One of Reform’s many “bold” promises is that if elected they will bring NHS waiting lists down to zero within two years.
That’d be wonderful. But it’s also up there with their dangerous plans for tax cuts in terms of being utterly implausible to anyone who looks into it.
The waiting list for NHS have never, ever been zero. Not once. The day it started it already had a waiting list of almost half a million in-patients from the hospitals that joined the service.
Here’s a chart from the Nuffield Trust to show how it’s built up over the years. As you can see, the way it has been measured and the definition of “waiting list” has changed over time, so you can’t really compare this year’s figure to 1949s. But it has never, under any government or definition, got close to zero.
The previous Labour government made huge investments into the NHS, almost tripling its budget between 1997 and 2009 – and even that was only enough to halve the waiting list, as impressive an accomplishment as that was.
The NHS – staff, buildings, equipment and more – is in a rough state, so any attempt to restore to it the funding it desperately needs to fix that after years of decline is very welcome. But the idea that Reform will eliminate waiting lists, and so quickly as well, is absolutely laughable – “absolute nonsense; completely unachievable”, as Dr Patterson puts it. They must know it’s a lie.
Except, of course, if the way they want to eliminate the waiting list is to eliminate the NHS as we know it. That of course isn’t in their manifesto; but their leader certainly seems to think it should not exist in its current state, and is “open to anything” when it comes to replacing the current universal state provision with an insurance based system.
Simon French, Chief Economist and Head of Research at Panmure Liberum and former economic adviser with the UK Civil Service, warns the Telegraph that Reform UK’s ridiculous economic plan – particularly the massive tax cuts that no-one outside of themselves believes they could possibly pay for – will likely trigger a run on the pound.
Those plans that we think would create an immediate fiscal gap of £70bn-£80bn per year – would in our view create the high probability of an immediate and violent sterling crisis.
The fact that the result of their plan would increase the deficit “two-to-three times” larger than even the damaging plan that led to Liz Truss’ quick ousting as Prime Minister would cause at least the same issues, but magnified.
Experimentation with an immediately higher fiscal deficit profile – of an additive scale set to be two-to-three times larger than anything attempted by the 2022 mini-Budget or 2024 October Budget – would create sharp rises in UK sovereign, commercial
and household interest rates in our view.
This of course would be even more damaging to the already-precarious financial situation of the average British household.
Nigel Farage’s comments are ill-judged, prejudiced and dangerous. HIV can affect anyone regardless of sex, race & class. #idiot #unhelpful
For what it’s worth, he’s also condemned Donald Trump as being a “fool”, “dangerous” and a “source of hate”. Whereas party leader Farage still seems to be a (wannabe?) close friend of Trump’s calling him the “single most resilient and bravest person I have ever met in my life”. Well, less so recently, perhaps. Whereas Bull seems to have moved in the other direction, becoming a big fan of Trump, as we’ll see later.
Bull has also been condemned in the past for trying to exploit National HIV Testing Week to try and profiteer by selling “discounted HIV testing kits”. In the UK there is no need to give money to any greedy charlatan for these kits. They are available for free from the National Health Service.
“Abhorrent,” said one Twitter user. “UK testing is free, fast and comes with professional support. It’s also rather standard in most diagnostics. There is no room for profit here.”
You could also win a lifetime’s supply of condoms if you “followed the brand” and “shared the post”. Real social media grifter stuff.
He was also perhaps most famous for his presenter role on the show “Most Haunted Live!”. This is a paranormal ghost-hunting show. Unfortunately it has since been exposed as being fake by one of the parapsychologists involved.
He accuses the show’s medium Derek Acorah of hoodwinking viewers by pretending to communicate with spirits and obtaining information about locations prior to filming.
The Mirror has also obtained unedited footage which appears to show presenter Yvette Fielding and her husband faking ‘paranormal’ occurrences such as ghostly bumps and knocks.
HOPE not hate can reveal that two Brexit Party MEPs and a prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) have appeared on the Richie Allen Show, a David Icke-affiliated radio broadcast that serves as an online platform for antisemitic conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.
But oddly, he now seems to be strangely pro-immigration for being the chair of such a party whose primary gambit is really being rabidly anti-immigrant. Soon after his appointment he claimed that “immigration is the lifeblood of this country”.
The comment immediately sparked fierce debate among viewers, with many expressing outrage that Reform UK’s new chairman appeared to be endorsing immigration just hours into his new role.
Perhaps most bizarrely, especially given his past comments on Trump, last year he appeared on TalkTV wearing an ear bandage in “solidarity” with President Trump after Trump’s first assassination attempt.
Eight female councillors have signed and circulated a letter to the residents of Wickford, which is soon to see a byelection, that claims that recently elected Reform MP for Basildon, James McMurdock, lied about his past.
This is in relation to the an instance of him assaulting his partner when he was younger. It’s impossible to deny entirely because he’s been convicted of it. But the councillors believe that he’s been misleading the public as to the severity of the attack.
In the letter, the councillors refer to Mr McMurdock’s election result for Basildon where he won his seat by 98 votes. The councillors claim that he “tried to downplay the attack – saying it was just a push,” but that court documents obtained by The Times indicate a different version of events. According to court documents obtained by the paper, McMurdock reportedly ‘kicked his girlfriend multiple times while she was on the ground and two bouncers intervened at the time.’
In their letter, it read: “This is about a man in public office who lied, covered up his past” later adding “we will not stand for this.”
This is not the first time he has shown reticence to be up front with the electorate about what his past actions. He neglected to even disclose his conviction before his 2024 election as an MP. Court documents showed that he received a sentence of 28 days, “not suspended in light of serious nature of the offence” – and when it came out he, once again, downplayed it as being a youthful “indiscretion”, telling a story that did not at all match the court’s findings.
It hasn’t taken long for Zia Yusuf’s shock unresignation to see him conflict with the views of his party leader/owner. Good job for Farage that he’s such a megalomaniac that reputedly his new chairman – who isn’t Yusuf – was picked on the basis that he’d have less power.
Anyway, in his first interview since his return a few days ago he told Radio 4 that he would deport every single illegal immigrant from the UK.
I want to be crystal clear about what my position is, and Reform UK’s position is, which is we will deport everybody who is here in this country illegally, which is roughly about 1.2 million people.
However, this is a claim so unrealistic that that even Nigel Farage thought it’s impossible, despite his tendency to exaggerate and confabulate. Last year he told GB News – a channel that would have been extremely sympathetic to the idea – that deporting every illegal immigrant is “literally impossible to do”.
Asked by GB News if he supported removing all illegal immigrants, he said: “It’s impossible to do. Literally impossible to do.
“For us, at the moment, it’s a political impossibility.”
Asked if it was his ambition to be able to do it, Farage replied: “No. So it’s pointless even going there.
“It’s a political impossibility, we simply can’t do it.”
Part of Reform’s current “appeal” is their pretence of being the only party that will fight for the rights of the everyday working person against their wicked establishment bosses. Despite being set up as a private company owned by an ex-finance-industry multi-millionaire, the party somehow likes to pretend it is there to stand up for the poor beleaguered working class man above all other.
The organisations who one might expect to have the most expertise in these kind of matters would be trade unions – maintaining and improving the conditions of employees in the workplace being basically their entire reason to exist. Like them or hate them, that’s their stated mission.
So, are the union staff universally overjoyed to see Reform join their efforts to support the working people against the many abusive employers out there?
No. They are not.
We can turn to last weekend’s speech by Gary Smith, chief of the GMB union, to see why – and why many of them think that Reform is actually one of the least worker-friendly parties out there.
Economically speaking, Reform exists to help the rich get richer, and if they have to trample over the few remaining rights of the average worker to do that then they will not hesitate to do so.
Let’s get one thing clear – Mr Farage and his ex-Tory soulmates are no friends of workers.
They’ve spent a political lifetime attacking trade unions and the rights we have all fought so hard for. Decent pay, better conditions, protections we cherish.
By the way, why is it always the posh, private schoolboys who want act like they’re working-class heroes.
Do they really think we can’t see the bankers, the chancers, the anti-union blowhards?
If Reform are so pro-worker, why did they just vote against protections against fire and rehire? Why did they vote against sick pay for all workers? Why did they vote against fair pay for carers? Why did they vote against trade union rights to access and organise in places like Amazon?
Now they are going to run town halls. And, the first thing they want to do is sack council workers.
It’s high time they were called out for their sneering, snooty attitude about so-called ‘gold-plated’ pensions. Go ask a local authority care worker, refuse collector, street cleaner, school support staff member if they think their meagre pension is gold-plated. Many can’t even afford to be in it.
Reform’s abuse and name-calling of low-paid public sector workers is an utter disgrace. Of course, Mr Farage has also threatened the NHS. And, he is notoriously weak about Putin.
LBC reports that nearly 3,000 members of Reform quit the party last week.
That was the week that Sarah Pochin went rogue and started banging on about burqa bans in Parliament. Her party’s chairman called that “dumb” and quit. And then he un-quit two days later.
Reform say that timing is just a massive coincidence. It’s not that their members don’t enjoy the rabid chaos. They simply forgot to fill out their paperwork. Reform’s new chairman David Bull has apparently got a busy day ahead, saying:
Today I’m going to write a letter to all of the members to say please can you make sure your subscriptions are up to date.
It looks like Reform have lost yet another of their novice councillors. Having served less than two months Daniel Taylor has apparently been delisted as a Reform member on the Kent County Council website.
…a response from Reform UK shared by BBC Kent political reporter Michael Keohan on X says: “Following a matter which is now with the police, the group whip has been withdrawn from Cllr Taylor with immediate effect.”
A couple of weeks ago it was confirmed that Andrew Tate was to face several criminal charges, including for human trafficking and controlling prostitution in the UK.
Nigel Farage has been condemned for saying Andrew Tate is an “important voice for men”.
The Reform UK leader claimed the online influencer had raised awareness of “men becoming feminine” and stood up for their ability to “be a bloke”.
Leanne Wood believes that this reveals the misguided priorities of Farage and his colleagues, saying:
The far-right leader has praised misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, who has today been charged with rape. He said Tate was an ‘important voice’ for young men.
If anyone had any doubts of the links between misogyny and the far-right, those doubts should now be dispelled.
They don’t really care about women or children. They only care about sex offenders who are not white, and they only use case examples when it suits their exclusionary and racist political agenda.
I hope the Tate case will now end the pretence that the far-right want to protect women and children. They don’t. It’s all opportunistic bull. I hope you haven’t fallen for it
