New research shows from the Institute of Public Policy Research based on a YouGov poll shows the impact a year of Farage and a relentlessly right-wing media from GB News to the Express, Mail and Telegraph is having on British Society.
While a clear majority from left to right see British society as being about shared values, a rising minority see it as being based on ethnicity and in particular skin colour. These views are held primarily by Reform supporters.
The need to counter racism and ethno-nationalism with the founding of the new Together alliance will be a key task for 2026
Strikingly, the findings suggest a significant proportion of Farage’s supporters believe being white is an important national characteristic, and that Britain has become too ethnically diverse. More than a third (37%) of Reform UK voters said they would be prouder of Britain if there were fewer people from minority ethnic backgrounds in a decade’s time, and 10% said it was important to have white skin to be a good British citizen.
The FT (29th December 2025) named its word or more properly anacronym of 2025 which was Taco. Not the tasty food but Trump Always Chickens Out.
Robert Armstrong who coined the word notes that its popularity signifies how thin skinned Trump is to criticisms of his policies, perhaps particularly in 2025 tariffs.
Armstrong argues that Taco underlines that Trump doesn’t really have any policies but is rather a ‘gifted reality TV star’.
I certainly don’t buy Armstrong’s point that Trump is not running an authoritarian Government.
However if we refocus Armstrong’s anacronym to in the context of the Situationists Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord) we can see that Trump primarily promotes a brand-himself. Taco is an alternative reading of that brand and in this sense quite a subversive one.
Lex in the Financial Times (29th December) reports that in recent years there has been a significant rise in US spending on ‘pets, pet products and related services’. It would be interesting to see a UK comparison.
Just as weight reduction drugs like Ozempic have seen a major take up for humans, so the market for a similar product for cats and dogs is being looked.
There are several motors. Firstly increasing numbers of cats and dogs are overweight leading to diabetes. This is expensive to treat in pets. Secondly the realisation that the market for Ozempic in humans is likely to be finite, whereas its likely that fat cats and dogs will always be with us. Its estimated that 60% are overweight.
Pet spending in the US in 2023 was $183bn, four times the amount spent in 2003 but the FT reports that the market for weight reduction treatments for cats and dogs in ‘underdeveloped’ but as yet at an early stage of development.
I’ve drawn this post to the attention of my sizeable and perpetually hungry cat but if she can’t sniff something the interest is minimal in things like words.
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
From the Chartists Exclusive Dealing to Banning Labour MPs from pubs
It wouldn’t be reliable history to suggest that the Chartists in the 1840s were the first ever to boycott shops and pubs that didn’t support the vote but the Exclusive Dealing campaigns of the decade had their impact. It was twofold. Firstly to give custom to those who backed the Chartists. Secondly to build an alternative source- the Co-operatives.
Of course business was also on the case. For example Chartist papers that were thought too radical such as Harney’s Red Republican were ‘burked’ by the news trade. That is they did not sell them.
In more recent times boycotts against goods from specific countries- South Africa over apartheid and Israel over Palestine, have had some impact. They are collectively organised but individually executed, although sometimes as with the Co-Ops recent support for BDS the two come together.
The business boycott is still with us too. The campaign to ban Labour MPs from pubs has baffled even those (such as CAMRA, I remain a member) who think there is case for action on business costs of running a pub. If the pub is the hub of the community then seeing pubs go out of business is not a good look. That said banning MPs, and no doubt by extension those who might be minded to support them (on occasion at least) does not seem like a particularly sensible business move. In fact it has the flavour of the political hard and far right, always keen on culture wars and gestures.
The Daily Telegraph (29th December) has reported that some hairdressers are now banning Labour MPs. Given the number of hairdressers there are on High Streets nowadays turning any customer away seems a baffling business model.
The aim of the boycott is to effect change not shoot yourself in the foot.
Alastair Campbell was said to have a rule that if a story about someone ran for more than 12 days they were in trouble. Stories about what Nigel Farage was alleged to have said and done while at Dulwich College in the 1970s first surfaced on November 18th.
On 28th December the Guardian ran an exclusive story concerning a former Dulwich College teacher Chloe Deakin. Ms Deakin had become so concerned about reports of Farage’s behaviour that she wrote the Head to state her opposition to Farage becoming a prefect.
He was appointed anyway which may explain why the current Head of Dulwich College felt the need to speak out before Christmas to underline that it is not like that anymore.
So far aside from varying degrees of bluster Farage has made no apology for his alleged remarks and behaviour. The fact that Ms Deakin’s letter was considered rather than dismissed as unreliable suggests that Dulwich College knew perfectly well what Farage was up to….
Many obituaries of Brigitte Bardot have noted her support for fascist politics in later life and convictions for race hate crimes.
Fascism however was a long term thing for Bardot.
The photo above is from Daniel Frasnay in 1957 (via Jérémie Foa): Bardot is with French fascist leader Jean Marie Le Pen (the latter had just returned from his time as a torturer in Algiers, he had reenlisted for a brief period in the French Foreign Legion. He admitted that he was aware of torture but not his own role)
From Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to the New Model Army & the Commonwealth (1649-1660)
William Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night in 1601/2 as a seasonal entertainment. It was first performed at Candlemas, February 2nd 1602. In the Christian calendar Candlemas is one signifier of the end of Christmas although in 2025/6 the Church England takes it as the eve of Epiphany in early January.
Michael Rosen has pointed out to me that the play contains a reference to Robert Browne (1550-1633)
In the play (Act 3 Scene 2) Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, “I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician” .
Agucheek has the character of a fool in the play and Shakespeare is making a topical reference to Brownism which had developed from the thought of Robert Browne. The point being made is that Aguecheek no more wished to be associated with the dissenting views of Browne than he did with politicians. Ironically Browne was as much opposed to politicians as he was the ‘mainstream’ Church.
Browne’s idea was that each Church should stand on its own authority, appointing its own Ministers without a central controlling body. He preached for a period at St Mary’s Church on Islington Upper St. The church still stands although it has been rebuilt since the early 1600s.
Browne’s followers were persecuted and imprisoned and Browne himself abandoned what became known as Congregationalism and became an Anglican Minister.
The ideas he promoted however took deep root. Many of the rank and file of the New Model Army in the 1640s were Congregationalists (less so for the officers) and Cromwell followed a similar path enforcing a separation between Church and State in England (there were other plans for Ireland and Scotland). On 30th January 1649 in Whitehall the principle of the Divine Right of Kings and its then key figure Charles 1st lost their heads (as it were).
As Michael Rosen points out Browne had a beard but whether this was significant in terms of his religious ideas is less clear. Following his principles it would presumably be up to the members of each individual church to decide what the precise role of beards should be.
After Nigel Farage posted a video on the Telegraph site claiming he had cancelled a visit to the Ashes Test in Melbourne because the England team are ‘terrible’. Geoffrey Boycott has posted a rather more informed view also in the Telegraph.
Boycott has supported Farage in the past, and one of the few genuine things about the Reform boss is an interest in cricket. Whether Boycott still backs him I don’t know but he certainly does not support his view on the Melbourne Test which England won.
Boycott has at best a chequered past but like a stopped clock he can occasionally be right. He is correct that the ‘ECB suits’ chasing the (much needed) money that short form cricket can bring have walked away from the grassroots of the game at County level. And its the Counties that should provide players for England although not so much in the Brendan McCullum era.
Melbourne aside there is a lot to criticise about the recent performances of the England team and without question supporters are unhappy and viewers at home likewise. The danger is that cricket at the top level gets into a spiral where there is less public interest and with that will come less media interest. After all the idea of televising sport is to get big audiences that drive advertising revenue and at the same payment money to the ECB suits…
Boycott in the Telegraph 28th December
England won the Boxing Day Test because they played better cricket than Australia. It was no fluke. Winning the toss was a bit of good luck, but England’s bowling in the second innings was excellent…
Too many modern guys go hard at the ball. Our top batsmen play very little county cricket and almost nothing on tours outside Test matches. Nets alone will not help batsmen master the technique of playing the moving ball. Sadly, the ECB suits have them playing more and more 50-over, T20 and Hundred cricket because it brings in lots of money. And we know how money is their idea of success, not winning the Ashes or being the best team in the world.
