BEST FOR BRITAIN'S

WEEKEND WIRE

Dear John,

Silly season is well underway, but the Government (and the Home Secretary) are still determined to inflict serious harm. Let’s take a look at the round-up.

Bigly indicted (again)

He’s got the most indictments. Huge indictments. Way more than Obama ever got. They can’t even keep track of all the indictments he’s racking up. He’s got the fake news media busting down the shower curtain to ask about all his indictments.

This week, former President Donald Trump was slapped with a superseding indictment related to the charges he’s facing for mishandling classified documents after he was booted out of office and subsequently attempted to re-install himself in office. The explosive new allegations include requesting that Mar-a-Lago security camera footage requested by investigators be deleted and distributing sensitive military documents after his presidency (illegal) to people who did not have security clearance (also illegal).

On his personal internet fiefdom Truth Social, Trump has been uncharacteristically reticent, only alluding to a meeting with the investigators and mentioning nothing about his new charges. He additionally continues to deny any knowledge of an orange-stained crayon drawing labelled “nucular launch sights” with what appears to be a crudely-drawn map of the United States.

Looking for climate collapse? You’re getting warmer

Right-wing columnists who lack the object permanence to realise the UK is affected by the same global forces causing extreme weather elsewhere in Europe may finally wake up to the dire reality of climate change, because this week, the Met Office released data confirming that 2022 was the UK’s hottest year on record.

The UK also saw its hottest-ever temperature on 19th July of last year, a mercury-soaring 40.3℃ in Coningsby, Lincolnshire. Despite an anomalously cold December, 2022 saw six of its twelve months make the top 10 warmest in their respective part of the year since record-keeping began in 1884.

The Met Office also warned that 40℃ summers and drier conditions could become a much more common phenomenon as climate change accelerates.

Gassy profits

In news that is surely not related to rising temperatures and extreme weather across the globe, this week, Centrica, the owner of British Gas, reported that their profits in the past year had increased by a staggering 889%.

Centrica attributed the £969m margin due to the rise in energy price caps, but furious campaigners charged that the company is posting record profits on the backs of families struggling with the cost of living crisis. An energy advisory organisation said that the soaring profits were partially a consequence of the sector prioritising oil over renewables.

Braverman threatens tent city

In the same week that the Home Office advanced plans to house people seeking asylum in unsafe barges, reports emerged that Suella Braverman, not content with breaching international law to visit cruelty on vulnerable people, plans to force people stuck in the years-long asylum backlog to live in tents on disused military bases.

The Opposition has attacked the Government’s failure to deal with the asylum backlog, though, disappointingly, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper failed to strongly condemn the Tories’ inhumane detention practices.

For a look into the UK’s sordid history of housing people seeking asylum in unacceptable conditions in barges, this Twitter thread provides necessary context on the disastrous results of the last time the practice was implemented, under Margaret Thatcher.

Financial Fa-Rage

While the Gulf Stream collapses, the UK descends into authoritarianism, and rent prices skyrocket beyond all control, we can all, at least, breathe easy knowing that Nigel Farage can get several people fired for being mean to him.

The ongoing saga of Farage’s alleged ‘debanking’ threatens to continue into its second month. Following the closure of Farage’s account at Coutts, the elite private banking service run by NatWest, and the subsequent political fallout which resulted in both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer chiming in, NatWest CEO Alison Rose announced her resignation this week. Her ousting was closely followed on Thursday by an announcement that Coutts CEO Peter Flavel would also be stepping down.

Farage, ever the limelight-hungry hippo, remains unsatisfied, and has called for the whole NatWest board to go. Should he get his way (and should the British media and political system continue its favourite habit of amplifying his blathering), we could be staring back at Farage fivers at the store before decade’s end.

Turns out the Tories DO increase foreign aid

Since 2016, the Irish passport office has dealt with a major rise in British applicants, and now universities in Northern Ireland might see something similar. This Thursday, the Irish Government announced that it was allocating permanent funding for university students in Northern Ireland to go on exchanges in Europe after UK students were shut out of Erasmus.

With the Government’s Turing scheme, which was meant to replace Erasmus, offering British universities £22m less than Erasmus and reportedly stranding students abroad without access to funds, the Irish government has apparently taken pity on students in Northern Ireland starved of access to cultural exchanges. DUP MP Sammy Wilson took time off his usual schedule of claiming solar panels don’t work in hot weather to accuse the Irish of “ulterior motives”.

Claire Hanna, SDLP MP for Belfast South and UK Trade and Business Commission member, welcomed the Republic’s offer to Northern Irish students and said “Rishi Sunak should do the same for those in Scotland, Wales and England”.

Returning to Erasmus is one of the key recommendations from the UK Trade and Business Commission’s Trading our way to prosperity report.

Sadly, the 70th Weekend Wire will also be my last, as I will be leaving Best for Britain! It’s oddly, and maddeningly, fitting that Nigel Farage is at the centre of the conversation this week. Bringing you all of SW1’s Very Serious Political News each week has been my absolute pleasure. Happy trails and travels!

Best wishes,

Tommy Gillespie
Press Officer, Best for Britain