Rouleur

The media outlet GB News It was reported this week that the channel, which employs several Reform UK politicians – (including Nigel Farage to the tune of around £400,000 a year) lost in the year to May 2025 Its total losses since launch in 2021 now stand at £131m

What is the price of influence on the right?

The media

'GB News is a vast, monstrous spectre looming over British politics – a relentless content machine that has executed Steve Bannon’s ploy of “flooding the zone with shit”.' says Sam Bright

(2/6)

Picture of Farage from GB News website with the caption For GB News's funders, £130m is a small price to pay fro vast influence

GB News, the channel of “reactionary rage bait”, has released its latest accounts showing a £22m loss for 2024/25 (and a £131m total loss since launch)

Yet another demonstration that there’s no shortage of funds on the right of British politics, writes @writesbright.bsky.social for the Nerve

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EL PAÍS "experiments like those conducted by U.S. psychologist Paul Piff suggest that it is natural for people who enjoy certain advantages to end up behaving in less empathetic ways Piff demonstrated this with a rigged game of Monopoly, in which he observed that individuals who were randomly assigned a better starting position (more money) eventually displayed overbearing behavior: they became rude, consumed more shared resources, and, by the end of the game, attributed their success to their own skill, ignoring the fact that the game had been stacked in their favor."

🧵 'Great men are almost always bad men’: The Epstein files and the appeal of stories about depraved elites

This is a fascinating article with interesting insights. I picked one out for the screenshot and append the article below.

Israel takes its scorched earth Dahiya Doctrine back where it began: Lebanon Israel is once again imposing its infamous Dahiya Doctrine in Lebanon — the same scorched-earth strategy first unleashed on Beirut in 2006

Israel takes its scorched earth Dahiya Doctrine back where it began: Lebanon

Emma Walmsley’s pay rose almost 50% to £15.6m in final year as GSK boss Bulk of 2025 renumeration came from share bonuses as drug company’s now former CEO benefitted from stock rise

GSK CEO got 50% pay rise to £15.6m.

Did you?

Neoliberals moan about rise in minimum wage. Govts preach pay restraint to workers. Silence on profiteering, hikes in exec pay/perks, dividends, share buybacks.

The state devoted to welfare of the super rich.

Price of first class stamps to rise to £1.80 Royal Mail says the increase reflects the rise in delivery costs, but the move angers consumer groups.

Privatization picking our pockets.

Another Royal Mail price hike: Form 7 April 2026 1st class postage price £1.80, 2nd class 91p.

When privatized in 2013 by Tory/LibDem Govt: 1st class 60p; 2nd class 50p.

RM doesn't meet letter delivery targets. Fines passed to customers. Execs get bonuses.

How democratic is the UK? The UK has a crisis of democracy

UK democracy in action

The state unable/unwilling to provide people with clean water, timely healthcare, social care, decent housing, pension, affordable education, energy, decent roads.

Corporate profits guaranteed through PFI, privatisations, outsourcing, subsidies, regulatory inaction.

Other countries are streets ahead of the UK on childhood obesity. Here’s what they’re doing differently | Devi Sridhar There could be 227 million obese children worldwide by 2040. But as South Korea and Denmark have shown, it is possible to tackle this crisis, says Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Other countries are streets ahead of the UK on childhood obesity. Here’s what they’re doing differently | Devi Sridhar

BP’s new boss will take home at least £11.7m this year, more than double her predecessor Meg O’Neill will be first woman to serve as CEO of 117-year-oil firm when joining from Woodside Energy in April

BP’s new CEO to take home £11.7m this year, more than double her predecessor.

Daily pay > annual median pay of UK employee.

CEO pay at one company is a benchmark for another. Others will want more.

Govts, BOE, CBI and other neoliberals talk about wage inflation, but silence on fat-cattery.

Is it just me or is there something utterly grotesque about the British right wing press relishing this war....as though this is all just a huge compter game where the men, woman and child civilians who are blown into several pieces are of only periphery consequence?

Mesmerise or memorise?😉

They haven't convinced themselves.

They are paid to spout the shite there owners want.

They are shills, not journalists.

2/3 A few billionaires, irrevocably invested in the climate crisis, hoard more wealth than many countries and use it to buy up media so they can persuade the people to direct their ire at the world’s poorest and most vulnerable- those who have left the one home they have for fear or poverty.

His ignorance of history is...unsurprising.

Rugby has no rules.

They are Laws.

Sports commentators are, in the main, idiots.

Think About It.......

Ruining the Rugby.

Wankers.

Getting more and more like the fcking Yanks.😡

Dear advertisers, I feel like boycotting any company that does an in game ITV half screen advert.

Forgive me, but which are the swear words?

Brain doing some heavy lifting there.

If he is so sure, he should contract it himself.

As l challenged all the Covid deniers to do.

Reader, l have to tell you, not one of them took up the challenge.

Is it me, or does,

'Family, Community, Country'

closely echo

'Kinder, Küche, Kirche'

So beloved of the Nazis?

Can anyone explain how a Limited company, answerable only to its directors, is allowed to be a political party….

Oh, just the business vehicle of Nigel Farage masquerading as a political party breaching its obligations at Companies House.

I keep saying it - we live better than ancient kings! Painkillers! Hot and cold water from a tap! Soft clean fabrics! Evidence-based health care and central heating! Food from the whole world! Why these macho lunks want to be vermin-ridden malnourished Roman centurions is beyond me.

Brother of ex Tory minister and now Tory peer, John Selwyn Gummer.

The tory who forced his daughter to eat a burger at the hight of the BSE (mad Cow disease) epidemic.

Nice family🙄

"The BBC’s reporting style, for example, is all too often shaped by internal guidelines and a collapsing vision of performative neutrality. This was clearly demonstrated in coverage of the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque in France [...] that described [him] as a “far-right feminist”"

More like...' l've shit myself, again'.

Seems wild that the dominant political/economic philosophy of the era has been quite ruthlessly enforced my entire life, and that pushback against this collapsing, cratering system has in recent years has been met with for real 1950s style all-media McCarthyism by press and government, hand in hand

We've just learned that the person at the MHRA whose letter caused Wes 'I follow the clinical evidence' Streeting to cancel the puberty blockers trial is Professor Jacob George, the GC who enjoyed mocking trans people on his social media account.

Why did Wes Streeting cover up his name?