Why is Nigel Farage under attack for mourning Ann Widdecombe?
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Of all the disturbing news out there at the moment, up there is some American company's possible takeover of easyJet. Last week we learned that the budget airline had agreed in principle to a £5.7 billion takeover offer from US asset management firm Apollo – days after accepting a bid from rival firm Castlelake. What? Good old sleazyJet exiting the London market? Just when it was becoming really, really good? Alright, I may be exaggerating slightly here – budget airlines never get really, really good (that is why they are called budget, dear). But there is budget and then there is budget. Who can forget when Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary floated the idea of standing seats on flights and a £1 ‘pay-per-pee’ fee to use the lavatory in 2010?
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Farage’s next trick
When Reform high command gathered in the boardroom of their Millbank headquarters last Tuesday, the meeting was supposed to be to select candidates in their 120 most winnable seats and choose dozens of campaign managers. It went on for six hours, as party chiefs instead addressed a growing sense of unease that the great momentum of 2025 has been lost. A source familiar with the discussions reveals that Chris Bruni-Lowe, pollster and message man, has been concerned for months that Reform needs to do something big to ‘take back control’. ‘Chris challenged people, saying things aren’t working the way they need to,’ the source says.
When Reform high command gathered in the boardroom of their Millbank headquarters last Tuesday, the meeting was supposed to be to select candidates in their 120 most winnable seats and choose dozens of campaign managers. It went on for six hours, as party chiefs instead addressed a growing sense of unease that the great momentum of 2025 has been lost. A source familiar with the discussions reveals that Chris Bruni-Lowe, pollster and message man, has been concerned for months that Reform needs to do something big to ‘take back control’. ‘Chris challenged people, saying things aren’t working the way they need to,’ the source says.
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Springwood, set in June 1939, looks at a series of tricky meetings between the American president FDR and George VI at the Roosevelts’ family retreat in upstate New York. George and Queen Elizabeth are guests at the poky old house and although they complain to each other about their sleeping quarters they hide their dismay from their hosts. The writer-director, Richard Nelson, evidently despises the main characters apart from FDR (Robert Lindsay) who comes across as a genial old buffer addicted to whisky. The dialogue is divided into easy-to-handle segments. First, we get the history bit. FDR tells George that the US ought to join Britain in the coming war but pro-German sentiment is very strong and the majority of Americans may support Hitler. Then we get the therapy bit.