Tim Atkin @timatkin

@gideonrachman @tarapoconnor Totally agree.

@Catters61 @MikeParcej It did.

Bob Geldof did not want them on the bill. He had agreed to include Queen in the Live Aid lineup only reluctantly, pushed by promoter Harvey Goldsmith. By the summer of 1985, Geldof was not alone in thinking their moment had passed. Their biggest hits were nearly a decade old. Critics had started writing them off. Privately, the band itself was wondering if it was finished. Then came July 13, 1985. What nobody watching that day knew was what had happened the week before. Queen had booked the 400-seat Shaw Theatre near King's Cross in London and rehearsed their 21-minute set down to the exact second. Not the general shape of it. The exact second. Six songs, every beat drilled until nothing could go wrong. And then, reportedly, their roadies disabled the sound limiters on the PA before the set. Every other band on that stage was capped. Queen was not. At 6:41 PM, Freddie Mercury walked out. White jeans. White tank top. Studded armband. Seventy-two thousand people erupted. He sat at the piano and played the opening of Bohemian Rhapsody, not the whole song, just enough to set the crowd on fire. Then he stood. Strode to the microphone. Radio Ga Ga filled the stadium. Seventy-two thousand people raised their hands in perfect unison, one of the most iconic images of the entire decade. Then Freddie stopped the band. He turned to the crowd. He opened his mouth and sang a single sustained note. ""Aaaaaaay-o."" And waited. Seventy-two thousand people sang it back. He went higher. They followed. Higher still. They stayed with him. Back and forth, the note climbing, the crowd holding on, the moment stretching into something that felt almost sacred. It would later be called The Note Heard Round the World. They tore through Hammer to Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, a shortened We Will Rock You, and finally We Are the Champions. The stadium shook. Twenty-one minutes after they walked on, Queen walked off. Bob Geldof, the man who had not wanted them there, said afterward: ""Queen were absolutely the best band of the day. They played the best, had the best sound, used their time to the full. It was the perfect stage for Freddie: the whole world."" An estimated 1.9 billion people across 150 nations had been watching. In 2005, music industry insiders voted it the single greatest rock performance in history. Not one of the greatest. The greatest. Authors and musicians who were there have said those 21 minutes may have saved the band itself, that Queen was on the verge of a permanent split, and that afternoon reminded all four of them what they were still capable of together. Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991. He was 45 years old. But on July 13, 1985, for 21 minutes, standing before 72,000 people under a London summer sky, he was the most alive person on earth.

@LizWebsterSBF @snb19692 What an old fart.

So many stories like this. The reason Farage thinks a gift of £5 million is nothing to get excited about is that, in terms of the overall amount of cash he’s personally made out of Brexit since 2016, it isn’t. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

🍷 ¿Crees que el #vino español ocupa el lugar que merece en el mundo? .@timatkin MW lo tiene claro: España YA elabora algunos de los mejores vinos del mundo, pero no consigue que el mercado internacional reconozca -ni pague- todo su verdadero valor. 👉 business-people.es/lifestyle/pala…

Is the UK worse off because of Brexit? Ten years on since the Brexit referendum, we've looked at this question in detail. The video is produced by Katerina Karelli - and it's longer than our usual explainers. I hope you find it helpful.

@Chris____M @SamCKx Totally agree.

The more I dig, the more I realise that Nigel Farage is literally done for. It's over for him. The £5 million bung is big enough to take the entire Reform movement down and possibly land Nigel in jail. 1) The fact the donation was made BEFORE Nigel was MP is absolutely irrelevant. Parliamentary Code of Conduct requires all receipts for the full 12 months before election. Nigel receiving his bung just a few days before he announced his candidacy makes it so much worse, not better. 2) "Category 5: Gifts and benefits from sources outside the UK - THRESHOLD FOR REGISTRATION Section 39. Members must register, subject to the paragraphs below, any gifts or benefits with a value of over £300 which they receive from a source outside the UK." Nigel argues this was 'purely personal' but the Code refers to partners or families when it comes to personal gifts... this takes us to the next issue... 3) Christopher Harborne has a long track record of making SUBSTANTIAL political contributions to Nigel's parties, first to The Brexit Party, and later to Reform. He is a POLITICAL DONOR - any "gift" he made to Farage CANNOT be argued as personal or without political context due to this track record. 4) Using his platform as an MP, Nigel went on to promote 2 companies in which Christopher Harborne holds $ billions in stock - Nigel NEVER publicly endorsed or mentioned these companies prior to the "gift". Nigel also began actively pushing for policy that would directly interest Christopher Harborne and his business affairs. These were not interests that any could argue could possibly be of interest to his constituents - deregulation of crypto, and lowering of taxes on crypto gains. Nigel spent a substantial amount of time and effort pushing these policies. It is beyond a doubt that this is the biggest breach of Parliamentary Code of Conduct rules in relation to donations in parliamentary history. But even more concerning for Nigel will be that if it can be proven he was secretly incentivised to use his public office to push for policies to support a wealthy donor, then he should very likely face a criminal probe for corruption and bribery. I suspect Harborne might also be exposed to this. The United Kingdom and Thailand have a bilateral extradition treaty. Maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years for the offence. This is not going to go away.

Farage is lying and lying and lying 👇

Mr Ethical 🚩 @nw_nicholas

2 weeks ago

Farage claimed in interviews today that he claimed 0 in expenses. Here are Farage's expenses. H/t @PShootLFWW

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Farage: I can spend my £5m on Ferraris if I want it's none of your business. Reform voters: He's one of us.

@matthewcarter7 @SamCKx He IS the establishment.

For those who doubt it, this is the timeline of corruption: Late May 2024: Christopher Harborne secretly transfers £5 million to Nigel Farage. 3 June 2024: Days after the transfer, Farage announces he will stand for Parliament. 4 July 2024: Farage is elected MP for Clacton. 29 May 2025: Farage announces that Reform UK will become the first British political party to accept donations in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 29 May 2025: Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Farage unveils plans for a Crypto Assets and Digital Finance Bill, including reducing capital gains tax on crypto assets from 24% to 10%, creating a Bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England, and preventing banks from debanking crypto users. September 2025: Farage publicly namechecks Tether and Bitfinex, companies in which Christopher Harborne is a major shareholder, and says he is going to the Bank of England to argue against restrictions on crypto and against the proposed digital pound. 13 October 2025: At the Digital Asset Summit in London, Farage says he wants to “bring crypto in from the cold” and immediately halt work on a UK central bank digital currency (“Britcoin”). 25 October 2025: At the Zebu Live crypto conference in London, Farage positions himself as a political champion of the crypto industry and repeats calls for lower crypto taxation and wider adoption. 3 November 2025: In a speech in the City of London, Farage again calls for crypto deregulation and for the UK to become a global crypto hub. If it could be proven that the £5 million secret payment influenced Farage’s actions as a sitting MP, that raises extremely serious questions. Potential issues could include parliamentary standards breaches, tax issues, bribery or corruption offences. Under the Bribery Act 2010, the most serious bribery offences carry a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.

Sam @SamCKx

2 weeks ago

Nigel Farage is in real trouble and he knows it. He was rattled on his interviews today. If it can be proven his £5 million bung was related to political influence, he could ultimately face criminal bribery and corruption charges, which carry up to 10 years in prison.

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James Robison What Joyce Carol Oates wrote to Elon Musk on Twitter. I am told it rattled him. I love it. “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates – scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”

10 years ago today we were digesting the Brexit vote. To be for Remain was to be tarred with being liberal establishment southerners - disciples of experts. Ten years on Britain, Europe and the west are all the weaker. We were right. And we must always have the courage to say so.

@ThatTimWalker Let’s hope so.

Keir Starmer couldn’t beat the curse of Brexit – a politics poisoned by nationalism | Rafael Behr | The Guardian theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@leftsidehist Not fit for office. Even Nick Robinson has worked this out. Finally.

@LBC @MatthewStadlen @NickFerrariLBC Horrible man. Falling apart at the seams.

@ThatTimWalker @sallynugent Agree. Proper journalism. Polite. But to the point. Nailed the bastard to the floor.