Kmflett's Blog

Quite what Nigel Farage has done to upset Rupert Murdoch is unclear but the Times and the Sunday Times have been pursuing details of the Reform leaders activities over the last few days.

The Times carried an investigation into Farage’s property empire, consisting of five houses in Kent and Surrey. On 5th July the Sunday Times carries a lengthy piece on Farage’s links to convicted fraudster George Cottrell.

On 9th February 2026 there was a Parliamentary debate on foreign interference in UK politics in Westminster Hall. The debate came after a public petition calling for it received 114,000 signatures (many from Wales). The threshold is 100,000

There was a focus on the ex-leader of Reform in Wales Nathan Gill who is serving a jail term for accepting Russian bribes and Reform’s position on Russia

No Reform MP was present. However both Farage and Tice did manage to appear at a book launch on money laundering later in the week. The launch took place on 12th February 2026 at the Raffles hotel in Whitehall. The author former Farage aide George Cottrell underlined that the book was not a guide on how to launder money

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/14/reform-uk-figures-attend-book-launch-how-to-launder-money?CMP=share_btn_url

The Guardian has more on this, and the Sunday Times Insight Team have launched a podcast about Cottrell’s activities

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/09/police-investigate-500000-reform-donations-from-mother-of-fraudster-who-backed-farage?CMP=share_btn_url

Sunday Telegraph 5th July 2026

Starmer has said that he will not be a backbench critic of Andy Burnham becomes PM. There may of course be other ways to influence.

Meanwhile the rapidity of Blair’s ‘rare’ interventions is increasing. His influence it might be suggested does have an impact but not within the Labour Party.

24 year old Michael Olise is another of Farage’s nightmares. He said in 2024 that he comes from four countries France, Algeria, Nigeria and Great Britain. He is a Londoner who certainly could have played football for England and likely cricket for England too.

Yet at Crystal Palace he Patrick Vieira how he could get to play for France, and now he is.

Simon Kuper (FT 4th July 2026) quotes French manager Didier Deschamp saying that off the pitch Olise is ‘introverted..maybe its his English side’.

Who cares, he is a great footballer

Two years ago Nigel Farage was elected as MP for Clacton. His visits since have been perfunctory. He has managed precisely no surgeries for constituents and attendance at the Commons for which he is paid nearly £100K is increasingly thin.

He has however found time to fly to Washington to mark the 250th anniversary of independence (from Clacton and every other bit of the UK) on a GB News platform. He also found time to have photo with JD Vance.

Who paid for this latest jaunt will probably become clear over time but we can rest assured it was not Farage.

It is probably the first time that the very long running series Lunch with the Financial Times has visited Tottenham. However (4th July 2026) found the FT’s George Parker and McSweeney meeting in the Elmhurst Pub, Lordship Lane, Tottenham N17. About ten minutes walk from my Tottenham abode and opposite Bruce Castle park.

The Elmhurst does good food these days but the chef was having a day off. Hence an order from Yard Sale Pizza which started in Clapton (Hackney) and now has a number of branches, primarily aimed at the delivery market.

McSweeney had an 18inch Mr Lava Lava £25.90 which consists of Mushrooms, mixed peppers, black olives, guindilla chillies & chilli flakes according to the Yard Sale website.

There is more to the story, particularly the Tottenham angle, but I’ll post on that seperately

To the founding fathers of the United States breaking free from the trammels of precedent it seemed sufficient to find certain truths ‘self evident’. But to Major John Cartwwright (1749-1824) publishing his pamphlet Take Your Choice in the same year as the Declaration of Independence (1776) it seemed necessary to shore up his case for annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, payments of Members, and adult manhood Suffrage with reference to Saxon precedent. The ‘good grey Major’ as he became known defined as early as this the main claims of advanced political reformers from 1776 to the Chartists and beyond

Sunday Times 21st June 2026

Farage’s view on football (he likes cricket but the interns who run his social media clearly cant grasp the complexities of the game)has varied.

He was not happy about players taking the knee against racism and demanded that politics be kept out of sport.

More recently he was presiding over a football game featuring a Farage No.10 team somewhere near Clacton.

He has struggled with the World Cup. First there was the Euro 2024 picture. For the DCR match his team simply reposted the official England tweet.

I note that some argue he doesn’t like football so why bother. Because as the leader of a supposedly patriotic party supporting in this case England its part of his job to show support. Albeit unfortunately for Farage monetising that is not easy.

The Sunday Times graphic underlines the imperial diaspora of world football. Players were born in European countries to parents who originally came from elsewhere, because European countries had been in those elsewheres…

England reach World Cup Final

An England sporting side are in a World Cup final on Sunday in London. It’s obviously not the men’s football side (yet…) and its certainly not the men’s cricket team. Rather England women face Australia’s women at Lords in the T20 World Cup Final.

The Men’s Football World Cup kicked off in Mexico City on 11th June. Mexico beat South Africa. The game was unremarkable aside from three red cards but the atmosphere was fitting for such an occasion. It was however, as not reported on ITV, for the few not the many. Standard tickets cost £750 which is the average monthly wage in Mexico.

The tournament might well have been better if it had been played in Mexico and Canada only but as it is the majority of the 104 games will be played in the US.

As the Round of 32 has been reached its become clear that there are two World Cups. Trump has stayed away so far. Harassment of players and officials, Iran being a prime example, has been a deplorable feature. On the other hand as Simon Kuper argues in the Financial Times (27^th June) there is also a fan led World Cup, with supporters of teams in the stadiums- Scotland being an obvious UK focused example- but also with watch parties and big screens.

The Men’s Football World Cup is of course a global event with a global audience and wall to wall media coverage.

Meanwhile another World Cup is reaching its conclusion as England Women beat the current holders New Zealand at The Oval on 27^th June  and South Africa in the semi-final on Thursday 2^nd July as part of the T20 series that ends with a Final at Lords on July 5^th. There were 21,128 spectators at the Oval on Thursday evening.

Media coverage is of course minimal. The Times manages a column by Elizabeth Ammon. You’d expect an England team reaching a World Cup Final to make the front pages. It seems unfortunately unlikely.

Yet the tournament has had global reach with India playing Pakistan a game which usually attracts the biggest screen based global audience of any sport.

The whole thing is screened on Sky and on ICC.TV and radio commentary is on Radio 5 via Test Match Special.

A World Cup without the machismo

When I posted this on Blue Sky its fair to say it did not find a good response.

I have tried it and in my view (I prefer savoury to sweet generally) it was perfectly edible and not sickly.

However whether its a good idea is another matter. M&S are once again doing a strawberry and whipped creme fraiche on brioche sandwich to go with Wimbledon. That is a little sweet but I think works better.

In the era of Andy Burnham perhaps we’d do better sticking to chips and gravy, or curry sauce maybe