the brilliantly leaping gazelle

2026 hadn’t even been halfway through its first day before ‘The Guardian’ went time travelling into the past. It published an article that whilst ostensibly referring to an event that happened in 2025, could just as easily be referring to the general election of 2024. 

First off, the article.

“‘They misjudged Caerphilly’: how the Reform juggernaut backfired in Welsh byelection.” Its not really much of a shock anymore that ‘The Guardian’ is implacably opposed to all things Farrago. After all, they’ve flogged the dead horse that are allegations about his schooldays so much so that resultant glue has lost any stick. So why should Reform be treated any less differently?

‘It was assumed that Reform would sweep all before it – but locals rejected the party’s campaign of ‘lies and hate’’

Did they though? The numbers suggest otherwise. And according to the numbers, what the locals rejected more than anything was being expected to take part. Despite widespread media coverage, endless political punditry and the fevered conjecture that it engendered, the actual turnout was 50.43% It gets better. Or worse.

The winning candidate, the Plaid Cymru one, got 47.4%. Which meant that only half of the electorate bothered to vote, and of those that did, less than half of those bothered to vote for him. It gets better. Or worse. 

Because as far as I can make out, the winner won not because there was a sudden surge in Welsh nationalism, but because of tactical voting. Whilst this is aggressively discouraged by the national leaderships of all the main political parties, the voters in Caerphilly thought otherwise. Well, half of a half of all of them did anyway.

The Conservative share of the vote collapsed, but nowhere near as badly as it did for Labour. This explains not only why Plaid’s vote share increased so that it won, but also why Reform came from nowhere to come second. A resounding victory it most certainly was not, 

It isn’t hard to work out. The numbers don’t lie. They’re not confusing. And if I can do it, then why can’t ‘The Guardian.’?

I think they can, are all too aware that Caerphilly result was far from the comprehensive repudiation of Reform they’d been hoping for. That far from delivering a electoral defeat for Reform, it proved the very opposite. That only tactical voting, which is very unlikely to happen in the general election, avoided a Reform win. 

No, I think ‘The Guardian knew all this and because it didn’t booster their prevailing narrative, they simply ignored it and hoped their readers would too. Well I write readers, but they could more accurately be described as cash cows. And boy, are they milked! I’ve written about this mutually beneficial relationship before. 

The more that ‘The Guardian’ promotes narrative in which Farrago is basically fascist in a double breasted jacket, that Reform is far-right party and that therefore anyone who supports it is morally questionable, the more money it is that they hand over. It’s certainly lucrative and getting even moreso. Up from £88m in 2023/2024 to £107m in the year to the end of March 2025. 

Why on earth would they stop doing what they’re doing in 2026?

Additionally, ’The Guardians’ cynical support of democracy reminds me of the middle-class attitude towards cocaine. Its fine when the right sort of people are doing it. But when the wrong sort of people do it, then it becomes a problem. The Guardian, more than any other newspaper, makes a great show of its principles. Had it had any, it would’ve accepted the Brexit vote, making the point repeatedly that whilst it didn’t like the result, nonetheless it was the democratic will of the people, That had Brexit been properly implemented and had not the government been beset with constant legal, judicial and parliamentary attempts to thwart them doing so, then Farrago would’ve quietly faded into the background. 

If anything, ‘The Guardian’ are partly responsible for Reform. After all, they helped create the conditions whereby a anger felt by the millions voted for, and then get what they get, Brexit. They enthusiastically promoted the idea that that it was as a result of foreign interference, manipulation of bigoted views into deeply xenophobic and racist ones and other bogeymen that explained the ‘Leave’ vote. They weren’t alone in this, most of the UK media did the same.

And there we have it. Create a monster. Induce the fear and the panic. Stoke the dread. Ramp up the anxiety. Then sell the pitchforks. Brilliant.

The best kind of capitalism. The kind that doesn’t look like it.