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13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Sarah Murphy
@13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
43K followers 1.4K following 2.9K posts
Welcome to my shiny new echo chamber… hoping here that I can keep it clean and tidy and ‘woke’.

IRL - lawyer (of the lefty, campaigning variety).
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13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Can you imagine…?
Grifting GBnews-shareholder, Farage, and not-a-clue Dorries working out a plan for the BBC. What could possibly go right?

liveapp.inews.co.uk/category/403...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Farage (below) said he would work with the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries - who defected from the Conservatives to Reform in September - to draw up detailed plans for the corporation's future. Reveals ignorance of Channel 4's funding model During a select committee appearance on 24 November 2021, the former secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, to give her her full title, wrongly claimed that Channel 4 was "in receipt of public money" therein entirely undermining her insistence that it should be privatised and, arguably, her credibility in the job.
November 11, 2025 at 7:31 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
This is a genuinely intolerable reality…
Instead of some proportion from much of the British media class, we are treated to the tragicomic absurdity of a former British prime minister willing to admonish the national broadcaster and demand the resignation of its Director General, all in the name of defending Donald Trump's reputation for truth-telling. But it's worse than that- it is a textbook example of how populists win. We have the ridiculous carnival of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, of all people, admonishing the BBC for its lack of integrity. And they can get away with it, because no-one expects anything from them and yet we expect everything from the people and places who actually give a damn.
November 10, 2025 at 11:01 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
I see your Martin Daubney… and raise you…
David Bull wearing a panty-pad of sympathy on his ear when Trump got shot.
Now Reform party chairman.
It *cannot* possibly get more feeble-mindedly fawning than this.
David Bull on Talk TV. Wearing a panty pad of sympathy on his ear when Trump got shot
November 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
“Its enemies hate the BBC with the same venom they detest the NHS, as publicly owned and popular social endeavours. Can the institution survive?”

Farage, Johnson, Truss… (all the most dismal, dishonest people in our political landscape) hope not.

There’s really nothing they won’t vengefully ruin.
It bears a near-impossible burden. The BBC will fail frequently in its thousands of hours of output across the world. Large numbers of people (myself included) will often shout at their television sets, gnashing teeth at choices made by the BBC newsroom. Those journalists are fallible, subjected to a cat's cradle of conflicting pressures to "inform, educate and entertain" while subjected to political, social and religious lobbying. Yet the BBC remains by miles the most watched, listened to and read of all platforms in the UK. It is the most trusted, at 60%, with the FT at 57%, ITV and Channel 4 at 56%, followed by the Guardian at 51% - according to the Reuters Institute. (Telegraph trust stands at 42%, the Mail at 24%.) Having spent seven years in a BBC newsroom, I saw how the attempt to walk the line of balance consumes everyone there.
November 10, 2025 at 7:47 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
As ever, the loathsome Farage rubs his greedy little hands with glee as he hopes that GB’news’ will profit from the ‘scandal’ he helped to whip up…
Honest to god… why do we have to be so kicked about by these ultra-cynical right wing hysterics?
(iPaper)
The BBC's reporting is widely viewed in the US, with the corporation positioning itself as an impartial alternative to partisan networks like Fox News. The UK's right-wing GB News is winning friends in the White House and could be awarded reporting credentials after launching a new Washington DC show. One BBC News figure said: "This will have serious repercussions for the BBC's Washington team. If Trump launches a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC, as he has with US networks, that would be disastrous. Tim needs to give a grovelling apology personally to the President."
November 10, 2025 at 9:12 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
The Panorama edit was clumsy. But the facts remain. It was a violent insurrection to upend a democratic vote. Looking at the wild outrage here, we’d be forgiven for thinking Jan 6th never happened. In terms of bias, this is off the scale worse. With Farage delighting in the damage.
(Extracts iPaper)
The White House's press secre-tary, Karoline Leavitt, poked fun at Davie's resignation. On X, she wrote "shot" above a screenshot of a Telegraph headline saying "Trump goes to war with 'fake news' BBC". Leavitt then added "chaser" above a second screenshot from the BBC website announcing Davie's departure. Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, wrote on X that UK reporters were "just as dishonest" as "the ones here in America". Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the resignations must be "the start of wholesale change" The BBC's reporting is widely viewed in the US, with the corporation positioning itself as an impartial alternative to partisan networks like Fox News. The UK's right-wing GB News is winning friends in the White House and could be awarded reporting credentials after launching a new Washington DC show. One BBC News figure said: "This will have serious repercussions for the BBC's Washington team. If Trump launches a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC, as he has with US networks, that would be disastrous. Tim needs to give a grovelling apology personally to the President."
November 10, 2025 at 8:09 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
This has been one of the worst recent developments… the media shrug at the brazen racism of the right… passing it off as an expression of concern or patriotism, when they should have been calling it out in the strongest terms.
The damage this has done to our communities is unforgivable.
Yet as soon as the opposition to the Government became the Conservatives and then Reform, the media's all-consuming concern with eradicating racism from our politics seemed to evaporate. Suddenly racism was not only treated as being something not worth the media focusing their attention upon, but as an important expression of the public's "legitimate concerns" against immigration.
November 8, 2025 at 5:45 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Loved this…
The sheer ineptitude on display has been staggering - and oddly endearing. In this celebrity version of the show, it's become clear that overt analytical intelligence won't get anyone very far. David Olusoga's torturous circular monologues have been so consistently misguided that you actually began to retrospectively doubt the veracity of his highly regarded documentaries (imagine overthinking things to the point that you're left suspecting the most obviously faithful faithful in Traitors history, Nick Mohammed). Stephen Fry generally hemmed and hawed like Bagpuss's Professor Yaffle before eventually nominating David Olusoga again. And Kate Garraway - a literal news journalist, lest we forget - frequently blundered around like someone trying to burst a birthday piñata during a bomb disposal operation. "Kate Garraway repeating things" has become something of a meme since the show began.
November 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Flagmania is racist bunting and we all know it.
Poppy-policing is more of the same menacing ‘patriotism’.

“Those who oppose the UK’s emboldened far right need to speak out” not cower before Farage and the Daily Mail

Otherwise what *exactly* are we remembering?
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-f...
Photo of paper poppies Like the union flag, the poppy is being weaponised by the far right while politicians look the other way. Image: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty One or two men with a cherry picker and some cable ties can put up hundreds of flags in a night. The displays across the country are of this sort, not spontaneous widespread patriotic fervour: these same far right movements could barely mobilise 3,000 people nationwide to their "days of anger" protests. The results of their nocturnal efforts are surely beyond their belief. They have emboldened racists and their champions, and brought misery to those they hate. This is a reminder of the power of symbols, and of the need to fight for those symbols. As it stands, the flags are being ceded without a fight, and some bastardisation of the poppy's meaning is being allowed to feed into it.
November 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Not sure why anyone other than deeply dismal politicians and useful right wing idiots and ghouls would still be on X. It’s not a town square where people are engaging in good faith. It’s a dangerous radicalisation machine that seeks to upend our democracy and - in the US - has already shown it can.
Photo of flagmania in the UK Elon Musk joined the Unite the Kingdom rally in September via video call He has used his social media platform X to encourage British people to fly English flags and has endorsed fringe right-wing politicians. In a recent post, he compared illegal immigrants to monstrous fictional characters in JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, and suggested all English people would die if they did not support Mr Robinson. The significant influence that Elon Musk had in using his social media platform to sway opinion in the run-up to Donald Trump's re-election has been widely reported. Mr Daisley thinks that X has the power to shape political conversations in the UK, too. "Elon Musk bought Twitter to have an influence in American politics, he thinks it helped elevate him to the top of the political conversation in the US. And so to some extent the product can do the same here," he told Sky News.
November 6, 2025 at 9:43 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
And with no hint of shame, humility or personal responsibility, the Tory who detonated the economy with his mini budget and whose party trashed the place with austerity and Brexit, then scorched the earth with unaffordable pre-election tax cuts, tells Reeves to apologise.
Insufferable.
(iPaper)
By Kwasi Kwarteng Former Conservative MP and chancellor Reeves brutally weaponised my mini-Budget - now she is paying the price For Keir Starmer and his Chancellor, this is a nightmare which has only just begun It would perhaps be better simply to apologise - and do so in an act of genuine contrition. That is more realistic and believable than simply trying to pin the blame on other people, like a schoolchild who has been caught out saying: "It wasn't me, Miss!"
November 5, 2025 at 8:26 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
“Human rights are not obstacles to good governance, but its very foundation.”

Very well said.
As humanists, we must resist this false narrative with clarity and conviction. Without the ECHR, ordinary people would lose their essential safeguard against state overreach. Victims of domestic violence, whistleblowers, people facing discrimination, those challenging unlawful detention - all would be left without recourse when domestic courts fail them. We must defend the ECHR not as a perfect instrument, but as an indispensable one, and make the case that human rights are not obstacles to good governance, but its very foundation.
November 4, 2025 at 9:16 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Once again, this isn’t journalism. It’s stroking the ego of a politician who’s done great national harm.
WhyTF should we take Farage seriously? Just because he wants power? Even more reason for ruthless scrutiny.
His track record is racist and ruinous. Any serious journalist would say so.
(iPaper)
COMMENT The joke's over: Farage plays it straight in bid to be PM Nick Robinson Extract: I t is the surest sign - although blink, and you just might have missed it. The man who can hardly start a sentence without adding a gag, or a grin, or a chortle, gave a speech about his approach to the economy in which he barely produced any. Nigel is trying to get serious. What that tells me is that Mr Farage really does want power: He senses it is within his grasp. He smells it and, most importantly of all, he wants it. Badly. The leader of Reform UK declared that "above all we will be responsible and realistic". In so doing he seemed to admit that the policies he ran on at the last election were something of a joke. No one remotely serious believed they remotely serious because, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies said, the sums in Reform UK's manifesto did "not add up". Back then - scarcely more than a year ago - Farage said you could have pretty much everything you wanted from a government whilst actually paying less for it - much less. Taxes would be cut, and cut big time. It was going to be happy hour all day long. Every day. All year: Yet now what he wants us to hear is very different. Now the man who really does want to be our next prime minister is saying, in eftect: I'm awfully sorry, but we can't cut your taxes until we get our nationa! debt back under control. Trust me, he's saying, I can be the straight man as well as the funny guy. . . . . Now he does have to show us all that he knows how to turn his words into reality, just as his lieutenants who are running councils up and down the land are discovering. We know Farage really does want to be our next prime minister. It is time we all took that prospect seriously, and stopped treating him as a come turn or a pantomime villain in the national soap opera. Serious times deserve serious answers. Let's see if Farage can provide them.
November 4, 2025 at 6:50 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
We live in a political era where politicians actively (and dishonestly) campaign to remove our rights to grub for power for themselves….
People who hope to be charged with running the country, exploiting prejudice to persuade us to abandon our right to be protected from abusive actions of the state.
They called on politicians to stop "using our human rights as a scapegoat, level with the British public about the significant costs of ECHR withdrawal (such as the impact on the Good Friday Agreement) and end the escalating, irresponsible rhetoric targeting migrant and minoritised communities, which has devastating real-world consequences for people who are often already made vulnerable by wider social and economic marginalisation and stigmatisation."
November 3, 2025 at 6:59 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
What Farage means (but never admits and is rarely asked about) is that a race to the bottom has been squandered. Brexit as the route to promoting profiteering for his moneyed mates while binning protections and rocket-boosting exploitation (aka “deregulation”) for the rest of us.
For example…
Photo of Farage at his lectern Nigel Farage says Reform UK could cut minimum wage for young people - and... 2 hours ago Sky News
November 3, 2025 at 5:07 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Farage is due to make a speech today about his new economic policy.. (having been laughed out of the room with his last one)…
Let’s just take a quick look at his ideological track record…
And then put all his ideas straight into the shredder.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Productivity 'The money machine is misfiring': City blames Brexit for UK's £20Bn productivity headache Poor output since the leave vote has landed Rachel Reeves with a bigger-than-forecast budget spending gap However, experts say it is increasingly clear that Brexit has played a significant role, exacerbating the post-2008 slump by hitting sectors with EU ties, and as the political turmoil led businesses to put investments on ice. Erecting tougher trade barriers with the UK's largest partner is expected to cut Britain's long-term productivity by about 4% relative to a remain scenario. The OBR could update this estimate at the 26 November budget. Business investment has flatlined since the Brexit referendum
November 3, 2025 at 7:43 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Urgh. What a repulsive bunch of racist shit-stirrers. And, of course, Farage never far from the stink.
Wherever we looked for the prominent flaggers and leaders of this movement, we found people smugglers and sex doll salesmen, people with dubious criminal pasts and people willing to put in a good word for Adolf Hitler. Farage told us the flag-raisers were just ordinary folk sticking it to the system. A few months worth of local journalism later, that now looks like a shaky claim.
November 2, 2025 at 3:28 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
The world is not X or Spectator parties. Reform and Tory politicians seem to think brazen racism is their meal ticket. In a country that’s far more tolerant and decent than they are, that needs to be an election-losing strategy. It’s up to us to make sure of it.
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-racism...
The Racism Premium Far from being a disadvantage, hostility to people from different races and cultures has now become an active requirement for career advancement on the right of British politics ADAM BIENKOV For these reasons I still believe that if both Reform and the Conservatives go into the next general election as parties in complete opposition to the modern, diverse face of Britain as we know it, then it is an election they are likely to lose. While racism and hate crime is on the rise, Britain is still not a majority racist For these reasons I still believe that if both Reform and the Conservatives go into the next general election as parties in complete opposition to the modern, diverse face of Britain as we know it, then it is an election they are likely to lose. While racism and hate crime is on the rise, Britain is still not a majority racist country and there is an electoral disadvantage to portraying your political party as being on the wrong side of that divide. The fact that seven out of ten ethnic minority voters and a plurality of voters overall, see Reform as being a 'racist party' demonstrates the gap between how things are seen in Westminster and how these things are seen in the world outside. and there is an electoral disadvantage to portraying your political party as being on the wrong side of that divide. The fact that seven out of ten ethnic minority voters and a plurality of voters overall, see Reform as being a 'racist party' demonstrates the gap between how things are seen in Westminster and how these things are seen in the world outside.
November 1, 2025 at 1:24 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Can we please not have Farage wriggle out of this one. His denial is not where this should end. He’s up to his grubby neck in dodgy shite. Beyond time our media stopped handing him free passes and started to properly scrutinise him.
Challenged on whether he questioned Gill over the statements, Farage said: "I didn't know anything about it; all I knew was that he'd been to Ukraine. I told him not to go, he defied me and went, I was completely unaware of any statements that he made." However, multiple sources who worked with Farage and Gill in Brussels and Strasbourg said the two men had been close. (Photo of Farage and, behind him, Gill after a historic vote for the Brexit agreement at a session of the European parliament on 29 January 2020. Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) Gill was described variously as Farage's "enforcer" and "right-hand man" by some who recalled they had adjoining offices. One former Ukip MEP from that time told the Guardian: "Gill was in the thick of organising. He was the right-hand version of Farage. His office was right beside Farage's."
November 1, 2025 at 8:50 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Gotta love Private Eye.
Always cuts through the crap.
Minority representation on TV causes outrage There has been widespread support for prominent Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she complained about the over-representation of minorities on television. Said one angry viewer, "She's right. Every time you turn on the telly there's another Reform MP being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg." She added, "I respect their way of life and their strange customs, but Reform MPs comprise only 0.7 percent of the House of Commons. Yet Nigel Farage is on Question Time more than Fiona Bruce." "I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are swivel-eyed loons, but enough is enough. There are too many people with angry red faces on television.”
October 31, 2025 at 7:38 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Compare and contrast.
Absentee MP -v- his constituency.
Greedy grifting spiv -v- most deprived English neighbourhood.
He really couldn’t give a shit.
He feeds off the inequality and anger to line his own pockets. He doesn’t want solutions because the problems are his income stream.
(iPaper & BBC)
Jaywick named most deprived area - again A seaside neighbourhood in Essex, part of the parliamentary constituency represented by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, has once again been named the most deprived in England. The latest official data showed that an area of the coastal village of Jaywick, close to the town of Clac-ton-on-Sea in the local authority of Tendring, has been classed the most deprived neighbourhood for the fourth time. Areas of Blackpool again make up most of the rest of the top 10, along with new appearances for neighbour-hoods in Hastings and Rotherham. Yesterday's data, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), presented relative levels of deprivation in areas or neighbourhoods of England in 2025. The data highlighted "the scale of the challenge" but does not "reflect the progress made since 2019 or the strength of the people who call Jay-wick Sands home" , the Tendring District Council website said. MHCLG said Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Hartlepool, Kingston upon Hull and Manchester had the highest proportions of neighbour-hoods among the most deprived in England. Farage earns more than £1m a year for non-MP work GETTY IMAGES - photo of the grifter Damian Grammaticas > Political correspondent 17 August 2024 Nigel Farage has revealed he is earning well over a £1m a year from work he does outside parliament, in addition to his job as an MP. It is thought his outside income is significantly higher than that of any other member of parliament.
October 31, 2025 at 7:44 AM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
The apparent alacrity with which our media and politicians react to certain crimes, while studiously avoiding others, has become genuinely disturbing.

“This is an industry of grievance and division, a machine designed to spread hate, which now operates across the British right.”
Photo of Musk - underneath that: Crown prince of the world's right, Musk's talk of civil war is not a warning of violence but a call to it. Extract from article: There is no evidence that asylum seekers are more likely to commit crime than other people, of any sort. The message the hate engine transmits is simple. It is that asylum seekers are an invading army who pose a threat to women and children. This is the obvious narrative behind Musk's commentary. It is what explains Nigel Farage's insistence that men who cross the Channel are of "fighting age" and therefore threaten "major civil disorder". It's why Robert Jenrick talks of his "fears" for his daughters. This is the trick they try to pull on the public. They aim to eradicate any sense of compassion, of common decency, of human imagination. They wish to replace it with civilisational conflict where any newcomer from a different culture is treated as a security threat. Every demographic has people in it who are violent or abusive. White people born in Britain commit murders and sexual assault every week. But they are not defined by this action whenever it is perpetrated. Only refugees and asylum seekers are. This is an industry of grievance and division, a machine designed to spread hate, which now operates across the British right. Don't let them fool you. Don't buy what they're selling
October 30, 2025 at 1:24 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Hey, look where years of scapegoating immigrants and devising punitive immigration policies gets you…
Further into debt, collapsing universities, tax rises and spending cuts.
Prejudice and govt dishonesty have high price tags.
Slow hand clap to all those responsible.
Public concern about immigration remains unusually high and has not yet caught up with the reality of falling immigration. However, by the 2029 general election there will have been several years of low net migration. A sharp fall in immigration could impact Reform UK, who are currently leading opinion polls, especially if asylum seeker numbers also fall. However, a fall in net migration of 300,000 a year would increase the deficit by about £2o billion. The government are already having to make unpopular tax rises and spending cuts in the upcoming budget, but would have to make more if the deficit increases. A fall in international student numbers will put further pressure on universities that are struggling financially, especially the 22 universities expected to lose their sponsor license. Reducing immigration will not necessarily increase the number of jobs available for British people as some employers are responding to tightening immigration rules by increasing outsourcing. Some job vacancies will become harder to fill, particularly in care homes. This will be even worse if a lot of people emigrate because they do not want to wait 10 years for ILR. Conclusion Net migration will fall very sharply in future years as a result of immigration restrictions brought in by both the current and the previous government. Furthermore, emigration will continue to increase, particularly of people with graduate visas. Any political benefit the government may gain from this fall in immigration could be jeopardised by the economic damage that it causes.
October 29, 2025 at 10:31 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
Oh no. Ask Reform. They’ve “undeclared the climate crisis” so it’s not a thing anymore.
No one told hurricane Melissa obviously…
"We've undeclared the climate crisis, which will free us up further down the line to make many more savings when we start to unpick all the net zero targets that have been sort of baked into the constitution. Then we can save a lot more money in the long term." ClIr Kemkaran, leader of KCC, last month called for the return of international railways to the county CIr Kemkaran said she had appointed an internal Department of Local Government Efficiency or "Doge team" which was scrutinising each Cabinet member on what savings could be made.
October 29, 2025 at 6:33 PM
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
He thinks we’re stupid. He relies on it. He’s relieved the media nods along. He needs the racist vote. But has to seem ‘respectable’ to persuade others. He’s angry with Pochin because she exposed what Reform really is. A party that doesn’t like seeing black or Asian people. A racist party.
(Times)
Under-fire Reform MP is not 'genuinely' racist, says Farage Extract: Nigel Farage said he is "very unhappy" with a Reform MP for claiming there were too many black and Asian people in adverts, but said he did not believe that she was "genuinely racist". The Reform UK leader said that Sarah Pochin's remarks were "ugly" and "taken on their own could be read to be very, very unpleasant indeed". ", but he would not be taking further action against her. He said: "I don't like the way in which she did it. I am very unhappy with her indeed, [and] if I felt the intention was deliberately and genuinely racist.! would have taken a different course. He said that her comments should be taken in the context of "DEl madness". He added: *I understand the basic point, but the way she put it, the way she worded it, was wrong and was ugly, and if I thought that the intention behind it was racist, I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date." Pochin was accused of "shocking racism" by the prime minister for the re marks made on Saturday in responseto a viewer on a Talk TV phone-in. The caller had complained that the demographics of advertising "don't represent what this country looks like". Pochin said the viewer was "absolute-ly right", adding: "It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people". ". She said: "It doesn't reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family, is not represented any more. How many times do you look at a TV advert and you think that there is not a single white person on it?" Sir Keir Starmer said that Pochin's views were the kind that will tear our country apart*. He told the BBC that the incident *tells you everything about Reform." Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin, "It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of anything other than white"
October 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM