Watch: Nigel Farage's bizarre fishing interview
While the presenter attempts to question Farage on Starmer's 'one in, one out' migrant deal, the Reform leader busies himself with catching mackerel. 'You can see Nigel's rod bending there!' exclaims the host in a bizarre commentary on the Reform's leader's fishing ability, before Farage wrestles it out of the sea. He then spends the next few minutes of the interview untangling the creatures before, um, throwing them back again and eventually facing the camera for the rest of his interview.
'I think the real annoyance of what I was trying to say in the House of Commons yesterday, but of course was shouted down,' Farage said, 'is that we voted Brexit to get back control of our borders, not to have terms dictated to us by an increasingly arrogant French president.' And we turn on the news to watch proper interviews, not an early morning angling session, eh Nige?
Watch the clip here:
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New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
The British 'wealth exodus' is a big fat myth
The wealthy have abandoned Britain. According to The Telegraph, 'one millionaire leaves Britain every 45 minutes under Labour'. The Independent dutifully echoed that 'Britain lost a net 10,800 millionaires last year', blaming the Chancellor's non-dom tax plans for the'exodus'. What used to be known as the Evening Standard warned of 'the world's biggest' flight of millionaires under Labour tax plans. In 2024, nearly 11,000 articles – roughly 30 stories daily – mourned the millionaire apocalypse. The peril seems clear: if the rich flee, the tax take collapses, capital dries up, and Rachel Reeves will be forced to impound the last remaining yacht in Dover. There is just one small problem: no such exodus happened. Most reports traced back to the same source: Henley & Partners, an investment migration consultancy, and its data partner New World Wealth. Henley – who make money marketing 'golden passports' and residence visas – published a report in mid-2024 claiming vast millionaire outflows. Henley's business model thrives on wealthy clients fearing their country is financially uninhabitable – an incentive to frame millionaire migration as a hot trend du jour. Few pieces mentioned that Henley & Partners had a direct stake in amplifying fears of a fleeing millionaire class. But let us take its report at face value. The widely cited figure claimed an estimated 9,500 high-net-worth individuals (often rounded up to 'over' 10,000) had left Britain in 2024. That sounds large. Yet the UK is home to over 3 million millionaires. As Tax Justice UK pointed out, 9,500 represents only 0.3% of the UK's millionaire population. At that glacial rate it would take more than three centuries for all millionaires to trickle out, and that's assuming no new ones are created or immigrate in the meantime. If anything, this modest outflow has been a long time coming. Henley's own data show that the UK has been steadily losing high-net-worth individuals since at least 2017, with Brexit marking an inflection point. Their 2023 report painted a picture not of tax-induced flight but of long-term reputational rot, driven by political instability, a decaying public realm, and a sense that London's edge as a financial centre is dulling. Even Peter Ferrigno, tax director at Henley, admitted the 'exodus' was about broader decline: the reality being more about 'perceptions of declining opportunity and social cohesion' than any particular fiscal measure. Indeed, their estimates of millionaire movements weren't based on any official tax records, airline data, or direct surveys of the individuals. Primarily because these do not exist in an accessible way: if you want to know whether millionaires are leaving the country, you first have to know who the millionaires are. But we have little idea who actually owns what in the UK, let alone who might have fled. Companies House remains peppered with shell structures and nominee directors – including names like Darth Vader—with no proactive verification of beneficial owners. Property doesn't fare any better, as even law enforcement lacks accurate info for tens of thousands of homes, adding up to well over £60 billion in hidden UK property wealth. So, instead, Henley's partner New World Wealth trawled 'public sources… including LinkedIn and other business portals' to infer where wealthy people say they are working or living. In practice, this means 'migration' comes down to changes in people's online profiles – someone updating their LinkedIn location from 'London' to 'Dubai' might be counted as a millionaire who left the UK, even if they still spend most of their time in Mayfair. This is not shocking given New World Wealth – grandly described as a 'wealth intelligence' outfit – appear to have a headcount of one, and has never made its underlying data public. What's the harm is one exaggerated story? The Henley story broke in 2024 just as momentum was building globally for curbing outlandish wealth: Oxfam called for a 2% global tax on extreme fortunes and at the G20 Brazil tabled plans for a coordinated levy on the ultra-rich. But as millionaire-flight hysteria mounted, reports emerged that Labour was getting cold feet on a non-dom crackdown. While rubbing shoulders at Davos, Rachel Reeves reportedly indicated she'd 'soften' the crackdown. By that month's end, outlets were treating it as accepted wisdom that Reeves' non-dom tax plan had 'backfired' and needed revision, on the basis of the 10,000 figure. The implication was clear: push these people too hard on tax and they'll vanish, taking their money with them. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Except they won't. Even if the ultra-wealthy wanted to decamp en masse, a vast chunk of British wealth isn't particularly mobile. Over 40% of household wealth in the UK is held in residential property, rising to over 50% for the top decile. Unlike cash or crypto, property does not emigrate. It just sits there, appreciating quietly in Clapham while its owner files a LinkedIn location update from Monaco. Much of the rest of the UK's household wealth is tied up in pensions and business equity—assets that are either immovable or contingent on UK infrastructure, customers, and legal stability. The 'exodus' narrative hinges on people packing up their passports rather than their portfolios. Of course, the economic impact of departures isn't strictly proportional to headcount. The very richest do pay far more taxes. But even here, the data is thin and contradictory. HMRC data shows little evidence of significant wealth emigration after prior reforms. Many rich people are not itching to abscond – quite the opposite. A recent poll of UK millionaires found 85% would support a modest wealth tax (2% on assets over £10 million) to help fund public services. Those are hardly the sentiments of a class plotting escape. The non-dom panic is just a dress rehearsal. As wealth becomes increasingly inherited rather than earned, debates over taxation will shift from income to assets, and from foreign millionaires to domestic dysfunction. The so-called Bank of Mum and Dad is now the ninth largest mortgage lender in the UK, with over half of first-time buyers receiving family help to get on the ladder. The Resolution Foundation estimates that around 63% of household wealth is held by those aged 55 and over, the bulk of it in property and private pensions. Inheritance Tax, long treated as politically toxic, is being pulled into the frame by necessity: HMRC is looking to bring in £15bn from it by the early 2030s. So when tax exile threats are deployed against modest changes to non-dom status, this isn't limited to Britain's wealthy moving overseas. It's about preparing the ground to block any future settlement that touches the hoarded, housed wealth of UK's upper-middle classes, many of whom would rather keep their Soho Opera than save a few pounds in the Caymans. Taxing wealth properly is technically difficult — but not impossible. What is impossible is designing good policy while scare stories are trotted out by wealth management's PR machine desperately trying to save its skin and frighten governments off progressive taxation. This government is in danger of falling for it – hook, line, and sinker. [Further reading: Let the non doms leave] Related
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
France doesn't need Boomers dreaming of political comebacks
If France didn't have enough to worry about right now with its soaring rates of debt, crime and immigration, now comes news of a political comeback. Dominique de Villepin, prime minister between 2005 and 2007, earlier this month launched his political party called Humanist France. 'I decided to create a movement of ideas, of citizens, through the creation of a political party,' he explained. 'This movement is for everyone. We need to unite all French people to defend social justice and the republican order,' he said. Given some of his recent statements about Israel, de Villepin will have his work cut out to unite the country. In October, the Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy accused de Villepin of anti-Semitism and last week three prominent members of France's Jewish community refused to shake his hand at a ceremony. De Villepin has strongly denied Lévy's accusations. He also angered conservatives when he said recently he has no problem with little girls wearing the hijab. 'I'm not a fashion designer,' he declared. Boomers have nothing to bequeath to France The 71-year-old de Villepin, who reportedly has his eye on the presidential election in 2027, is best known outside France for his eloquent speech to the United Nations in February 2003. At the time, he was the foreign minister in the government of Jacques Chirac when France refused to join George W Bush's coalition of the willing against Iraq. France, de Villepin told the UN, 'has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind' but it could not back military action against Iraq because 'there is an alternative to war, disarming Iraq through inspections'. It was a dignified address from a man known for his elegance as much as his eloquence. But Villepin hasn't always been as principled since leaving political office in 2007. A year later, a French business paper remarked that de Villepin was prospering financially in his new life as a consultant and international lawyer, and 'has only to open his address book to make an appointment with [Vladimir] Putin'. In 2014 the Daily Telegraph broke an embarrassing story about whether de Villepin had repaid a €100,000 bonus awarded to him by a governmental 'administrative error'. His spokesperson said he had repaid it as soon as he realised the mistake. The next year a French current affairs weekly ran a feature headlined 'The Secret Lives of Dominique de Villepin' in which it said his business was booming: from China to Russia to Saudi Arabia and particularly Qatar, thanks to his warm relationship with the ruling Al Thani family. In an angry television interview last year, de Villepin refused to elaborate on how he earned his money and from whom. Nor did he adequately explain why his company last published its accounts in 2008. 'By definition, when you have consulting activities, you don't give the names of the people,' he explained, adding that 'I would be totally prepared to do so on a confidential basis'. He assured his interviewer that 'there is no foreign power behind it'. The interview was a grimly fascinating reminder of the arrogance of De Villepin's caste. They are the Bourgeois Boomer generation, which evolved from the protests of May 1968 convinced they were born to rule. They include Nicolas Sarkozy, Alain Juppe, Francois Hollande, Michel Barnier and Christiane Taubira. The latter was the Minister of Justice in Hollande's Socialist government a decade ago. She attempted a comeback for the 2022 presidential election but was forced to withdraw when she could muster only 181 of the 500 sponsors of elected officials required to run. Hollande is also said to be considering running for the 2027 election, forgetting that he was the most despised president in the history of the Fifth Republic. At least he was until Emmanuel Macron arrived on the scene. This generation of Boomers with their barely distinguishable centrist ideology – De Villepin claims to be from the centre-right but he is more popular these days with the left – are blamed for the terrible decline of France this century. Economically, culturally, socially, academically and morally, France is in a desperate state. Last week it was revealed that public debt hit a record €3,346 billion (£2,887 billion) at the start of 2025, €40 billion (£34.5 billion) more than at the end of 2024. Doubtless, de Villepin (who was never elected to public office during his political career) looks at some of the leading politicians in France today – such as Jordan Bardella, Gabriel Attal, Marion Marechal, Francois Xavier-Bellamy, Marine Tondelier and Mathilde Panot – and sees thirty-something whippersnappers in need of schooling. That was how Michel Barnier treated Gabriel Attal when he replaced him as prime minister last September. Three months later Barnier was out on his ear, brought down by his own incompetence. Boomers have nothing to bequeath to France. Their day has passed and they should go quietly into the night. Whether Xers and Millennials will be able to clean up their mess is uncertain. The damage caused by the 68ers to the Fifth Republic may be irreparable.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
How Keir Starmer has changed his strategy to combat Reform UK
In the battle for 'Keir's ear' before last year's election, there was one unlikely whisperer. Apparently, over a secret dinner, Michael Gove, then a member of Rishi Sunak's cabinet, advised Morgan McSweeney, then Keir Starmer 's campaign director, about 'overcoming vested interests and resistance to change within Whitehall'. The story is in Tom Baldwin's updated biography of Starmer, to be published on 31 July. Gove reportedly found McSweeney 'very open, interesting, smart and understated but also capable of expressing his opinion with clarity and force when necessary', and believed that Starmer had made a mistake by playing the former senior civil servant Sue Gray 'in the wrong position' as his chief of staff. Starmer now admits she was 'not the right person for the job'. Gove's role will raise Conservative eyebrows. He was accused of betraying David Cameron by backing Brexit, and Boris Johnson over his 2016 Tory leadership bid. Unusually, Gove has always enjoyed a gossip with people in other parties, which shouldn't be seen as a crime. Today, as editor of The Spectator and a Tory peer, Gove is an admirer of McSweeney, now the Downing Street chief of staff, labelling him 'the insurgent' in one cover story. But he has been critical of Starmer on crime, education, social justice, the environment, EU relations, and for not sticking to McSweeney's 'insurgent' mantra, claiming that the Whitehall establishment has 'taken back control'. The prime minister did adopt the 'insurgent' approach in February this year, telling his cabinet in a memo to be 'disruptors'. But it didn't affect Nigel Farage's advance in the opinion polls, May's local election results, or the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. Starmer was always an unlikely anti-establishment hero. It wasn't authentic, and he sometimes looked uneasy in those clothes: after he accused civil servants of being comfortable in the 'tepid bath of managed decline', he beat a hasty retreat. Similarly, he now deeply regrets unwittingly echoing Enoch Powell in a speech on immigration. Some Starmer allies never believed that appearing to out-Farage Farage would work, and have been proved right. As one minister told me: 'It jarred. It just wasn't him. It's better to be Mr Stability against Reform UK's chaos.' Starmer believes that the battle for the next general election must start now, and be between a progressive Labour Party and the right-wing populists of Reform. He will still attack Farage on policy – not least his 'fantasy economics' – but will not ape Reform. Instead, the PM will offer laborious, painstaking work to tackle the country's problems – hence the flurry of 10-year plans, promising incremental reform rather than big bangs or silver bullets. There might even be fewer glib three-word slogans like 'smash the gangs'. Perhaps it's better to leave those to the populists, and hope that the public comes to recognise that governing is more complicated. But will impatient voters wait for grown-up politics to work? Starmer will need to show results. The new approach is epitomised by the returns agreement with France on migrants. The 'one in, one out' deal is only one element of a much wider plan to tackle the small boats crisis. As Starmer, speaking alongside Emmanuel Macron, put it: 'We have to show that pragmatic politics is the way to deliver the results which matter for both our peoples.' What he didn't say is equally true: that if they don't succeed, Farage will be the beneficiary. The change of strategy shouldn't be seen as a defeat for McSweeney. Allies point out that he has done five different jobs for Starmer in five years at the PM's behest, and Baldwin says he has 'never been a swaggering super-adviser in the style of Dominic Cummings'. McSweeney's critics accuse him of being obsessed with red-wall voters and chasing Reform, conveniently forgetting that he was the architect of Labour's remarkable 174-seat majority. His detractors claim he is too close to the socially conservative Blue Labour group led by Maurice Glasman, who campaigned with Gove for Leave at the 2016 EU referendum. Baldwin believes Blue Labour's influence is 'probably a bit exaggerated'; McSweeney insisted to ministers that he had only met Glasman once in the previous five years. I think Starmer's change of tack is right. He was always an unlikely revolutionary. After being director of public prosecutions, he was never going to take a chainsaw to the system like Elon Musk. His instincts tell him to work within institutions. He remains impatient for change. The debacle over welfare showed that he needs to make the government in general, and Downing Street in particular, work much better. The cabinet doubtless held an inquest into the shambles at its awayday at Chequers on Friday. After the disastrous end to his first year in power, the football-loving PM starts his second 0-2 down. But he won't get back in the game by pretending to be someone he is not. 'Be yourself' is a good motto in politics – and in life. Voters are never going to love Starmer, but he might just eventually earn a grudging respect.
