Politics
Debunking Ageing Myths: I’m A Widow Travelling With My Boyfriend
Three years ago, I stood beside my husband Al’s bed and prepared to say goodbye.
After 25 years of marriage, cancer was taking him where I could not follow. Before he died, he looked at me and said something that shocked me at the time.
“Diane, you’ll need another man.”
I immediately dismissed the idea. I was 80 years old. I had already experienced a full life. What on earth would I need another man for? I certainly wasn’t looking for one.
Then life did what life often does. It ignored my plans.
Just a few months after Al died, friends introduced me to a man named Bob. I welcomed it because I was experiencing what I later discovered, after many late-night Google searches, was called “widow’s fire,” a fierce longing for intimacy and closeness after losing a spouse that, despite being surprisingly common, few people talk about.
Some people, including some of my children, thought it was too soon for me to begin dating. But grief doesn’t follow a timeline.
I wasn’t looking to replace Al. No one could. But for 25 years of marriage, I had been part of a pair. Suddenly, I was standing alone. The silence and loneliness were overwhelming.
What I realised was that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I wanted companionship, laughter, conversation and, yes, physical attraction. And to my surprise, I found that in Bob, a kind, funny and handsome man who understood that loving him didn’t mean I loved Al any less.
Bob and I have been together for more than two years. We are deeply committed to one another, but marriage isn’t part of our equation. At our age, we’ve learned that relationships don’t need to look a certain way to be meaningful. What works for us is love, honesty and a healthy dose of practicality.
That practicality was put to the test recently when Bob and I embarked on a 22-day adventure through Norway, France and Spain. With me at 82 and Bob at 83, travelling halfway around the world requires a little more planning than it did a few decades ago.
Before we left, I sent an email introducing my daughter and son-in-law to Bob’s brother and sister. Not because we were planning a family reunion. Because we were 82 and 83 years old and about to cross an ocean together.
“Should we get lost along the way and need your assistance,” I wrote, “you now can connect with one another and try to retrieve, grieve or rejoice from our far distant travels.”
I also informed everyone that I had travel insurance in case my body needed to be shipped home and that Bob had thoughtfully prepared his own end-of-life arrangements. My children thought it was hilarious. Bob’s family may have thought I was crazy. They’re not entirely wrong.
But if you’re going to travel the world in your 80s, you learn to laugh about the realities that come with it. Like money. People don’t like talking about finances in matters of romance, but they should.
In our case, I happen to have a larger wallet than Bob. Before we left, we talked openly about expectations. I agreed to pay for the trip itself, including the airline tickets. Bob was perfectly willing to fly economy. I was perfectly unwilling to sit in first class without him. The good Lord knows I’m spoiled, and I wasn’t going to be up front sipping champagne while the man I loved was squeezed into seat 34B. Besides, I like him next to me.
We agreed that he would cover many of the extras along the way, including meals, excursions and spontaneous treats. There were no complicated contracts. Just two adults having an honest conversation.
Widowhood taught me many things. Like I wish more people understood that discussing money isn’t unromantic. Avoiding it is.
Photo Courtesy Of Diane Heiler
The trip itself became a lesson in something even bigger. Standing in Norway, surrounded by glaciers that looked as though they belonged on another planet, I found myself thinking about Al. He loved to travel.
The glacier train rides were breathtaking. The scenery was so beautiful it almost didn’t seem real. It was colder than a witch’s teat but magnificent. Al and I had never made it to Norway together, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much he would have loved it.
Unexpectedly, I didn’t feel guilty. For a long time, widows are made to feel that happiness somehow betrays grief. It doesn’t. Missing Al and loving Bob can occupy the same space. Both things are true.
Bob understood that. He never tried to compete with my memories. He simply stood beside me while I carried them. That’s one of the many reasons I love him.
Norway also introduced me to two things I never expected: iced cider and brown cheese.
The cheese was downright addictive.
I liked it so much that I packed half a pound of it in my suitcase and hauled it through France, Spain and all the way back home to Florida.
At 82 years old, apparently, I travel internationally with contraband cheese.
Photo Courtesy Of Diane Heiler
The minute we arrived, I announced to Bob, “I could live here.”
It had everything I love: beauty, charm, walkability and friendly people. We spent our days wandering old streets, taking in spectacular views and pretending, just for a moment, that we belonged there.
Of all the places we visited, Normandy affected me the most.
Standing among the endless rows of white crosses at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, I felt humbled in a way that is difficult to describe.
The older I get, the more familiar loss becomes. Friends die. My spouse died. Parents die. Even pieces of ourselves disappear. The woman I was at 40 no longer exists. Neither does the woman I was before widowhood.
Yet there I was, halfway around the world, still creating memories. Still laughing. Still planning. Still living.
Spain brought its own lessons.
I use wheelchair assistance because of a painful foot. Bob uses a cane. Airport assistance services managed to leave us at the wrong gate on two separate occasions, causing us to miss our flights.
After missing our second flight, I told Bob I could have learned to become a professional tango dancer in less time than it took airport personnel to move my behind through that airport. For two days we were shuffled from gate to gate while trying not to lose our sense of humour. Thankfully, we succeeded.
By the time we reached Mallorca after nearly three weeks abroad, we realised something. We may have been tourists, but we didn’t particularly want to be around tourists anymore.
Maybe we were tired. Maybe we missed our own beds. Or maybe we had officially become old people. Either way, home was sounding awfully good.
Traveling at 82 also comes with one unexpected advantage: I no longer care about impressing anyone.
Photo Courtesy Of Diane Heiler
When I was younger, I packed as though every day required a completely different outfit, matching shoes, jewellery and accessories. These days, I pack for comfort, practicality and the occasional nice dinner.
For 22 days abroad, Bob and I shared one checked suitcase, and we each carried a small bag. It wasn’t because we were trying to prove anything. It’s simply that we’ve learned what matters and what doesn’t.
I’ve discovered that one scarf, one pair of comfortable shoes and a little confidence can carry you remarkably far. That’s one of the gifts of ageing. You spend less time worrying about how you look and more time enjoying where you are.
At this age, I’ve learned that nobody really cares what you’re wearing, whether your hair is perfect or if you’ve packed the right shoes. What people remember is whether you laughed, loved, showed up and enjoyed the journey.
And that’s true whether you’re standing on a glacier in Norway, wandering the streets of Barcelona or simply sitting beside a koi pond at home with someone you love.
The greatest surprise of the trip wasn’t Norway’s glaciers, Normandy’s history or Barcelona’s architecture. It was realising how comfortable I have become with this unexpected chapter of my life.
If you had told me three years ago, while I was sitting beside Al’s hospital bed, that I’d be crossing Europe with another man, I would have told you that you were out of your mind.
If widowhood has taught me anything, it’s that we don’t honour those we’ve lost by stopping our lives. We honour them by continuing to live them.
When Al died, I thought my story was winding down. Instead, it simply changed genres.
Photo Courtesy Of Diane Heiler
These days, I’m perfectly content sitting beside that pond with Bob discussing books, sports, grandchildren, politics or whatever we’re streaming on Netflix. Twenty years ago, I would have called that boring. Now I call it happiness.
One of the most damaging myths about ageing is that life becomes smaller. I’ve found the opposite. Life becomes more precious. At some point, every one of us realises our time is finite. The horizon becomes visible. Oddly enough, that’s what makes each day matter more.
At 82, the future looks different than I imagined. It includes a new love. A few more aches and pains. Occasionally a wheelchair. And gratitude for every single day I still get to wake up and see what comes next.
Al knew all this before I did. He knew I would need companionship. He knew I would need laughter. He knew I would need someone to sit beside me on airplanes and hold my hand during life’s inevitable turbulence. Most of all, he knew I would need a future.
As it turns out, he knew me better than I knew myself.
Diane Heiler is the author of “A Widow’s Fire: An Intimate Memoir of Heartbreak, Survival and Moving On.” Widowed in 2023 after caring for her husband through his battle with cancer, she writes about grief, resilience and finding joy again after profound loss.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.
After 14 years of Tory rule (and 40 years of neoliberalism), Keir Starmer needed to make dramatic moves to turn this country around. Instead, he tinkered around the edges then pouted when no one thanked him as their lives continued to worsen.
Starmer is on his way out, and you have to assume Rachel Reeves will follow. Given her response to the following, it’s easy to see why:
#BBCLaurak: "You were absolutely central to Keir Starmers whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why its come to an end like this?
Rachel Reeves: "I think governing is hard today" pic.twitter.com/D77acb3MrX — Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026
Starmer — Excuses
In the above clip, Kuenssberg puts the following to Reeves:
You know, you haven’t just been the Chancellor, you’re a highly experienced politician, you’ve been on the front line, as it were, for a long time, and you were absolutely central to Keir Starmer’s whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why it’s come to an end like this?
Reeves’ response:
I think governing is hard today.
If you think governing wasn’t hard back in the day, you may be unaware of this thing we have called ‘human history’.
That aside, she’s not wrong to point out things are tough. The problem is she’s failed to call out the key culprit for Western society’s decline. Here are the problems she identified:
I was just with finance ministers from other European countries earlier this week, And governing is hard across a number of developed economies today. There have been a lot of shocks in recent years, whether that’s COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now the conflict in the Middle East, increasing barriers to trade around the world. And at the same time, those things are going on.
There have been major crises throughout history; the reason we’re increasingly unable to deal with them is because 40 years of neoliberalism stripped the state bare. We’re not expecting Burnham to change things, either, despite his protests to the contrary:
Neoliberalism is the Manchester model: it’s the essence of the Manchester Independent Economic Review girded by New Labour urbanism, and of Osbornite devolution, which created metro mayors as a brokerage system between starved local authorities and Westminster. https://t.co/XadZLrIf8t
— Richard Seymour (@leninology) July 5, 2026
Every year, private companies own more and more of the wealth and assets this country is made of. The more the rich have, the less there is for the rest of us, and the more our government is powerless to do anything besides managing our various debts and dependencies.
Events
On the issue of ‘events’, the government website notes the following:
When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was the greatest challenge for a statesman, he replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events’.
Napoleon Bonaparte also had something to say on the topic:
In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.
A great politician rises to the occasion; a failed politician complains to the BBC.
We don’t have to look far for examples of Labour politicians meeting the moment either:
Reeves: "Andy knows.. the most successful Lab govts are those that combine radical change with credible economic policies"
The most successful Lab govt nationalised 20% of the entire British economy, founded the NHS & built over 800k council houses. What have you & Starmer done? pic.twitter.com/EDjbB2BdsJ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026
Labour achieved the above in 1945, so the event they existed in the aftermath of was World War II. Clearly, then, events don’t have to be an excuse for inaction; they can also be an opportunity for greatness.
With his massive 2024 majority, Starmer could have repeated what Clement Attlee achieved in the post war years and then some. Instead, history will remember him as the PM nobody remembers. A quickly peeled plaster on the festering wound of Thatcherism.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
On 7 July, Nigel Farage resigned as the MP for Clacton. Seconds later, he announced he was running to become… the MP for Clacton.
Hours later, the other political parties said they wouldn’t be running, and that Farage could have his fun running against Count Binface.
Days later again, the public delivered their verdict:
I just like the fact that 13% of the people polled can't decide. pic.twitter.com/ghxVShMUqh
— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) July 11, 2026
FFS Farage!
If this all seems ridiculous, that’s because it is. There was no good reason for Farage to step down; our best guess as to why he did is to distract from his many ongoing scandals. It’s not worked out that way, of course, because there are more scandals than any one stunt could distract from:
Robert Jenrick has a meltdown on #C4News
He refuses to accept that there are parliamentary rules that Nigel Farage may have broken
And insists the only people who can judge Nigel Farage are the people of Clacton
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) July 7, 2026
– Whatever you do, please don't share this humiliating clip pic.twitter.com/ofjcF7yh9l
Personally, we thought the Greens should have stood to keep the focus on Reform’s establishment-friendly political platform. We’ll take Farage embarrassing himself against a guy with a bin for a head, though, and it is shaping up to be an all-time humiliation.
As you can see above, the Ipsos polling showed the following support:
- Count Binface: 33%
- Nigel Farage: 21%.
- Neither: 32%.
- Don’t know: 13%.
This is emblematic of the broader problem Reform is making for itself. Its politics of division is proving successful in terms of locking down 20-25% of voters. At the same time, it’s ensuring 75-80% of voters despise the party. This is why Farage & .co keep getting buried by tactical voting in crucial by-elections.
Space-manifesto
Ipsos also showed support for Count Binface’s manifesto:
69% support @CountBinface’s proposed policy of restoring the price of a 99 flake to 99p — Ipsos in the UK (@Ipsos_in_the_UK) July 10, 2026
Half of Brits (53%) support capping the price of croissants at £1 pic.twitter.com/2AWZNBuaKd
“Count Binface’s manifesto”.
What the f*ck are we doing here?
It’s funny enough, sure, but this is obviously a waste of everyone’s time. The problem for Reform is that the public understand their time is being wasted because Farage wants to deflect from his alleged financial misdeeds. The right, meanwhile, are treating Binface like a serious political candidate:
The Telegraph has published a lengthy opinion piece attacking – seemingly entirely seriously – Count Binface’s economic policies https://t.co/DzVtk4c7T2
— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) July 12, 2026
We don’t think Binface can win in Clacton, but it seems like Farage is going to be the real loser by the end of this.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
Extremist Israeli settlers — is there any other kind? — detained US lawmaker Ro Khanna as he visited the occupied West Bank last week.
Khanna — one of the more critical of Israel among US politicians — was held for around 90 minutes by land-thieves armed with M4 assault rifles. He said that when Israeli troops finally turned up:
they sided with the settlers and continued our detention.
Khanna becomes the first US politician held by the apartheid colony. Surely his brown skin had nothing to do with it. The detention has been ignored by the White House and US Israel lobby. He is not, however, the first foreign politician held by Israel — mostly to either deafening silence or token expressions of disapproval from the victims’ home governments. Some have faced torture and/or sexual abuse for daring to try to take food to starving people in Gaza under Israel’s criminal siege.
Khanna was on a fact-finding visit to the West bank to examine the impact of Israeli occupation. He said:
We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” he said.
And these hoodlums come in with machine guns — M4, an American-made machine gun — and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.
Khanna is said to be considering a bid to stand for the Democrats in the next US presidential election.
Ro Khanna vs murderous land-thieves
The euphemistic term ‘settlers’ comes nowhere near the brutal reality of the mostly-imported land thieves driving the indigenous Palestinians from their land. ‘Settlers’ burn homes with Palestinian families inside. They beat and shoot Palestinians, poison water — a tactic used since the inception of the colony — steal or destroy crops and livestock — all under the protection of the occupation military and with complete impunity.
They also hold the whip hand in Israel’s government, with fascist bigots like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich free to demand mass murder and even more brutal repression of Palestine’s colonised, rightful inhabitants.
Featured image via House.gov
By Skwawkbox
Today’s Sunday Mail leads for the second week in a row on questions about the finances of Yes Scotland.
But there’s a paragraph in the online version of the story that doesn’t make the print edition, and it’s a shame, because it’s a very telling one.
This is it, from Yes Scotland’s former marketing director Ian Dommett:
And unfortunately, until the rest of the SNP’s voters join the 414,000 who walked away from the party between the 2021 and 2026 Holyrood elections and contrive to somehow get that key realisation into their thick heads, Scotland will never take a single step closer to independence.
The SNP’s entire reason for existence now is failing to win independence. Failure is what protects their wages and their power. No government as incompetent as this one wins elections on its record. The moment independence was achieved, the Scottish electorate would give someone else a chance at actually running the country after 20+ years of the same party in charge, and the SNP cannot allow that to happen.
Sadly, if even this sort of thing (from The National on Tuesday):
isn’t enough to wake up the loyal, tribal dunderheads, it’s likely that nothing will be.
And on we’ll limp, year after year, in ever-shrinking circles, going nowhere.
North Carolina Republicans have a message for Washington: The cavalry needs to come.
Their Senate nominee, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley, is lagging far behind Roy Cooper, the prized Democratic recruit and popular former governor, in polls and cash.
Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists.
A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID.
In a typical midterm year, the state’s Senate race would be a marquee battle. But the Cooper-Whatley matchup has been drowned out by other more high-profile contests in Texas, Maine and Michigan, leaving some in North Carolina anxious for more money and ways to push the national party publicly further into the fight.
“He has an uphill climb,” said Tuesday Sauer, chair of the Bertie County GOP. “Even though he was the RNC chair, a lot of people who aren’t politically involved really don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”
So far the race has been sleepy, focused on bread-and-butter affordability issues that are defining contests across the country. But the low-key nature of the race is hiding just how critical North Carolina is in November. The state, which President Donald Trump carried three times, is a must-win for Democrats frothing at the possibility of flipping the Senate. And in Cooper, Democrats have found a strong candidate to give them a chance at their first Senate win in the state since 2008, thanks to his status as a household name from a political career spanning four decades.
Some Republicans think Whatley, a former state party chair and close Trump ally who is a first-time candidate in his own right, is running a generic campaign that won’t cut it given his blue-chip opponent and the tough national environment.
“Michael Whatley has to give them a reason to talk about North Carolina, and so far he hasn’t. That’s the challenge,” said one GOP state official, granted anonymity to speak freely about the race. “There’s a lot of other races right now that give solid headlines, and right now the headline in North Carolina is: ‘Republican Party plays possum.’”
Cooper raised $13.8 million to Whatley’s $5 million in the first quarter of the year, and the Democrat entered the second quarter with $18.5 million in cash on hand, while Whatley reported having more than $2.5 million in the bank. Some public polling shows Cooper with as much as a 14-point lead over Whatley.
“The strategy is simple. Remind North Carolinians that Roy Cooper is a pro-crime, pro-tax, career politician whose failed leadership made life less safe and less affordable,” Whatley campaign spokesperson DJ Griffin said in a statement. “The campaign is humming, our partners are aligned across the board, and every day from now until Election Day is about one thing: sending Roy Cooper into retirement.”
Republicans plan to continue hammering Cooper on two major issues: crime and pandemic restrictions. While serving as North Carolina’s top executive during the height of the pandemic, as the virus ripped through prisons, Cooper reached a settlement with civil rights groups to release about 3,500 inmates to reduce overcrowding and health risks. A number of those inmates went on to commit new crimes — and Republicans blame Cooper for being responsible.
Cooper’s team argues that Whatley holds blame for pushing for the prisoners to be released during the pandemic.
“Whatley and his allies have been caught lying time and again, but the truth is Roy Cooper spent his career locking up criminals while Whatley pushed for prisoners to be released during Covid,” said Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart, in a statement.
The race will reveal how fresh those Covid-19 memories are in the minds of voters. Republicans remain angry at Cooper for his pandemic restrictions, like shutting down churches and restricting access to visitors of patients in hospitals.
“At the first chance during Covid, Roy Cooper shut down all the churches, that’s major, while he let the bars remain open,” said state GOP Sen. Steve Jarvis. “It’s been a while, so I think that’s being missed right now. We need to get that back in the news.”
While antsy for the cash to arrive, many Republicans are optimistic that Whatley’s relationships within the party will come in handy.
The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund has committed $71 million to the race and so far has reserved more than $36 million in broadcast ads starting in early September, according to tracking service AdImpact. North Carolina, which contains several major media markets, is one of the more expensive states to run ads.
“If Dems think they have a layup in the only swing state that President Trump is 3-0, they’re out of their minds,” said a national Republican strategist working on the race, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape.
Other PACs, like Old North Action have also reserved a large chunk of ad space this fall. Americans For Prosperity has already doled out more than $8 million this spring, the bulk of which was spent on digital and streaming ads for Whatley. North Carolina Republicans are also optimistic that Whatley will be a major beneficiary of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing political parties to freely coordinate with candidates and spend without constraint, given his stint as RNC chair. Republicans have a massive cash edge over Democrats: The RNC has more than $125 million in the bank, while the DNC has more debt than cash on hand, $18.3 million to $14.8 million.
“The fall of coordinated spending limits means the NRSC can discuss spending decisions directly with our candidates and their campaigns,” said Joanna Rodriguez, communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The era of raising the curtain on strategy and press and the Democrats we’re looking to defeat is over.”
“President Trump and Republicans are united behind Michael Whatley, who will be North Carolina’s champion in the US Senate,” said RNC spokesperson Emma Hall, in a statement.
Cooper has his own national money in the pipeline, but so far it doesn’t match the Republican side. WinSenate PAC, affiliated with Schumer-backed Senate Majority PAC, has promised more than $27 million in fall reservations for him.
“The reality of all of it is that between Republican super PACs and the RNC, they just have way more money,” said Morgan Jackson, a longtime North Carolina Democratic strategist and a Cooper adviser. “There’s no white horse coming, the way that Republicans are waiting on their savior to come.”
Still, Republicans’ biggest asset — Trump’s PAC MAGA Inc. — remains tightlipped about its own plans to distribute its massive $350 million warchest.
“That money needs to be brought to North Carolina, so the people of North Carolina can be reminded of what a crappy Governor Roy Cooper was,” said GOP state Sen. Amy Galey.
“Getting his name, face recognition in 100 counties is tough, especially in North Carolina, with just plain geographics of going from Manteo to Murphy,” said GOP state Rep. Donnie Loftis, of Whatley. “It comes down to funding. That money drives your message, and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your message out there.”
North Carolina Democrats have their own concerns about lagging investments from the national party. Some fear that Cooper’s strong current standing in the race at this juncture will cause party leaders to overlook the state in favor of other shiny objects — like Texas, where Democrat James Talarico appears competitive with Republican Ken Paxton.
“I believe in the Coach K theory,” said Democratic House Minority Leader Robert Rieves, referring to former Duke basketball coaching legend Mike Krzyzewski. “It doesn’t matter how far you are ahead, you keep playing just as hard as you did the first minute.”
Erin Doherty contributed reporting.
Nigel Farage has speculated that Ann Widdecombe was the victim of “premeditated murder”. He’s attracting controversy for the statement; especially because he also said ‘it doesn’t pay to speculate’ at this time:
Devon and Cornwall Police: “We would ask people not to speculate about what might have happened, particularly on social media.”
Nigel Farage: “From what I can see of it, from what I can make out, this was premeditated murder.”
— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) July 11, 2026
Speculation
On 10 July, Joe Glenton reported the following of Widdecombe:
A 26-year-old white male suspect has been arrested after former Tory minister and Reform UK politician Ann Widdecombe was found dead. She was an MP for over two decades and was known for her far-right and homophobic views.
The police have since released the suspect. It wasn’t speculation to report on the above, though, because it was reported by the police that they’d made the arrest. The following from Farage, however, is most certainly speculation:
From what I make out, this was premeditated murder. Whether it was politically motivated, whether it was someone with a grudge. I don’t think it pays at this time to speculate
We understand the 24-hour news cycle encourages this sort of thing from media figures. Take this from Mike Graham, for instance, who was a presenter on TalkTV until they sacked him over a racist social media post:
All pointing towards a police cover-up right now… https://t.co/GvM4pwLHXJ
— Mike Graham
(@Iromg) July 11, 2026
Generally, it’s understood that politicians should hold themselves to a higher standard. We’re not sure anyone would expect this from Farage, of course, given his many ongoing scandals, but still.
Farage just can’t respect the wishes of the family and the request of the police : ie not to speculate
He’s feeding speculation for his own perceived political advantage
Just like he always does https://t.co/hjtIJLZsmk
— Bruce McD (@brucemcd23) July 11, 2026
As Ben Kentish noted in a tweet:
Devon and Cornwall Police: “We have made the active decision not to release further information…Releasing such information prematurely could compromise ongoing enquiries and may prejudice future investigative opportunities.”
Nigel Farage: “The car went onto the drive at approximately 12.30pm on Wednesday.”
Farage is openly just engaging in theorising too, saying:
One theory doing the rounds is that it was a burglary gone wrong. But a car went onto the drive at approximately 12.25-12.30 on Wednesday. She had done one interview in the morning… She was due to do another one at 1pm. So if you were a burglar, would you literally drive your car onto someone’s drive?
Farage and his big mouth
Farage is making it increasingly clear that he’s not fit to hold higher office. Whether it’s the many donation scandals or his loose lips, the man simply cannot behave himself. And while we’re often in favour of a little anarchic behaviour, that’s not the case when said behaviour solely benefits billionaire backers and dodgy donors.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
Rabidly Israel-first US senator Lindsey Graham has died aged 71. His office described his death as coming after a “brief and sudden” illness.
Graham was one of the more unhinged US politicians, even among Trump supporters. Irredeemably Israel-first, he even threatened a US invasion of the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lindsey Graham — Shameless genocider
Graham was a shameless supporter of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, though he would never have admitted it is a genocide. His comments make clear he had no concern whatsoever for Israel’s hundreds of thousands of Palestinian victims:
“I am with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do.”
“Level the place.”
“Do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin.”
Lindsey Graham had just visited a Ukrainian killer-drone factory, where he had toured weapons the manufacturer has developed to try to protect Israel from Iranian ‘Shahed’ drones and other retaliation.
Graham’s fellow Israel-firster, 84-year-old Senate leader Mitch McConnell, is also believed to have died. However, his office appears to be delaying confirming the death, potentially for political reasons. McConnell’s sheet-covered body was reportedly rolled “without urgency” into an ambulance late last week.
Muslim humanitarian Omar Suleiman responded to news of Graham’s death by wishing him an eternity of what he helped inflict on Gaza:
Bye Lindsey. May you live an eternity in ruins for the ruins you helped create in Gaza. Ameen
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
Police have urged the public not to speculative on the “motive” behind Ann Widdecombe’s alleged murder.
The former Conservative minister, and later Reform UK spokeswoman, was found dead at her home in Haytor on Dartmoor at about 11.40am on Thursday after sustaining serious injuries.
A 28-year-old white British man was arrested on suspicion of murder in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, shortly after 9pm on Saturday.
At a police briefing on Sunday, assistant chief constable Matt Longman, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “At this point, there is still no information to suggest that this is a terrorism-related incident and at this point we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this murder.
“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that it was politically-motivated.”
He said detectives “remain open-minded about the potential motive” and stressed it is not believed there is any threat to the wider public.
The officer added: “We are aware of online and public speculation, particularly with regards to motive.
“Again, I urge people not to share or engage with that speculation – it’s unhelpful, it doesn’t aid our investigation, and particularly, it’s distressing to the family and friends of Miss Widdecombe.”
Speaking as he laid a wreath outside Widdecombe’s home on Saturday, Reform leader Nigel Farage said: “From what I make out, this was premeditated murder.
“Whether it was politically motivated, whether it was someone with a grudge. I don’t think it pays at this time to speculate.”
It has also emerged that Reform MPs are being given round the clock security protection following Widdecombe’s death.
Meanwhile, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, accused parliamentary authorities of not caring about the safety of the party’s MPs.
In a post on X, he said: “The state is providing no protection whatsoever.
“In fact, based on what I have seen in the last 48 hours, none of the government, the Speaker nor the police care at all about the security of Reform MPs.
“Several of our MPs have written to the above in recent months about distressing, escalating security concerns, asking for help. Their correspondence was not even replied to. I will let you draw your own conclusions from this.”
But independent MP Rosie Duffield replied: “Every single sitting MP is entitled to security provided by the House of Commons. This also covers our outside engagements.”
The Commons Speaker’s office has been approached for comment.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Mainstream outlets have been shining a light on Reform UK and Nigel Farage’s finances over the past month. Last week, this saw the Times covering the criminal aristocrat ‘Posh George’ Cottrell, who was providing Farage with various benefits in the runup to the 2024 election. Now, the Times are reporting Cottrell may also have made undisclosed donations to Reform UK:
EXCL by @ManuMidolo ft me @venetiamenzies @GeorgeGreenwood
The criminal who funded Nigel Farage made undisclosed donations to Reform in apparent breach of electoral law
George Cottrell lawyers at Carter Ruck refuse to say when he became permissible donor https://t.co/yFEalCjDdr — Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) July 12, 2026
Posh George
Farage has multiple ongoing scandals right now, including:
- Multiple investigations into a £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire.
- Accusations he’s shilling for crypto on behalf of his donors.
- Questions over three houses he seemingly failed to declare.
The controversies for Farage multiplied over the past week, with the following hitting mainstream attention:
- Failure to declare financial support from convicted fraudster Posh George in the runup to the 2024 election.
- Revelation that Posh George had Reform UK business cards despite the claim he wasn’t involved with the party.
- Police probe into a £500k donation from Posh George’s mother to Reform UK (suspected to be from Posh George himself).
There’s also this:
I've been saying for nearly a year that this was money laundering. https://t.co/mEADwybqWI
— Mr Ethical
(@nw_nicholas) July 12, 2026
Oh, and this isn’t a scandal per se, but it came out that Posh George refers to Farage as ‘daddy’. Make of that what you will.
Reform UK — Undeclared
In the latest on the Posh George affair, the Times are reporting:
George Cottrell used his own money to cover office costs totalling thousands of pounds for Reform after the last election and as recently as last year, sources have told Insight.
The crypto-gambler repeatedly used his personal bank card to buy computer tools and software to be used by the party’s staff. However, none of the donations were declared to the Electoral Commission as required by legislation.
A party can be fined for failing to disclose such support under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which stipulates that a donation includes money, goods or services given free or at a discount exceeding £500 in value.
Posh George is a convicted fraudster, and may not have been a permissible donor at the time that he made some of the above donations. This is because Cottrell is a tax resident of Montenegro; the base of the crypto-gambling platform he’s involved with. While he is on the list of registered overseas voters, he’s only been on said since last December.
Reform UK describes Cottrell as a volunteer. Contrary to this, the Times are now reporting that Cottrell has been intimately involved with the party:
However, Insight can now reveal that as well as buying office equipment for the party, Cottrell has long had personal access to Farage’s party email and had his own desk next to the leader’s private office at party headquarters at Millbank, Westminster.
Additionally:
The insiders said he sat either with Farage in his personal office at headquarters or in a quad of desks in a room directly next to it, and claim he was involved in political and fundraising matters at the very highest level.
Mainstream attention
Because of how the right of reply process works, Reform UK knew this raft of stories were coming out. As such, this may explain Farage’s big by-election stunt. It’s unclear why the Reform leader felt a need to step down from his Clacton seat only to run in the race to reclaim it. Such a move could have worked as a distraction; it’s just failing to do so because there are too many scandals to distract from.
This, then, is why Farage panicked last week. He knew it was all about to unravel. This whole stunt was a desperate attempt to get ahead of it.
Remarkable. He's literally self-destructed. https://t.co/yyvUUURpt2
— Tom Bacon (@TomABacon) July 11, 2026
We should note we’re using phrases like ‘mainstream attention’ for a reason, and it’s that independent journalists have been covering this stuff for years. As Don McGowan of No Holds Barred Pod said:
So many people had this story for years before the Times picked it up.@BylineTimes and @carolecadwalla were writing about George Cottrell over five years ago.
The difference is that the Murdochs have made an executive decision that they've finally had enough of Farage. https://t.co/E21vc3i2G1 — Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) July 5, 2026
Carole Cadwalladr speculated that her reporting was ignored for the following reasons:
Reported while female.
Didn’t work for a right-wing newspaper.
Dismissed & ridiculed by men who did.
Gaslit for a decade.
Sued through the courts.
But I’m not the loser here.
This decade of denial has caused Britain irreparable harm.
This isn’t to say the establishment media and their considerable resources aren’t unearthing new information; it’s to say this stuff would have come out years ago if the will had been there.
Reform’s undisclosed money is piling up
If Nigel Farage had a penny for every ongoing scandal, he’d have enough money to stop taking undisclosed lump sums from foreign-based crypto billionaires. Well, maybe not that much, but only because the lump sums in question have been in the millions.
Things aren’t looking good for Reform UK, anyway, as even their voters are noticing the stench of corruption:
Nigel Farage named sleaziest politician in UK in new poll – and even Reform voters think ithttps://t.co/s41LFydTs9
— Reform UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) July 11, 2026
Nigel Farage's Approval Ratings Plummet Amid Row Over His Financeshttps://t.co/uWGZk9O7c6?
— Reform UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) July 12, 2026
We’re not sure how much longer this can go on for, but we doubt it’s all the way to 2029 electoral success.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
A viewer watching Lionel Messi for the first time might think the Argentine captain has drifted out of the match. He avoids constant pressing and chasing.
Instead, he spends long periods walking or standing to watch his surroundings. This approach defies the high-tempo, continuous pressure demands of modern football.
But behind this image that suggests calmness lies one of the most complex tactical ideas in the game. Walking is no longer just about conserving energy.
It is now part of his philosophy for managing the game. He reads the play carefully before deciding when to act.
This economy of movement allows him to wait for the critical moment where he can make a decisive impact.
FIFA tracking data, featured in a report by The Athletic, shows that Messi walked for 64% of his time during the World Cup.
This was the highest percentage among all outfield players in the tournament. He spent roughly 25% of his time standing or moving very little.
He ran for only 8.6% of the time, compared to the 23% tournament average.
Despite these numbers, the Argentine captain was not far from impact. By the end of the Round of 16, he was a joint-top scorer with eight goals.
He created 15 clear scoring chances and ranked third in touches within the attacking third. He also received the ball 97 times between the opponent’s midfield and defensive lines.
This high rate confirms that low movement does not equate to low effectiveness.
The information gathering phase
In traditional football, walking is seen as being absent from the match events, but Messi deals with it in a completely different way.
When he appears detached from play, he is busy reading defender movements. He monitors gaps between lines to identify players out of position and spaces that will open up later.
Pep Guardiola once noted that Messi spends the match’s opening minutes observing everything. He draws a mental map of opponent movements before he begins exploiting their weaknesses.
Once the ball reaches him, he has already formed a complete picture of everyone’s locations, making the decision-making faster than the defenders’ own reactions.
This philosophy explains why he runs sparingly. He avoids wasting energy chasing the ball, saving it instead for moments when an attack becomes a genuine scoring opportunity.
Many used to explain Messi’s genius by his technical abilities or dribbling skills, but the experiences of the best defenders in the world reveal another side of his superiority.
Raphaël Varane has faced Messi over twenty times. He notes that the hardest part of marking him is not his dribbling, but his positioning where defenders are unsure who should cover him.
He moves calmly between lines into a “gray zone.” Center-backs hesitate to step out, midfielders don’t advance to mark him, and fullbacks refuse to leave their positions.
During these few seconds of hesitation, Messi has already received the ball and started the attack that is difficult to stop.
Former defender William Gallas believes man-to-man marking Messi is a gift. A defender leaving their position simply grants Messi’s teammates the space they need.
Conserving energy
At thirty-nine, Messi no longer has the explosive speed of his early Barcelona days. Instead, he manages his physical effort differently.
Tournament data shows that 71% of his sprints occur in the attacking third. Another 21% end inside the penalty area. He only runs when scoring chances are high.
Every sprint is a calculated decision rather than raw physical effort. Running has become his tool for finishing attacks, not for building them from the start.
This style imposes extra burdens on his teammates, especially during pressing and ball recovery. However, the team seems fully convinced of this trade-off.
Pablo Zabaleta, of the FIFA Technical Study Group, says teammates run more to preserve their captain’s energy. They know his genius can decide a match in a single moment.
That’s why his teammates do not see his lack of running as a burden, but rather as an investment in the player most capable of making the difference.
Messi — Redefining greatness
Modern football long associated the best player with running, pressing, and covering space. Messi presents a completely different model.
Greatness, in his case, is not measured by the number of kilometers he covers, but by the quality of the moment he chooses to move. He doesn’t win matches with a multitude of steps, but with the precision of the single step that changes everything.
Therefore, he might seem, in the eyes of many, outside the match atmosphere, while in reality, he is the player most occupied with the match.
He observes, analyzes, and redraws everyone’s positions in his mind, waiting for the moment to pounce on the appropriate space.
Lionel Messi has turned walking into a smart tactical weapon. This proves that speed of thought is more valuable than foot speed. The calmest player often has the greatest influence.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
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