Can Rats in a Sack just shock you? Some of the coverage on the website of GB News – the channel which employs Reform leader Nigel Farage and Reform chief whip Lee Anderson at huge cost – seems somewhat biased towards Reform.
“SHOCK POLL: Nigel Farage scores HUGE win as British voters put him above Starmer as best PM for the country” screamed the site the other day. But rather than the HUGE win in the headline and the “humiliating blow to Sir Keir Starmer” promised in the somewhat breathless text, the YouGov poll showed that Farage was leading Labour’s leader by only one per cent – 20% to 19%.
When asked by YouGov which party they would vote for at the next election, voters opted for Labour (26%) ahead of Reform (24%) and the Tories (22%) – yet this HUGE win for Starmer and humiliating blow to Farage was not allowed to spoil the party.
Then on Thursday, readers were told to expect fireworks in local government by-elections: “Reform UK eyes three MAJOR electoral upsets TODAY – Farage’s party aim to inflict first defeats on Labour in 2025”. Of most excitement was the Town ward in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, where a “sophisticated poll-aggregating model” showed Reform’s Neill Antony Walker neck-and-neck with Labour and perhaps headed for a stunning council victory.
Alas, Walker limped in third, racking up just over half of the winning Labour vote and even trailing the Tories by 7%. Reform failed to win any of its three targets and has won only seven seats from the 184 by-elections held since the general election. Only 53 of the 19,228 council seats across the whole of the UK have a Reform councillor – or 0.28%.
On Friday came the incredible news that Labour was about to be kicked out of office in the capital. “MAPPED: Labour LOSING London to Tories and Reform as report shows 585,000 illegal migrants in capital” ran the headline.
But in a pattern that will sound rather familiar, that was something of an exaggeration. What the poll the story referred to actually showed was that if a general election were held tomorrow, Labour would lose eight of its London seats – four to the Tories, two to independents and two to Reform. It would leave Labour with only 51 seats in London and probably another whopping overall majority.
Yet more proof of GB News’s legendary belief in truth and balance!
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