26 June - Reformed characters?
The following is not the original blog but an announcement placed here
on 28th February 2025 for reasons that will become apparent below.
In the run up to the July 2024 General Election a total of 25 blogs referred
in one way or another to the election campaign both locally and nationally. Both
major parties nationally were subjected to critical comment and Labour did so
at the local level too. The Tories not so much.
Reform UK was given a relatively easy ride, a single reference to their
unorthodox campaigning style, but nothing that was likely to impact voting
numbers. How could a tiny blog do that anyway?
Despite that, Reform UK has become increasingly belligerent with demands for
compensation and removal of any blogs referencing their candidates. Because
combatting them legally is so horrendously expensive BiB has been extensively
purged over recent weeks which has merely driven Reform on to making more demands.
There has in general been no critical comment of any Reform UK candidate
in a current or past role on BiB ever. There was some very supportive things said in the years up to 2015
and a great deal of support in 2016. However there were a small number of
straight forward and wholly truthful news reports in late 2017 which were
offered without comment. Readers may well have interpreted them in a negative
fashion. Under legal pressure they were removed from view in June 2019.
There is, you may be surprised to know, nothing critical of any current Reform UK
candidate on Bonkers and hasn’t been for the past five years, however a new threat is that I must remove the remaining
complimentary blogs and the General Election comment from Bonkers by today or face legal action.
I have no idea why, I voted for the party and encouraged friends to do so.
The contrast between the reaction of the two established parties and the
juvenile one is marked and indicates that Reform UK is not yet fit for office.
The matter is now in the hands of The Free Speech Union but until they give
their advice the General Election reports which used to appear here are suppressed.
The unexpurgated news items are archived and remain available to legitimate enquirers.