. It is to an article published on the 7th March 2001 – more than 13 years ago! Since then myself, Booker, Farage, Evans and hundreds of thousands of other folk have been bashing the Evil Empire on a daily basis and none of us have been prosecuted. The article was clearly rubbish back then but to cite it as evidence of a new threat today is incredibly amateurish scaremongering indeed.
Councillor Evans is UKIP fruitcake of the day. Her party can have my vote in the Euros but if halfwits like her came anywhere close to achieving real power I would view the matter rather differently.
3709 days ago
Naturally I rather hope that events in the Ukraine do not spiral into World War Three as I rather sense that this really would be the war to end all wars. And everything else. But always seeking solace of a silver lining in every nuclear cloud here are my ten looking on the bright side reasons for cheer.
3712 days ago
Mr Björn Kjellström, the head of the UK office of the European Parliament has written to journalists asking us to remind our readers that most laws made today are made not in Westminster but by the Evil Empire. I am happy to assist Bjorn old boy.
Many on the Euro-poodle wing of the British Press (step forward ghastly old Guardian harridan Polly Toynbee) have for years insisted that most laws are still made in Westminster. Well Polly it looks like even your Evil Empire pals reckon that you were wrong and we Eurosceptics were right all along.
Bjorn states: "Clearly not all citizens are aware that possibly a majority of the laws that have an impact on their daily lives are decided on by MEPs in the European Parliament. That is a democratic problem, and you and other journalists are better placed than anyone to explain what the European Parliament and the European elections are all about."
No Bjorn it is an anti-democratic problem as the EU Parliament just does not reflect the views of most folks in this country.
Anyhow, little people you have been told.
I imagine Bjorn is right now being added to the Christmas card list of Nigel Farage and UKIP
3723 days ago
Lord Chris Smith of the Environment Agency is at the eye of the storm. Not only has his quango failed abjectly to deal with the floods but it has now emerged that it has pissed away cash on non-core matters – like sponsoring Gay Pride – in a spectacular style.
As such I offer up this picture of Lord Smith of Finsbury and invite you to supply suitable captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is:
Woman: “You just do not understand, the dykes across Somerset have failed and are now invisible.”
Smith: “I am on the case madam, we have just donated £20,000 to the Taunton Gay Pride parade”
Last week...
3723 days ago
A few days ago I praised Nigel Farage for contemplating what most politicians do not dare – an acceptance that prohibition does not work, the legalisation of drugs. I am now hauled up with the question of taxation as a form of quasi-prohibition. I refer of course to cigarettes.
My local tobacconist in London offers me a choice of regular Marlboro Lights at £8.50 or what he terms “under the counter” Marlboro Lights from Vietnam at £5. I much prefer the Vietnamese Heath Warnings, although I am sure that the smoker depicted is Gollum and I much prefer paying £5 rather than £8.50 and so I buy “Under the Counter”.
It is estimated by the Government that 10% of fags sold in the UK are “under the counter.” I rather suspect that the real number is far higher. Why is this? Because when I pay £8.50 for a legit pack of fags £6.50 goes to the Government in tax. That leaves c£1.40 for the manufacturer and 60p for the newsagent. The “alternative arrangement sees the manufacturer get his £1.40 with the criminal smuggler and the retailer sharing the remaining £3.60. The retailer is far better off and as long as he is not caught had probably trebled his profit margin and the criminal smuggler coins it in. You will have noticed that the big loser is the Government whose take falls from £6.50 to nil.
The point is that so great are the rewards
3727 days ago
Perhaps the UKIP leader is a libertarian after all? You know that I regard his utterances on immigration as truly awful and UKIP’s economic policies do not stack up – scrapping foreign aid and ending EU contributions saves £16 billion. You cannot re-use that n times to spend, spend, spend and also cut the £100 billion deficit. But he has today written a brave and good piece in the Indy on drugs. Well done Nigel.
Farage starts with a long grumble about dirty tricks and the anti-democratic nature of by-elections. There is one looming on Thursday in some grim Northern shit hole and Labour won before it started by tying up the postal votes. The system does not work. I agree with Nigel. Moreover the contempt with which Labour regard the “poor” vote as its own is – as Nigel says – pretty lamentable.
But Farage’s more interesting point is on drugs. He writes:
Last week, Nick Clegg returned from a trip to South America. Goodness knows what he smoked out there, because he actually made a couple of smart points. First, the so-called War on Drugs isn’t working. Second, we should appoint a royal commission to look into the alternatives.
The fact is our current approach to drugs is neither practical nor effective. I strongly believe in promoting individual freedom – but I also strongly believe in reducing the public harm caused by drugs. As a parent as much as a politician, I say we have to accept that current policy has not achieved the reductions in crime or consumption that we’d hoped for. I know he slagged me off in this newspaper yesterday, but on this one I agree with Nick
Ends.
Come on Nigel (and Nick) you are almost there saying what all politicians know to be true but just cannot be brave enough to admit. Prohibition NEVER
3729 days ago
I noted yesterday that if life on the Somerset Levels was not unpleasant enough right now, the poor bastards were faced not only with water up to their wastes but with a plague of politicians arriving to promise the earth and do nothing. The flood sound bites yesterday plunged new depths with Farage (UKIP) vs. Pickles (Con).
First up was the UKIP Fuhrer who demanded that the UK stop spending £11 billion a year on foreign aid and divert the cash to fighting the floods. One thing you may notice about UKIP is that whenever there is a problem that foreign aid cash is the answer. Want more hospitals? Axe foreign aid. Want more money for the armed forces? Axe foreign aid. Want to cut the deficit? Axe foreign aid. And so with floods in the news naturally UKIP thinks we should stop sending our cash off to Johnny Foreigner in Bongo Bongo land and look after folks back in Somerset.
As it happens I too would scrap foreign aid too
3730 days ago
What is worse than having your house flooded out? Or indeed being in any sort of human tragedy? It is having a troupe of politicians coming to see you afterwards. And so this week Cameron, Pickles, Farage some Lib Dems you have never heard of and ex Labour Minister Chis Smith (now running the Environment Agency) have all trouped off to Somerset to “see for themselves”, to show they care and to offer vague promises they know they cannot keep.
If I am ever involved in any great human tragedy and am lying on hospital or am waist deep in flood water my one request is that no politician comes to visit me. It will only make me feel more angry and resentful.
And so to win a 50% off token for Maribelle’s I offer this picture of UKIP leader Nigel Farage as he paid homage to the flood victims. I shall be dealing with his ludicrous but populist suggestions later. Please post your captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is:
“ I am NOT a politician so you can trust me…it is this long”
3751 days ago
Thanks to the UKIP Nutter of the Week this is a pretty easy one to enter. To win a 50% discount voucher for a party of up to 4 at Maribelle's when we open our new tapas and wine bar in February simply add your caption to the picture below in our comments section.
For what it is worth my entry is
Noah gave thanks to Nigel Farage's UKIP party for his salvation as he sailed through the streets of San Francisco
Or
It is 2000 BC and the BBC reporter on board the ship sent out to show how global warming is causing sea levels to fall, sends back his latest treport to London
3752 days ago
UKIP Councillor David Silvester has written to his local paper in Henley, arguing that the recent storms to hit Britain were God’s punishment on David Cameron for legalising gay marriage. Hmmmm.
UKIP says that this is not official party policy but that every party member has his or her right to express their beliefs. Well how jolly tolerant. For that I applaud UKIP but it could have gone one step further and added that on this matter Councillor Silvester has views which can only be described as completely bonkers bordering on offensive in a bigoted way.
UKIP claims to be a libertarian party. One would have thought that to describe Councillor Silvester’s views as libertarian would be pushing it a little. As libertarians we should support the rights of this bigoted old fruitcake to say whatever he wants. But we should also be allowed to and instinctively feel the need to express the view that such views are pretty repellent and clearly do mark Silvester out as a bigoted old fruitcake.
UKIP keeps on having these episodes where party activists are exposed as bigoted nutters. The UKIP line – as expressed to me by a national organiser – is that “we have one or two backwoodsman who will embarrass us now and again.”
The trouble is that it is not one or two but rather too many UKIP members who clear hold some rather unpleasant views about homosexuals, immigrants, Jews and other minorities.
You can bet your bottom Euro that Silvester will not be the only UKIP nutter to emerge in 2014. I suspect that will not deter many of us from holding our nose and voting UKIP in the Euros just because the established political parties are so awful and because we hate the EU. But when it comes to a REAL election will quite so many folks really want to send some of the loons who fly the flag for Fuhrer Farage to Westminster? Somehow I doubt it.
3770 days ago
When a man spends years telling us all that this Country cannot afford to take in any more people it seems odd when he suddenly announces that we should take in tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing an awful Civil war, starvation and persecution. But surely we are full up are we not? It seems as if we the UKIP leader has done his sums again and we can squeeze a few more folk in. All of a sudden that Nigel Farage is playing the nice guy. Fear not. Nigel is nastier than ever.
Farage claims that the UK has a long tradition of offering refuge to those facing persecution from his own ancestors the Huguenots to the Jews and most recently to the East African Asians when persecuted by Idi Amin. Farage is correct. It is an honourable tradition and all three of those groups have made a massively positive cultural and economic difference to the UK. We have been rewarded for our hospitality.
And so Farage argues that we should continue that tradition. He states we should offer refuge to Syrian Christians. Er…hang on..
What about the Syrian Muslims? Oh, they can stay there and starve, get killed and persecuted. Farage won’t be letting them in. For fuck’s sake we have got too many Muslims in this country already have we not Nigel?
You see that is Nigel’s coded message to Middle England. What he is saying is “we in UKIP are nice guys in the British tradition but fear not, we do not like the bloody Muslims either.”
The Jews and the East African Asians were not Christians yet we took them in. The British tradition is to offer refuge to all folks facing persecution not just those who follow Jesus rather than Allah or some other faith. The Farage sleight of hand allows him to claim that his offer is a traditional humanitarian British one (so he is a nice guy) while sending a clear message out that he is not keen on the Muslims.
This is not Nigel being nice this is Nigel being nastier than ever.
His suggestion of active religious discrimination is not in any way part of the British tradition of hospitality to those felling persecution. It is simply a coded and evil wolf whistle dressed up in a pretence of humanity.
Once again on matters of immigration it is shame on UKIP and shame in Nigel Farage a man who, I know, to be better than this but seems seduced by cheap short term electoral opportunism.
3777 days ago
I never thought I would be writing this but I suppose it had to happen eventually: I find myself agreeing 100% with what our thoroughly deranged Business Minister Vince Cable had said. The man is just bang on the money. The subject is immigration.
Cable, who I accept is mad as a hatter 99% of the time, says that the Tories are running scared of UKIP and so are engaging in wolf whistle politics on the subject of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration after Christmas. As Cable, Call Me Dave Cameron, the frightful Theresa May and Nigel Farage all know full well, the numbers arriving here will not be gargantuan. None will be able to claim benefits for quite some time and so those coming here will be those willing and wanting to do low paid jobs.
British business needs such folk because our welfare system is far too generous and so has created a whole layer of society which is fit only to undertake unskilled/low skilled labour but refuses to do so. In making that point Cable is again bang on the money. The Business Secretary understands that for GDP to grow as it should we need these immigrants.
The facts are:
3793 days ago
High profile defector to UKIP Victoria Ayling is now exposed on camera saying about immigrants that she wants to “send them all back.” UKIP Fuhrer, Nigel Farage says that this is “slightly odd”. No, Nigel it is despicable. What do you not understand about that?
3831 days ago
I write as the son of a retired University Lecturer and the husband of a practising one, who is NOT on strike today. But many of her colleagues (some of whom I shall be meeting on bonfire night) are withdrawing their labour today. This is a politically motivated strike by greedy bastards who should be string up with piano wire.
Lecturers have a cushy deal. By your late thirties you can expect to be earning c£40,000 a year. You do not actually have to attend your institution of learning more than two or three days a week but can work from home. “Office hours” are not exactly those we in the private sector are used to. There is no 6 am alarm call and daily grind to hit your desk at work by 7 AM. Or even 9 AM.
Although nominal holidays are 25 days a year during the 20 weeks of vacation (plus reading weeks etc) lecturers do not actually have to er…lecture. They rarely have to pop into the factory and it is quite normal for them to spend the summer “working” from Tuscany.
It is almost impossible to be fired. Being lazy or useless is not enough. You need to be found guilty of gross moral turpitude which means some really heinous offence like reading the Daily Mail or having a picture of Nigel Farage on your wall. This is a job for life at the end of which there is a very generous pension scheme funded by the grateful taxpayer.
And yet the bastards are going on strike
3869 days ago
There are many reasons why I cannot give blank cheque support to UKIP although I am a profound Eurosceptic but here’s one for starters: the abject failure of Nigel Farage to purge his party of some pretty obvious Jew hating scumbags. I refer to the UKIP Friends of Palestine, a group with only 30 members but whose pronouncements are just shocking.
This bunch of scumbags last week announced
"The genocide of the Palestinian people by the current Israeli government is no different to the genocide of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany."
On Facebook the Jew haters state:
3875 days ago
My 12 year old daughter Olivia has to write an essay for school arguing the pros and cons of the Euro for Europe. Showing a greater grasp of economics than 90% of the bien pensants political and media elite she concludes that there are no material pros and argues forcefully and coherently that there are lots of cons. For myself and her Great Uncle Christopher Booker, as well as her Farage admiring mother, Pinsent Masons partner Big Nose, this essay is a triumph.
For the rest of my family who are true deluded lefties and thus take the view that whatever Uncle Chris and I write, they automatically support the other side, this will be a watershed. A third Eurosceptic writer in the family...great news.
3912 days ago
In the 1950s the Tory Party had 3 million members. When Call Me Dave was elected leader it had 258,000 members. These days the Tories won’t say how many members they have but it seems that the number is sub 100,000. And with an average age of almost 70 and each year seeing Councillors (the main local recruiters) lose seats won during the hated Labour Government that number will carry on falling.
Some blame call Me Dave for pissing off traditional Tories
3963 days ago
It emerges today that Nigel Farage the leader of UIKIP set up an Isle of Man Trust to try to reduce his tax bill. As it happens he never used it back in 2003 and it seems to have cost him a few quid. Farage is being panned as a tax dodger, albeit of the failed variety. Wrong.
Farage was using a perfectly legitimate avenue to minimise his tax bill. He is a minimiser not a dodger. Other folks use ISAs as a perfectly legal way to reduce the tax they pay. They too are minimisers not dodgers. There is no moral code that says you have to pay as much tax as possible. It seems perfectly legitimate to me to pay as little as possible without breaking the law. And that is all that Farage tried to do.
That he cocked it up and so in fact did not use the Trust is irrelevant. From a PR perspective this is clearly not helpful but Farage should be honest and say that the reason folks use IOM Trusts, ISAs etc. is that UK tax is so high. If it was less onerous then the whole industry of tax minimisation would die at once.
3994 days ago
We are all in it together said Call Me Dave as he warned us about life in austerity Britain. But some, it appears, are more equal than others. In a rare display of solidarity, the political class is united in deciding that the basic pay of MP’s has to increase from £65,000 to £75,000. We all know there are numerous other perks.
We also know that for every seat that is remotely winnable that is an enormous line of potential applicants to fight that seat for the main parties. Would that line be any shorter if there was no pay rise? Of course not. So this is not about “attracting the right talent.” This is about a venal and corrupt political class, which does not give a damn about the views or problems of we plebs, has bugger all experience of life outside the Westminster bubble and which is happy to extract as much cash from the taxpayer as it can.
After UKIP’s spectacular success in the local elections the political class all said they would start to listen. And a few weeks later they show once again that they do not give a damn.
Incidentally would UKIP be any better? I doubt it. How about a manifest pledge from Farage: reduce the number of MPs by 50% at once by merging seats and reverse this pay rise for the ones that remain? That would show that UKIP is listening and really is different.
4011 days ago
David Cameron: an out of touch, principle free, liar – a Godsend to UKIP
147 net gains for UKIP on Thursday was a political earthquake. The political classes are scared. They do not like it up ‘em.
Like most folks I was first attracted to UKIP over the EU. It wants out of the Evil Empire and so do I. Does it have any other policies? Yes. Do I agree with all of them? No. But where we disagree on matters like immigration UKIP at least accepts that the current system (easy entry + free welfare) is a joke and unworkable. UKIP would make entry impossible & keep welfare, I would make it automatic but scrap the welfare.
My point is that UKIP is instinctively right in that it sees – as do – most folks in Britain – that there is a vast problem. In its DNA UKIP is on the right track. The established parties have – for years – made it clear that the immigration system needed minor adjustments. They have lied about the scale of immigration, tarred anyone who questioned the system as a racist and then occasionally made tiny changes which stop skilled workers coming here ( who we want) in order to win grubby votes and Daily Mail headlines.
And so when David Cameron or Ken Clarke or any of the other mainstream politicos of all three parties tarred UKIP as racist in the past they meant it. That is what they actually believed. When they now say they are “listening” and must “connect with the views of those who voted UKIP” it is just another big fat lie. It is a lie born out of desperation.
And that brings us to David Cameron
4012 days ago
As I sit at Bristol Temple Meads preparing to head up to London it is 8.30 AM and just 7 of 34 councils have declared the local results from last night. But already it is clear that the ONLY clear winner is UKIP. There is little doubt that Nigel Farage’s party will make further big gains from the other 27 counts and that it is a triumph. But does it mean much?
The results are pretty spectacular given that four years ago UKIP stood in few of these seats. In other words they have come from nowhere. As things stand UKIP is on 42 seats (level pegging with Labour) and a net 42 ahead. The Tories are 66 down, the Lib Dems 15 down and Labour 30 ahead. Where UKIP has stood it has averaged 27% of the vote and should gain c20% overall – well ahead of the Lib Dems and not far behind Labour.
So what does it mean? The easy calls first.
Together with its abject result in the South Shields by-election (the worst by a major party since 1948) the locals are a disaster for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. There will be yet more angry beardy weirdies
4014 days ago
At 8 degrees - the swimming temperature is chalked on a board each day – these intoxicating waters, sparkling and dancing in the early morning sun of an early May morning have the coolness and body of champagne; perhaps a Dom Perignon 55 in deference to Ian Fleming, who once lived nearby and who may have had a swim or two here in his days living on the edge of Hampstead Heath. All Etonians are taught to swim after all. The idea of 007 swimming in champagne seems perfectly normal. The water clinches you in a thrillingly cool embrace that would have pleased Her Majesty’s secret agent, as it does me. Did not 007 seduce some gorgeous foreign agent by a river whilst sipping the classic vintage? I trust the lady was stirred but not shaken.
Pond swimming prompts the imagination. I consider the policies of our Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne - wondering if he could in fact be a vampire
4016 days ago
Just for the avoidance of doubt I am not a UKIP party member and will not be voting at all on May 2nd. However I cannot say that I am put off UKIP by Tory Grandee Kenneth Clarke labelling its leaders as clowns and anyone voting for it as a racist. In fact such a pathetic attack merely makes me think even less of Call Me Dave’s Tories and of the fat old fool that is Ken Clarke.
Clarke states that UKIP is largely a protest by folks against the established parties. He may be correct. The established parties have produced a political class which has engaged in systematic expenses fiddling and extraction of ever more cash from the public purse. And on issues such as the EU they are almost united in ignoring the wishes of most voters. They are an out of touch elite. And with his cushy non-executive directorships as a sideline and having supported every doomed Euro project from the ERM to Britain’s membership of the Euro, the fat complacent Clarke is a typical member of that class.
Rightly many of us view the lot of them with contempt. If the political class get a bloody nose from UKIP in largely irrelevant local elections on May 2nd they deserve it.
As it happens I disagree with UKIP on immigration. Listening to Nigel Farage’s speech at UKInvestor Show I winced as he touched on the issue and also on that of gay marriage which I support. My partner (female and British Asian) has real problems with UKIP on these sort of matters and I can understand why.
But the EU is an important matter for me as is the way that the mainstream parties are all committed to pissing away billions on tackling the non-issue of global warming and are failing to tackle the appalling finances of Bankrupt Britain. And I do hold the entire political class in contempt for their corruption. And so
4019 days ago
In case you missed the UK Investor Show and fancy watching real master investors this weekend we have it all on video and those videos are now starting to go live.
If you want to hear what infamous bear raider Evil Knievil is buying and selling or what top chartists Zak Mir, John Piper and Clem Chambers are long or short of there is no need to leave your own living room this weekend – it is all here on video for you.
Or fancy Mark Slater’s top share picks and thoughts on the market – he is here too with a full slide presentation and video. As is gold guru Dominic Frisby, the UK’s most cerebral short seller Lucian Miers and also Nigel Farage MEP in full flow.
The videos are from the UK Investor Show two weeks ago so if you want to hear what these folks are thinking, buying or selling just relax, pour yourself a beer and spend the weekend at your PC.
There will be more videos appearing over the weekend featuring Britain’s Buffett Nigel Wray, Secret Millionaire and property guru Nick Leslau, mining guru-ess Amanda Van Dyke as well as the CEOs of Leyshon Resources, Fastnet Oil & Gas and a dozen other companies. For alerts on when they appear register now at www.shareprophets.com
Meanwhile, sit back, relax and watch the explosive action.
To see Evil Knievil, Zak Mir, John Piper and ADVFN CEO Clem Chambers in action – click HERE
You can watch UKIP leader Nigel Farage here
You can watch gold guru Dominic Frisby & access his slides HERE
You can watch small cap legend Mark Slater and access his slides HERE
And you can watch infamous bear raider Lucian Miers HERE
Over the next 48 hours we will also be publishing videos featuring Leyshon Resources, Fastnet Oil & Gas, Nigel Wray and Nick Leslau and mining guru Amanda Van Dyke. For all their thoughts and hot tips and much more stay tuned to your PC this weekend.
Following the amazing success of the UK’s only serious investor show we have just announced that the 2014 event will be held at a larger venue in Central London on April 5th . More details soon.
We will upload more videos from UKInvestor very soon to give you something entertaining to watch from home all weekend
Now, for me, back to the beach.
4020 days ago
The video of Nigel Farage's classic speech at the UK Investor Show is now live. The leader of UKIP was on cracking form. Nigel gives speeches all across the UK but if you ever wanted to hear him you now no longer need to leave the comfort of your own living room. The speech in full is captured on video and is a cracker.
4020 days ago
Okay you have missed the only show worth attending for this year. Shucks. But following the amazing success of UK Investor Show 2013 we have now set a date for UK Investor Show 2014. So put it in your diary now: April 5th2014.
And in response to the success of the first show we have secured a larger venue in Central London for the 2014 event. More details to follow.
If you did miss the 2013 event videos of the main speakers and of 12 PLC presentations were recorded and are now starting to go live.
You can watch gold guru Dominic Frisby & access his slides HERE
You can watch small cap legend Mark Slater and access his slides HERE
And you can watch infamous bear raider Lucian Miers HERE
Later today UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP goes live on ADVFN with short seller Evil Knievil to follow shortly afterwards
4031 days ago
The lefties wanted the tune from the Wizard of Oz to hit Number 1 as a way of celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. It hit number 2 in case you care which I do not. The debate was should the BBC play it?
Cameron and Clegg said it was distasteful, shocking etc but that it was er..up to the BBC. They dodged the issue. Nigel Farage of UKIP said it was disgusting and disgraceful etc but as a believer in free speech, for him it was clear. If morons push this up the charts by buying it the BBC had to play The Witch is Dead.
You would have thought that as a liberal Cleggy would have stumbled on this obvious truth. But then again he likes Secret Courts and wants to gag the press. Call Me Dave is no believer in free speech but instinctively Farage gets it right. Thatcher would have approved.
At number six in the charts is “I am in love with Margaret Thatcher”. I like the sentiment but the tune is awful. If you can bear it listen here
It is not a patch on "I'm in love with Ann Coulter" which is a great song and we are all in love with Ann Coulter aren't we?
4031 days ago
I am still completely wiped out. It is incredibly draining doing presentation after presentation and half way through the post event celebrations I fell asleep (ok I had enjoyed a few drinks as well) but I still feel utterly drained. And so once I have ruined a few other weekends by breaking news of a planning oil company merger involving a well-known name I think I am off to sleep again.
Thanks for the many emails from folks who said that they enjoyed the show. On balance so did I. I thought that the talks were more interesting than for many a year. They have been put on video and so will start to go up from Tuesday in a variety of places. But suffice to say you should register now at www.shareprophets.com to catch many of them.
The location was not ideal. Not least that in order to feed my addiction I had to scrounge a spare packet of Marlboro Light from David Lenigas who had thoughtfully come well supplied. But ADVFN and I know enough now and the show was a success and so we are now planning for UKInvestor 2014. Watch this space – we will announce the date soon.
Highlights for me?
The young man who now writes tips appearing disguised in dark glasses to gain entry (not having booked a ticket). When spotted by Steve Moore, he claimed that he was at Excel to go to the International Cake show down the hall and made a swift exit.
Nick Leslau and Nigel Wray – optimistic about the UK economy and as a double act far more powerful than as individuals. A lot of wisdom was shared by the pair.
Losing the debate with Richard Poulden once again. I am now 3-2 down but I really will try to do slides next year and stage a comeback.
Mark Slater. The obligatory dirty joke but the quality of his analysis of the markets and of individual stocks (three of which have been tipped by myself and Steve) was incredible.
Nigel Farage – unscripted, lucid, funny and on most issues bang on the money. I had a good chat with him and Chris Booker after the event and he is a very funny and pleasant chap. C Booker’s Thatcher tribute was bang on the money and nailed a number of leftie canards.
Above all I really enjoyed meeting so many of you who attended (particularly, I should say, David from Oxford). Thanks for all the kind words and I hope that you enjoyed the day. On stage I had more fun than I have had for years. I can say what I like these days and I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I actually enjoyed the day in a way that I have not enjoyed MI days for a long time. With the speakers, stand holders and the audience I felt far more at home than I can remember being for years.
The home team from RMPC & ADVFN staging our first show should be thanked, notably John W, Clem, Fiona and especially Mike Hodges and from our side Darren, Nigel, Sarah, Steve, Robert Sutherland Smith and Martha. It was their first run at this, the second time is always easier.
So thank you to all who attended. ADVFN and RMPC starts work on Monday on UK Investor 2014 which will be bigger and different. I hope to see even more of you there then.
Tom
PS I should mention one other highlight. The after show pool games. I defeated Andrew Bell of Red Rock. Zak Mir fluked a victory against me. And then it was the final: The UKIP volunteers against myself & Zak. They had been trying to persuade Zak to sign up to UKIP although he is obviously a bit too right wing for them. And so with the prize being that if Zak and I won they would allow him to become the party’s immigration spokesman (Zak’s views are unprintably stern on this matter, making Evil seem like a total Guardian reader) we played. The bad news for UKIP is that Zak and I won.
4036 days ago
We are lucky to have a speaker already lined up at the UK’s top investor show which takes place this Saturday April 13th who knew Margaret Thatcher well. In fact we have several but in light of the sad demise of Britain’s greatest Prime Minister we have moved Christopher Booker, the founder of Private Eye and celebrated Sunday Telegraph columnist to the main stage during the afternoon to talk about “The Margaret Thatcher I knew – nearly always right in the end.”
I chatted to Booker – who is my uncle and godfather - this morning and our reflections on the Iron Lady covered her Euro scepticism, the treachery of her colleagues, the lie that she supported apartheid, her conversion from a supporter of global warming theory to becoming an ardent global warming sceptic and many other issues. Booker will cover how and why her views changed on these and other topics and how our leaders today might perhaps reflect on this.
The revised speaker line-up on our main stage is now:
10 AM Opening Remarks
10.10-11 AM Nigel Wray & Nick Leslau
11.00 – 11.45 AM – Tom Winnifrith with bear raider Lucian Miers
11.45-11.55 – the short debate: Is AIM doomed Tom Winnifrith vs Richard Poulden
11.55-12.40 – Comedian and gold guru Dominic Frisbey on gold
1.40-2.35 PM – The Traders session: Clem Chambers, Alpesh Patel, Zak Mir, Evil Knievil and John Piper
2.35-3.15 – Christopher Booker
3.45 – 4.30 Mark Slater
4.30-5.15 Nigel Farage MEP ( who will I am sure also mention the Iron Lady)
We still have a handful of tickets going for the show due to late cancellations. If you wish to attend email your postal address with postcode and how many tickets you require to [email protected] and the tickets will be despatched first class at once.
I look forward to seeing you on Saturday 13th April at Excel.
Tom Winnifrith
4075 days ago
The Lib Dems held on but UKIP was surging. A couple more days and UKIP would have snatched it. In the end it was wasted Tory votes that let the Lib Dems in as Call Me Dave’s party came third in what is his 40th target seat. Labour was always irrelevant here, its own disaster is not an issue.
The Lib Dems will be greatly relieved to have held onto what should be one of their safest seats albeit in very tough circumstances: Chris Huhne off to do porridge and the current sex scandal. For now Clegg hangs on but if he is shown to have lied about his knowledge in the sex pest cover up he may still face the chop. This is not the start of a Lib Dem recovery, Rennardgate may well still drag that party to Thorpe style lows.
UKIP is now coming second in both leafy southern towns like Eastleigh but also GMSH’s like Rotherham. There is a growing disgust with the entire political class and UKIP is the big winner from that. All the established parties should be worried but they are so arrogant and out of touch that the corrupt establishment will not change tack.
But the big losers right now are the Tories. As long as Call Me Dave stays as Tory leader it is only a matter of time before UKIP gains an MP. For the Tories are in trouble.
4080 days ago
The Lib Dems are still likely to win Eastleigh. If they do not, given that every councillor there is a Lib Dem and it is a Lib Dem seat then Nick Clegg is in deep trouble. It may well be that the cover-up over the Lord Rennard sex scandal is only a secondary worry although that will get very nasty as well. But at 11/2 UKIP is now worth a flutter. Think the unthinkable: UKIP might just win the by-election caused by Chris Huhne’s imminent fast track to prison.
A Populus poll shows Lib Dem 33%, Con 28% UKIP 21% ( but surging). However that assumes that undecided voters are reallocated on the basis of how the seat voted at the last General Election. That was a whole different ball game. Without that fiddle it is 31 (sex pest party), 26% ( hopeless party of Government), 25% UKIP.
Labour are on the low to mid teens and since the Labour candidate ( the one who supported the Argies in 1982 and wanted the IRA to kill Thatcher) is a prize loon, his vote could well slide far further. Labour voters in Eastleigh are not bourgeois Islington lefties who think the UKIP are unspeakably horrid but traditional working class voters who believe in hard work and have no truck with the EU, unrestricted Romanian immigration etc. They really should vote UKIP anyway and if they see UKIP as a chance to kick the wicked coalition in the goolies they may well switch. No: they are switching it is just a matter of how many more come over in the final few days.
If UKIP can pick up a few more percentage points from Labour ( and it is gaining support from all three parties) then life gets very interesting. It is hard to see the Lib Dem vote hardening in the final few days as the sex scandal widens and deepens and nothing the hopeless Government does these days does anything to attract those who should be core Tory voters. If it is anything the Tory party is meant to be the one that gets the economy right. And on Friday the UK lost its AAA rating as the credit agencies finally twigged that UK public finances are a mess and that things are not getting better.
A separate Survation phone poll has it as: Con 33, Lib Dem 29, UKIP 21, Lab 13 but again if you do not do the reallocation fiddle UKIP is up on 25 with this time the sex pests in second on 26, and the Tories on 29. The same arguments apply here. It is abundantly clear that this contest is a three way battle. Labour support is slipping steadily ( all to UKIP) and Nigel Farage et al must also think that in the next few days they can also pick up Lib Dems and Tories as well.
It will not change the world, but a UKIP win would be disastrous news for both Call Me Dave ( giving credibility to a party which believes in the sort of things the Tory party once believed in) and also for Clegg in that if the safest Lib Dem seat in England is lost what hope does his party have of avoiding electoral wipe-out in 2015.
At 11/2 it is worth a flutter. It might just happen.
And as I noted before, a UKIP vote is in fact the ONLY sane and honourable vote in Eastleigh. .
4094 days ago
Those who are not registered to receive my twice weekly Tomograph Newsletter may have missed this news but on Friday, ADVFN issued a regulatory release announcing that all 2500 seats at the UK Investor Show on April 13 had already been booked. We know other shows are struggling to fill seats but the speaker line-up at UKInvestor Show is so awesome that a full house was never in doubt. Wray, Slater, Leslau, Evil, Lucian, Frisbey, Van Dyke, Booker, etc simply do not appear at other shows. Anyhow, thanks for booking. I do ask one favour.
If you go to www.UKInvestorshow.com you will see that we are now running a waiting list for tickets. Already there are almost a hundred names on that list. If you have booked a ticket to UKInvestor show but cannot now attend please do let me know by emailing me at [email protected] so that I can reallocate that seat to someone who wants to attend but is now on the waiting list.
In advance, many thanks.
When we first announced that Nigel Farage would be one of our 25 speakers at the show I know that certain folk at my former employer scoffed at the idea. Heck, I knew – and ticket bookings reflect this – that he is not the major draw but I wanted him there since I am a UKIP sympathiser. Hey ho, I see that Nigel is now speaking at the other show. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I somehow think that our headline speakers of Messrs Wray, Leslau, Slater, etc will not be making a double appearance at the other, smaller, event.
Incidentally having already announced the first 30 PLC stands at UKInvestor Show we will be announcing the next 20 very shortly. Watch this space.
4128 days ago
We can always learn more about how to be better investors by learning from the experts. If your New Year Resolution is to do that then you need to book a ticket today to meet real Master Investors on April 13th in London at the UKInvestor Show, organised by ADVFN. The speakers are not career stockbrokers or rent a quote journalists but men who have actually made hundreds of millions of pounds by buying and selling the right assets. True master investors.
You can book your free ticket HERE
Leading the line-up are Nick Leslau and Nigel Wray. Nick was one of TV’s secret millionaires and is probably the most successful property investor of his generation. The firm he runs owns Madame Tussauds, thousands of pubs and much else. Over many years he has worked closely with Nigel Wray, aka Britain’s Buffet , the master of small cap investing. Nigel is the biggest shareholder in Domino’s Pizzza (LSE:DOM), having bought in at 36p – the shares are now c£5 – and is also a big holder of Alliance Pharma (LSE:APH) another stock worth watching.
Next up is Mark Slater, son of Jim and an extraordinarily successful fund manager in his own right. For detailed bottom up analysis of smaller growth plays you just cannot beat Mark and his detailed stock specific presentations are always packed with ideas. He is followed by Dominic Frisbey, comedian and gold guru. Have you ever seen his debt bomb video? If not watch it http://tomwinnifrith.com/articles/204/debt-bomb-great-video-well-done-dominic-frisby as it is a classic. Dominic is not only someone who writes about gold but he has made more than a million quid from more or less zero capital buying and selling the stuff. His theme: gold.
We have the UK’s two best known bear raiders in conversation (with me). That is to say Evil Knievil and Lucien Miers (profiled HERE). In what is promised to be a structured presentation they will outline their market views but also specifically a top ten shorts for 2013.
Moving on we also have a keynote presentation from another Nigel. That is Nigel Farage MEP the leader of UKIP on why the UK should save itself billions and quit the Evil Empire. Farage is funny and articulate and he has a good point don’t you think?
If you want a free ticket book NOW HERE, as the 2,500 seats will go on a first come first served basis
But it does not end there. During the afternoon we have two alternatives for you.
Choice One is the Traders Session. Lead by Clem Chambers of ADVFN, half a dozen of the UK’s best known traders will discuss strategies, charts and ideas to make money in 2013. On stage are Zak Mir, John Piper, Simon Denham of London Capital and Alpesh Patel.
Choice two are the breakout rooms where you can hear presentations on how to make money in mining stocks by Amanda Van Dyke a partner at Dundee Securities and chair of Women in Mining, on turfing out useless boards and shareholder activism by Roger Lawson of ShareSoc, on how climate change laws will cost you dear by Christopher Booker and on making money from alternative investments by Mike Hall of Stanley Gibbons. Each speaker will do two presentations.
That knockout line-up is surely enough. To book free tickets which will be allocated on a first come first served basis click HERE
Not enough? Well how about the companies attending giving you a unique chance to chat to the CEOs of companies you may be invested in or thinking about backing. Among those already lined up are: EMED, Minoan, Vatukoula, Stanley Gibbons, Ortac, Intandem, Leyshon Resources, ReThink Group, Northern Petroleum, 1Spatial, Wishbone Gold, PGC Entertainment, Anglesey Mining, Red Rock Resources, Regency Mines, Sharescope, Mechan Controls, Symphony Environmental, K3 Business Technology, @UK, Alexander Mining, London Capital Group and the list goes on and on. There will be around 80 stands on the day.
The venue is Excel in London and the fun starts at 9.30 AM on April 13th. There are 2,500 tickets available and they will go on a first come first served basis. But hurry. Already the show is one third booked out!
If you want more details or to book a seat go HERE to the UKInvestor Show website.
I look forward to seeing you in April
Tom Winnifrith
4133 days ago
In case you missed it, yesterday was the 40th Birthday Party of what we used to know as the European Economic Community (EEC) but is now simply known as the Evil Empire. No doubt in the slums of Athens and Madrid as youth unemployment hits 60% they were having a party to celebrate. Back here in the UK our political and media elite were strangely quiet on the matter because they are – for the most part – supporters of the EU in one form or another but aware that the plebs feel rather differently.
In years gone by, we Europsceptics were a minority. Our predictions that the Euro would be a disaster on economic grounds and that the Evil Empire would seize powers from Britain were dismissed by the bien pensants as the rantings of a crazed Xenophobic, little Englander, sort of racist minority. Yet sadly for Lords Howe, Hurd, Pantsdown, Mandelson, etc and for Tony Blair himself we sceptics have been proved 100% accurate in our predictions. And consequently popular opinion among those who pay for this folly (the pleb, taxpaying class) has moved strongly our way. As such the “guilty men” can no longer equate euroscepticsm with racism etc as they know they are insulting well over half the electorate.
The debate among the political/media classes in the UK
4150 days ago
Recording in freezing and wet Warwickshire with a new camera I hope the sound and picture quality is alright. My old camera has gone astray somewhere between Real Man Pizza Company, drinks with Lucian and St Albans. I fear it will not be seen again.
On the Agenda
1. Nigel Farage joins the speaker line-up at UKInvestor Show on April 13th. A real buncjh of men and women who one would describe as a Master Investor plus Farage. It really is a cracking lineup and you can book your tickets here.
2. Another two tips out this week on the Nifty Fifty. You can gain immediate access ahead of two more tips next week here.
3. Centamin and the idea of quantifying political risk in any stock
4. Northern Petroleum, director buying and market over-reaction
5. Plans for a Christmas slowdown by me
You can watch the video below:
Approximate Running Time 9 minutes
4152 days ago
UKInvestor Show is an event about making money but I have always thought such a show needs one non investment speaker and I am delighted to say that Nigel Farage MEP emailed this morning and he is up for it. The leader of UKIP will talk about how staying in the EU costs all of us so much and why we should leave now.
And so on April 13th at Excel we now have a main stage line up of Nigel Wray (Britain’s Buffett), Nick Leslau (property legend and secret millionaire), bear raiders Evil Knievil and Lucian Miers and Dominic Frisbey, Mr Gold and Nigel Farage. And there is one other surprise for you on the main stage.
The traders session ( also a main stage event) is chaired by Steve Moore and stars Clem Chambers, Alpesh Patel, Simon Denham, John Piper and Zak Mir ( plus one name to reveal shortly)
In the breakout rooms we have the Goddess, Amanda VanDyke on making money from mining stocks, Stanley Gibbons boss Mike Hall on alternative investments, Roger Lawson on shareholder activism and Christopher Booker on how global warming costs you so much.
There is the Poulden v Winnifrith debate (10 minutes of main stage comedy) and 80 companies presenting at CEO level.
You have to admit that is a cracking line-up. No other show even comes close. If you want to hear a master investor speak this is the only show worth attending. To register for your free ticket on a first come first served basis go HERE.
4154 days ago
I am back with my family in Warwickshire. Being deluded lefties they appear to only get two channels, Pravda One and Pravda 2 and so on the latter I have just found myself watching Newsnight debate the great European question. It was a slam dunk win for the team of Nigel Farage, Terry Smith and a sensible woman from the No campaign in Norway. The only good thing that can be said for the yes side is that their blonde bird talked utter rubbish but was quite fit. That really is it.
The arguments for staying in were utterly spurious. Is Spain really going to kick out the 400,000 Brits living on the Costa del Crime if we quit? Really? Crash the housing market even more. It is not as if those folks take any local jobs they just spend money there. That is rather different to the 27 million Bulgarians and Rumanians who come 2014 can come to the UK to work, claim benefits and use the NHS. Do we really think then Britain is a huge net importer from the EU that the Evil Empire would defy WTO agreements and try to put tariffs on British goods? It is just plain rubbish.
Boris Johnson’s idea that we can stay in the Evil Empire but opt out of CAP, fisheries and anything else we please is spurious.
4166 days ago
UKIP was never going to win any of the three by-elections last night. The mainstream press knew that but happily suggested it might in order that the political and media establishment in the Westminster bubble could say that UKIP had not done as well as expected. UKIP is not a party of the establishment and it will thus get no favours from the established media. The way that papers such as the Telegraph took the spin from the established parties is the sort of dirty trick UKIP will have to get used to as it grows. And it will grow.
I write this not as a UKIP member or indeed committed supporter. Pro tem I am clearly a sympathiser. I think that the party has a good few loons in its ranks. Don’t they all? It strikes me that it can appear not to be libertarian at times on social issues. That may be unfair on it, but it is the impression one gets. However on a range of issues, notably the EU, smoking in public places and deficit reduction it is, for me, bang on the money. And though it wants to have MPs, right now it has nothing to do with the sleaze club of Westminster to which the other three main parties all belong.
4240 days ago
As official attack poodle for David Cameron, the Daily Telegraph has today had a go at UKIP and its leader Nigel Farage.
“Any mockery of UKIP has to be balanced by due respect. The low handicappers are now the only game in town when it comes to anti-establishment Right-wing politics. They hold 12 MEPs in the European Parliament and took 3.1 percent in the 2010 general election. If we had proportional representation, UKIP would probably own a batch of MPs and be a querulous part of the coalition. Smoking would be permitted in the House of Commons and the national anthem would be played in cinemas. Augusto Pinochet would feature on the £5 note.
So Farage believes that his movement stands a genuine chance of subverting the morally compromised Lib Dems and emerging as the new third party. But he’s mistaken if he believes that swapping the pound symbol for a Bentley or a bull dog will do the trick. UKIP still needs to confront that golf club stereotype.”
Well I guess that changing that stereotype is going to be simple when the Daily Telegraph presents such a mature and balanced analysis of its main policies isn’t it?
4336 days ago
I cannot say that I always agree with Farage and UKIP. They appear to have some rather dodgy views on issues such as immigration and civil liberties which I cannot agree with. But on Europe Farage is always bang on the money. If you do not understand why the Spanish bailout will not solve anything and will just postpone the inevitable watch Farage in full flow today. If you do understand, the man is so funny it is worth watching anyway.
