FREEBIE REEVES FLAPS AGAIN

The freebie scandal has burst back into the news thanks to our hapless Chancellor.  Red Rachel desperately tried to justify her latest freebie in an interview with the Beeb's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.  The controversy surrounds free VIP tickets enjoyed by Reeves earlier this month, in which she enjoyed a concert by US country star Sabrina Carpenter at the O2 Arena.  The corporate box seats are reportedly worth £600 a pop, but Reeves bizarrely claimed that these were 'seats that you can't pay for'.

Last year Chairman Starmer allayed the Lord Alli scandal by declaring that he and his Cabinet would no longer be accepting free clothes.  This prompted Kuenssberg to ask Reeves: "Why are free clothes a no-no, but free concert tickets is a yes please?"

While Kuenssberg didn't press Reeves too hard, she did enough to make the Chancellor squirm and stutter, with the use of 'er' and 'erm' deployed 15 times during her very uncomfortable answer.  Watch the excruciating clip below.

BOATWATCH #2

The curious lull in crossings continued into last week, but from Wednesday they resumed again with 20 crossings in four days.  On Friday an unnamed Home Office spokesperson said: "We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.  The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay.  We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice."

You can say you what you like, but we won't hold our breath.

Total = 1,117 (up 619 from previous seven day period).

RAYNER THE RECEIVER

Angela Rayner meets her Vietnamese counterpart

The first instinct when one sees the above image is to assume that the portrait has been edited in to poke fun at the rampant narcissism of our ruling elite.  But no, this really happened.  Problem is, that it did not happen quite the way it has been claimed online by many social media users.

Contrary to such claims, Ange did not give a portrait of herself to the deputy PM of Vietnam.  She was actually the recipient of the portrait from Nguyễn Hoà Bình, who represents the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.  A gallery of images from the meeting can be found on the Vietnam News Agency here where it is clearly stated that the portrait was a gift to Rayner, not the other way around.

It's a shame, because the thought of Rayner having presented a portrait of herself would have been a gift... to us.  There's still plenty of scope for fun, so watch this space and look out for Meme Monday.

And what is it with the colour green, Ange?  Surely a colour matching your hair colour would have been more appropriate for a meeting with fellow socialists!

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 20.03.25

This week there were four by-elections - two in England and two in Glasgow - plus the curious case of the City of London (see below).

Labour fought three of the by-elections, with their vote share down in all of them.  They lost two seats to the SNP in Glasgow, which will be a blow to them given the SNP's overall struggles recently.  In the Lincolnshire district of South Kesteven both Labour and the Tories suffered a large swing to Reform UK, who were just 23 votes shy of victory.  Reform's electoral prowess appears to be rising above the ongoing Lowe-Farage row.

City of London Corporation elections

The City of London Corporation held its all out elections on Thursday.  As the name suggests, this is a somewhat unique organisation as local councils go.  For starters they don't hold their elections in May along with everyone else!  The Corporation runs 25 wards in central London, with a total population of less than 10,000.  Despite this tiny sum of residents, there are a whopping 100 councillors returned across the 25 wards, with as many as six candidates elected in some.  It's a fairly uninteresting affair with regards to party politics as the ballot papers are overwhelmingly dominated by independents and some wards do not even get a vote because there is only one candidate.

The only major political party that puts forward candidates in the City of London is Labour, although they only contest a small number of wards.  They won five seats in the 2022 elections and seven this time around.  However, that net gain of two should not be seen as any particular electoral success.  Two of those seats were in Cripplegate ward, which returns five councillors and there were only five candidates to choose from, so the Labour pair could not lose.  They also won three seats in Aldersgate ward, which returns six councillors with only seven candidates to choose from, so Labour were guaranteed at least two seats there also.

The full results of these elections can be found on the council website here.

North East, Glasgow City Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 689 (34.5%) +2.3%

Lab: 573 (28.7%) -5.6%

Ref: 472 (23.6%) +5.3%

Con: 81 (4.1%) -1.3%

Grn: 70 (3.5%) -0.7%

TUS: 52 (2.6%) -1.1%

LDm: 37 (1.9%) -0.1%

UKIP: 24 (1.2%) New

SNP GAIN from Lab

Southside Central, Glasgow City Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 1,126 (30.0%) -4.2%

Lab: 1,027 (27.4%) -4.1%

Grn: 805 (21.5%) +3.4%

SSP: 271 (7.2%) +5.2%

Ref: 222 (5.9%) New

LDm: 155 (4.1%) +2.7%

Con: 102 (2.7%) -1.4%

UKIP: 41 (1.1%) New

SNP GAIN from Lab

Holmwoods & Beare Green, Mole Valley District Council

LDm: 748 (46.5%) +1.1%

Con: 437 (27.2%) -2.8%

Ref: 348 (21.6%) +11.5%

Grn: 76 (4.7%) -3.6%

LDm HOLD

Bracebridge Heath, North Kesteven District Council

Con: 308 (33.3%) -24.6%

Ref: 286 (30.9%) New

Ind: 153 (16.5%) New

Lab: 99 (10.7%) -31.4%

Grn: 43 (4.6%) New

LDm: 36 (3.9%) New

Con HOLD

Abbreviations

SNP = Scottish National Party

Lab = Labour

Ref = Reform UK

Con = Conservative

Grn = Green

TUS = Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

LDm = Liberal Democrat

UKIP = United Kingdom Independence Party

SSP = Scottish Socialist Party

Ind = Independent

WOKE WEDNESDAYS #22

When it comes to live action depictions of Superman, the names Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill generally spring to mind first.  However, the DC Comics legend has been portrayed by many others over the years - on big and small screen.  The 1990s was a decade that passed by without a Superman film, but on TV screens the Man of Steel was very much still going strong in the form of Dean Cain's portrayal in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

The show ran for four series and despite Cain's popularity in the role, his career did not take the same upward trajectory as that of his Lois Lane co-star Teri Hatcher.  Cain remained largely stuck to the small screen, with a career tailing off into TV films and low budget affairs, albeit he was never short of work.  This diminishing return appears largely due to the fact that in 2016 he made the bold move of publicly endorsing Donald Trump for US president.

Republicans are frowned upon in acting circles, and very few actors have gone on to have successful careers once they have espoused conservative views.  In a profession dominated by left-wingers and Democrats, known Republicans are marginalised and quite often mocked and smeared by the similarly leftist-dominated mass media.  Dean Cain was cast just once in 2017 and has only appeared twice on TV in the last nine years.  However, he opted to double and then triple down on his support for the Donald, endorsing both his 2020 re-election campaign and his successful 2024 run.  Cain is also unashamedly Christian, making him doubly ostracised in acting circles.

Despite all the rampant discrimination, Cain remains a popular dude and has more than 850,000 followers on X, where he regularly shares conservative content.  It was also on X - then Twitter - that he delivered an epic burn to a user that took exception to his declaration that trans figurehead Dylan Mulvaney and his male pal were not genuine females.  "You were never Superman either", the user remarked, to which Cain replied: "Correct, I pretended".

Perfection.

Last week's trans Doctor Who meme generated 16 comments and 12 shares on Facebook, despite our collapse in distribution last week.

TOON TUESDAY #49

The left continue to melt down over the Trump administration continuing to do what it was elected to.  The lunatic fringe have turned their sights on Elon Musk's motor company Tesla, with forecourts and cars being torched.  Conservative artists on X were among those pointing out the hypocrisies of the mob...

Jimbob on X

Tom Stiglich on X

Tom Stiglich on X

SKS Cartoons on X

British newspaper cartoonists have very much been focused on Keir Starmer's own Elon Musk-inspired antics, with proposals to slash the benefits wage bill top of the agenda.  That's a story that will rumble on and we'll likely cover it next week.  Meanwhile, here are a handful of Labour-oriented efforts, including a subtle reference to the Speaker of the Commons aka 'Long-Haul Lindsay'...

Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph

Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph

Nick Newman for The Sunday Times

RESPITE FOR REFORM?

Farage and Yusuf unveil almost 30 new councillors

The very public mudslinging that has wracked Reform UK in recent weeks won't go away, but Nigel Farage and chairman Zia Yusuf hoped to get the fledgling party back on track with a major announcement on Monday.  The pair announced 29 council defections to Reform from other parties or having previously been independents or members of local residents' groups.  26 of the new members were in attendance at the press conference.

Some of the defections actually occurred up to a month ago, such as the defections of Conservatives Kirk Harrison, Joanne Monk and Stephen Reed, who announced their defections weeks ago.  Clearly, Monday's event was intended as a distraction from the rumblings within.

Of the defections, 15 were Conservatives, 12 were independents or from local residents' groups (two of which had previously been Conservatives) and one each came from Labour and the Lib Dems.  Most of the new Reformers are county councillors.

These are the new Reform councillors that Farage named...

• Cllr Heather Asker, Uttlesford District Council (was independent)
• Cllr Stephen Atkinson, Ribble Valley Borough Council (was Conservative and leader of the council)
• Cllr Bill Barrett, Ashford Borough Council (was independent, previously Conservative)
• Cllr Felix Bloomfield, Oxfordshire County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Mandy Clare, Cheshire West and Chester Borough Council (was Labour, reportedly left in opposition to trans ideology)
• Cllr Stuart Davies, North Somerset Council (was independent)
• Cllr Emma Ellison, Blackpool Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Paul Ellison, Wyre Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Robert Gibson, Lincolnshire County Council (was independent)
• Cllr Kirk Harrison, North Northamptonshire Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Manzur Hasan, Lincolnshire County Council (was independent)
• Cllr Cathy Hunt, Durham County Council (was independent)
• Cllr Paul Irwin, Buckinghamshire District Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Claire Jonson-Wood, Powys County Council (was independent)
• Cllr Reg Kain, Cheshire East Council (was Liberal Democrat)
• Cllr Edward Kirk, Wiltshire Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Karl Lewis, Powys County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Graham McAndrew, Hertfordshire County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Iain McIntosh, Powys County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Joanne Monk, Worcestershire County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Geoff Morgan, Powys County Council (was independent)
• Cllr Jan O'Hara, North Northamptonshire Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Christine Palmer, Swale Borough Council (was independent)
• Cllr Richard Palmer, Swale Borough Council (was independent)
• Cllr Stephen Reed, North East Derbyshire District Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Dirk Ross, Kent County Council (was independent, previously Conservative)
• Cllr Matthew Salter, Lancashire County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Vernon Smith, Gloucestershire County Council (was Conservative)
• Cllr Thomas Sneath, South Holland District Council (was independent)

A further defection was announced in the form of Julian Kirk, who has resigned his seat on Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council in protest at delayed local elections.  He was an independent, having previously been a Conservative councillor.

These announcements came just as another existing Reform councillor quit the party, a member of East Riding Yorkshire Council.  Still, a big net gain for Farage with the news of such a large influx.

There was quite possibly more important news for Reform on Monday.  Convict MP Mike Amesbury has officially stood down as the member for Runcorn and Helsby, triggering the by-election we've all been waiting for.  This will be a huge indicator of Reform's electoral prowess and ability to shake off its recent troubles.  They remain odds on favourites with the bookies to win the Cheshire seat and those odds have now stabilised, having previously been drifting a little in response to the infighting.

There is no date for the Runcorn by-election as yet.

MEME MONDAY #27

Well, it's fair to say that last week was a total disaster on Facebook.  Thanks to a strike against the page, courtesy of an AI program that flagged up a six year old meme, Meta obliterated our page'a distribution as retribution.  That meant our posts went largely unseen, as you can see from the number of shares on each of the following efforts.  Whereas in the previous week our memes ranged between 62 and 541 shares, the last week ranged between just 2 and 224.

As previously mentioned at the time of the strike, if the page distribution was hit exponentially then we would revert to our back-up page on Facebook - not for the first time.  With a much smaller following on this page we will unfortunately take a big hit financially.

Therefore, all donations are particularly appreciated at this time, no matter how small.  Please donate here, if you can afford to spare a couple of quid or more!  Thank you so much, we cannot do this without your support.

Mon 10 Mar - 191 shares on Facebook

Tue 11 Mar - 47 shares

Wed 12 Mar - 55 shares

Thur 13 Mar - 101 shares

Fri 14 Mar - 48 shares

** STAR MEME **

Sat 15 Mar - 224 shares.  The only meme to break the 200 share threshold
last week.  The nights are still cold and people are still angry about Labour's
winter fuel betrayal - never forget!

Sun 16 Mar - 2 shares (yes, two!)

Sun 16 Mar - 15 shares

Please download and share our memes, now more than ever!

ZARAH NO COMMENT

Zarah Sultana is whipping up a mob against Reform UK

Zarah Sultana is not normally shy.  Her almost screeching tones can be heard regularly on the floor of the Commons, usually involving rhetoric around Palestine and immigrants.  However, it seems that Coventry's finest can dish it out, but she cannot take return fire.

Zarah is presently involved in organising a demonstration in Birmingham at the end of this month.  Her protest appears to be aimed at silencing Labour's political opponents in Reform UK.  In various social media posts and an official event page hosted by a far left group, Zarah declares that Reform's 'division' must be rejected.  'Join the fightback', she wrote in multiple posts on both Facebook and X, while she compared Reform to the BNP and National Front in a post on Instagram.  The venue for this event is less than two miles away from what is billed as Reform's largest conference yet.  Zarah's get together - which will include speeches from her fellow currently suspended Labour comrades Apsana Begum and John McDonnell - takes place in the evening, presumably after the Reform event has been picketed by the mob.

While Zarah is not a Birmingham MP, it is her home town, and she appears dead set on organising as big a crowd as possible to intimidate and disrupt Reform's conference.  Her Coventry constituency includes the university and a large Muslim population, so she will undoubtedly be bringing a significant number of her constituents along for the short journey between the two Midland cities.  Then of course there is Birmingham's own student population, in addition to its much larger Muslim population, from which Ms Sultana hails.  She is clearly hoping to emulate the mob that turned up at a Reform conference in Cornwall last month, in which attendees had to run the gauntlet of masked thugs who were screaming insults and fighting with police.  Many Reform members turned back, fearing for their safety, essentially giving in to the primary aim of the mob.

Sultana's post on Instagram

Shortly after announcing her vanity project last month, Zarah saw fit to extinguish even more voices.  She joined a long list of Labour politicians and activists to have disabled comments on their social media.  There is only one reason they take such draconian action, and that is pushback received.  If she had expected Reform activists and voters to sit back and merely accept her fascistic approach towards them, she was clearly mistaken.  Prominent X users waded in on her anti-democratic posts, including then Reform MP Rupert Lowe.

Instead of ignoring or perhaps engaging with her detractors, many of whom drew on traditional working class concerns such as rape gangs, mass immigration and Islamism, Zarah decided to pull the plug altogether on X user comments.  Her block remains in place at the time of the writing, although her Facebook and Instagram pages remain open to comments (for now).

Poor Zarah, she can hand out insults to millions of voters, but she cannot take it when they answer back!

BOATWATCH #1

Are Labour smashing the people-smuggling gangs as promised?  Of course not!  We now have a Home Secretary who famously brandished a home-made 'refugees welcome' placard and called for the UK to accept 10,000 Arab migrants largely on the back of wars that Labour supported.  Fast forward several years and a figure of 10,000 migrants has become a drop in the ocean given the hordes that landed on these shores under the Tories.

Is the invasion of mainland Britain going to get even worse under Labour?  Time will tell.  2022 is currently the benchmark for small boat crossings, during which 45,774 illegals successfully made the crossing (that we know about).

Here are the numbers for the last seven days, which includes a curious five day lull.

Total = 498 small boat migrants (down 1,275 from previous seven days).

It's worth noting that these figures only relate to Channel crossings that are detected and brought in by the absurdly named 'Border Force' and by other collaborators such as the RNLI.  'Uncontrolled landings' are rarely recorded, furthermore small boats are not the only method of entering the UK illegally.  The demographic disaster continues...

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 13.03.25

Just a paltry two seats were up for grabs this week - one each in Devon and Scotland.  Both were fairly routine holds.  Reform UK still appear to be polling strongly, despite all the public mudslinging...

Exe Valley, East Devon District Council

LDm: 256 (44.0%) +7.1%

Con: 137 (23.5%) -8.3%

Ref: 135 (23.2%) New

Lab: 54 (9.3%) -22.0%

LDm HOLD

Broxburn, Uphill & Winchburgh, West Lothian Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 1,375 (31.8%) -8.2%

Lab: 1,263 (29.3%) +0.9%

Ref: 809 (18.7%) New

Con: 324 (7.5%) -9.5%

LDm: 229 (5.3%) +1.7%

Grn: 185 (4.3%) +0.1%

Alb: 135 (3.1%) +1.8%

SNP HOLD (elected at stage 7)

Abbreviations

LDm = Liberal Democrat

Con = Conservative

Ref = Reform UK

Lab = Labour

SNP = Scottish National Party

Grn = Green

Alb = Alba

WOKE WEDNESDAYS #21

Last Saturday was 'International Women's Day', an occasion that very much has its roots in early 20th century socialism.  In fact it was Vladimir Lenin himself who allocated March 8 as the date on which it would be celebrated.  A hundred years later the far left has ditched feminism in favour of trans ideology, because at the end of the day no-one can claim to be a feminist at the same time as arguing that biological men should be free to defraud female athletes of medal and use the ladies toilet.

On the day in question last weekend we mocked Labour's social media post marking International Women's Day by giving it a trans makeover.  Later that day we actually came across a genuine post that commemorated the occasion by undermining it with a subtle trans reference.

That post came from none other than the BBC itself, courtesy of their Doctor Who social media accounts.  Putting a sci-fi spin on the event by referring to it as 'Intergalactic Women's Day', a meme was posted that featured a dozen of the show's more recent characters.  The selection was a very diverse bunch indeed - there were young women, mature women, blonde women, brunettes, redheads, a black woman, an Asian girl and a... man.

Included in the selection three rows down was a character called Rose Noble, who is loudly and proudly transgender in the show.  He is played by a male actor calling himself Yasmin Finney, who is a real life trans activist.  Considering the dialogue that was put in the show for the character of Rose, it appears that 'Yasmin' was basically playing himself.  At one point Rose challenges the Doctor's language towards a furry alien creature by asking: "Did you just assume he as a pronoun?"  The Doctor, played at this point by fellow woke actor David Tennant, is also mocked as a 'male-presenting Time Lord'.

Good grief, thank goodness they are reportedly canning this butchered woke monstrosity...

Last week's Paris migrant meme generated 153 comments and 159 shares on Facebook.

TOON TUESDAY #48

Dubious proposals of 'boots on the ground' - led by Chairman Starmer - are the focus of this week's toons.  The inkers have cleverly managed to incorporate other topical themes such as welfare cuts and Reform infighting into their efforts...

Matt Pritchett for The Sunday Telegraph

Nicola Jennings for The Guardian

Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

Nick Newman for The Sunday Times

George Alexopoulos on Instagram

And here are a couple of bonus toons, on the theme of proposals to consider more lenient sentences for minority ethnic and female criminals...

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

Stanley McMurtry for The Mail on Sunday

FACEBOOK'S SAUCY CENSOR

It's been a while since Facebook issued a strike against BTLP, but we received another one over the weekend for something that was posted almost six years ago.  An amalgam of two saucy memes, the 'Joy of Sex' mock-up was scanned by Facebook's AI program and deemed to be 'bullying and harassment'.  The 'victims' in this awful case were Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott.

Make of it what you will...

One of the consequences of a strike from Facebook is a reduction in a page's distribution.  We will see how the page is affected in the days to come and potentially revert back to the secondary page (yet again).

AMESBURY TO RESIGN

Convict MP Mike Amesbury has told the BBC that he intends to resign his Runcorn and Helsby seat 'as soon as possible'.  Amesbury says he will stand down once his staff are laid off:  "I'm going to step aside at the earliest opportunity.  I've got processes I must go through, there's a statutory process in terms of redundancies, so it's not only me out of a job".

The MP appeared to be on the verge of tears as he spoke.  He responded to a question surrounding criticism of his sentence:  "I am going to lose the family home, my livelihood and walk away with a criminal record - if people think that's [getting off] lightly, so be it".

It is two weeks to the day that Amesbury was convicted of assault.  In standing down, he avoids the recall process, which would have almost certainly resulted in his dismissal from Westminster anyway.

A by-election will be arranged once Amesbury officially tenders his resignation.  Bookies have got Reform UK as odds on favourites to win the seat, albeit the odds are drifting as the Farage-Lowe feud continues to undermine the party.

Runcorn and Helsby 2024 General Election

Mike Amesbury (Lab) 22,358 (52.9%)

Jason Moorcroft (Ref) 7,662 (18.1%)

Jade Marsden (Con) 6,756 (16.0%)

Chris Copeman (Grn) 2,715 (6.4%)

Chris Rowe (LDm) 2,149 (5.1%)

Danny Clarke (Lib) 479 (1.1%)

Paul Murphy (SDP) 116 (0.3%)

MEME MONDAY #26

If the last fortnight of Facebook meming taught us one thing, it is that no matter how much we try to break through to the masses there will always be a contingent for whom legacy media is the Gospel truth.  For regular visitors to this website and our X account, there is little ambiguity.  We are both staunchly against the globalist agenda and always will be.  Unfortunately, because legacy media is paid to shill for globalists, it is still able to control the mindset of those who cannot think for themselves.

We have seen this repeatedly in comments related to Ukraine posts, and predictably they frequently  emanate from individuals who display their state servitude loud and proud in their profile pictures.  You know who they are - they took their Covid shots, support Ukraine, hate Trump and will happily march into a cashless society.

Several of the more literate bedwetters indicated that they would unfollow our account.  Where spotted, we responded with a waving hand emoji and a somewhat gloating farewell message.  These people we can do without, they will learn eventually and there will be no apologies necessary when they begrudgingly refollow.  We are not bitter individuals here.

There was no net loss in followers, but what we did note is that this past week there was a marked decrease in media-parroted comments.  This is progress.  We would both like to thank all of you who continue to support us, we cannot do this without you.

If you value our work, please donate here.

Mon 3 Mar - 136 shares on Facebook

Mon 3 Mar - 414 shares

Tue 4 Mar - 289 shares

Tue 4 Mar - 258 shares

Wed 5 Mar - 297 shares

Thur 6 Mar - 272 shares

Thur 6 Mar - 172 shares

** STAR MEME **

Fri 7 Mar - 541 shares.  Labour's rapid march towards globalist-led communist
tyranny continues with a Rayner-appointed group to set out the framework for a
blasphemy law to protect Islam (and by extension, Muslims) from criticism.
Rayner has given her fellow Remainer globalist comrade Dominic Grieve the
job of leading the group.  It's no surprise to us to find this non-conservative
Conservative playing a role in depriving Britain's largest ethnic groups
of their free speech.  It is all part of a much bigger plot aimed at destroying
the abilities of ethnically European people to speak and think freely.
1984 was not merely a work of fiction, it was a warning!

Fri 7 Mar - 485 shares

Fri 7 Mar - 125 shares

Sat 8 Mar - 326 shares

Sat 8 Mar - 234 shares

Sat 8 Mar - 62 shares. Despite what was written in this week's intro above,
various responses to this meme informed us they had no idea what a DOGE is!

Sun 9 Mar - 538 shares

Sun 9 Mar - 363 shares

Sun 9 Mar - 502 shares

Please download our memes and share away, all we ask is that you do not remove or obscure our binlabour.com watermark.  Thank you!