Brett-Butler

Early rumours (that should be taken with a Lot’s worth of salt) that it could see both the Greens & Reform running their highest profile non-MPs. If all 3 of them end up on the ballot paper I would be a very surprised panda.

A year after being stripped of the whip for sending offensive messages in a Whatsapp group, Andrew Gwynne has resigned as an MP, triggering a by-election in his Manchester based Gorton & Denton constituency. Although Labour won this seat with more than 50% of the votes, the current Nowcast predicts it will be a tighter contest: Of course this doesn't take into account that this is a by-election and there's many factors that could influence the results. The biggest one being whether Andy Burnham will stand (if the NEC don't force an all-female shortlist on the party), as his popularity in Manchester is pretty high. If Labour are hoping that they'll be given a free run by the "stop Reform" alliance, the reinvigorated Greens may look at the above and think they may have a chance of taking the seat, especially if they try to pull away the 8% currently predicted for the Workers Party (especially if they run a Gaza-friendly candidate). Reform would need to run an absolutely spotless candidate to ensure chance of victory, but that would be a mountain for them to climb.

Solely on the fact that there were four bowls of Bon Bon’s in the clip, I think it could be Peter Serafonowicz, given that one of his characters, Brian Butterfield, references Bon Bon Bon Bons from time to time.

My bad, so many PSD singers have been suggested over the years I’d assumed more than one had taken part. And I think everyone has got Busted and McFly mixed up at some point.

They’ve had a fair few Pussycat Dolls, and a few members of McFly, but not in the same series.

Because he knows that useful idiots will end up disseminating the video with comments like “look what this eejit Nigel Farage has done now”, so everyone’s social media feeds are now filled with Farage’s face, therefore increasing his ubiquity in people’s minds. And before you say “but I’m so smart and wonderful, I’D never vote for Nigel Farage just because I see his face everywhere”, that may be the case, but the nature of social media means that when a video is shared, it will have inevitably fall into the feed of many people for whom it could tip them into voting for Reform UK (and before you say that’s not rational, you’re right, it isn’t, but I don’t believe that many people come to their decisions rationally, myself included). So basically it’s evidence of the maxim that the cheapest way to do PR is to let your enemies to your promotion for you. Farage appears to know that being omnipresent on social media is key to keeping himself and his party in the public eye, which is why he still does those Cameo videos whilst still on the sizeable salary he gets as an MP and TV presenter, and why he puts so much stock in his TikTok presence to get his face out there (I’d read recently that he’s the UK politician with the largest following on social media, I think only Zarah Sultana comes close, but I would need to look that up to see if that is still the case). If you really want to stop Farage, then the key is to stop talking about him, even to criticise or laugh at him. Unfortunately like Trump in 2015, people just can’t avoid it. As for K&TG, their creation of the video in the first place should be questioned, just another example of their grift aimed at left leaning individuals, which goes all the way back to 2010 and culminated in that dreadful “Boris Johnson is female anatomy” series of songs that was lapped up in the thousands.

My wife saw the most recent book that arrived and said to me “you have a very weird taste in books,” what what, pray tell, is weird about getting a book that spends 700 glorious pages detailing every single by-election, at council and Westminster, in England, Scotland & Wales, from the year 2024?

Kemi played this one very well, taking the wind out of Robert Jenrick’s sails by turning the narrative from “leading member of the shadow cabinet defects to Reform in massive blow to Badenoch’s reputation” to “Jenrick runs off to Reform after being sacked by decisive Badenoch”. Badenoch has been getting more plaudits for PMQ’s the past few weeks, even from people who had thought she was a dead woman walking, but the past few weeks her leadership has gone from “when she is challenged for the leadership”, to “IF she is challenged for the leadership”, to “after she leads the Tories into the next election.” Whilst I’m terrible at prognosticating, I wonder if this is the moment that Reform begins its descent in the polling (their defection of Nadhim Zahari earlier in the week went down like a lead balloon, with one commenter mentioned that it simultaneously brought up the collective IQ of both the Tories and Reform UK), and the Tories to start rebuilding as the party on the centre-right of politics. The whole story has been fascinating to watch all day. It’s like something out of a political drama, with Badenoch as Francis Urquart, and Jenrick as the unfortunate Nicola Murray figure.

Also, Zi previously won the first series of the UK version of “The Mole” in 2001.

Still surprised we’ve gone 2 episodes without any of the music categories being picked, so still waiting to see how those categories will be played (“Musicals” was as mentioned above, but I expected it to be more visual anyway). Also starting to see territories starting to get bigger very quickly, so things are getting exciting. I’m presuming that once all contestants have duelled at least once, they then pick randomly from those with 2 squares?

Is this the biggest difference in divisions between two teams in the FA Cup where the minnow won? Unless there was a bigger one at some point in the qualifiers or 1st/2nd rounds can’t imagine there’s many other cases.

It would’ve been the 2nd most bizarre if Miley Cyrus didn’t ask for her vocals to be taken off her collaboration with Steven Patrick

The trailer for the game “Trees Hate You” dropped a few weeks ago, and it’s pretty hilarious. I doubt that the actual game itself will be as funny, but it seems like an interesting concept, trying to escape from a forest whilst the foliage tries to kill you. It’s like a zombie story as written by the Green Party.

I can see this becoming a sleeper hit. Eight quick duels during the show on a variety of subjects mean that if you’re not a fan of one category, you’re never more than a few minutes away from one topic you do like. There’s a good amount of strategy going on which should start to develop over the series (eg if you inherit a category you have no clue about, you may be more inclined to challenge other contestants to play topics you may prefer, however the bigger your floor gets you have a greater chance of getting challenged yourself). Plus, for a gameshow, it very much succeeds in the audience “shoutability” factor. The questions do seem well pitched for both contestant and viewer - I did find it a surprise that I was able to identify more people than I expected in the “Fashion” category. One thing I’ll be interested to see is how categories involving music categories play out. None were played in the first episode (although I did see “The Beatles” and “UK #1s” as potential categories), I wonder if these will be “identify the picture” as per other categories, or will it be “identify the song or band”. So after 1 episode, I am already hooked, and I’m excited to see what stories develop among the contestants, especially those who have started building up some prime territory.

Given that everyone seemed to be willing for Sidney Sweeney to fail at everything this year, I’m surprised that The Housemaid has been the resounding success it has had on both sides of the Atlantic has been surprising. It’s also surprising to see Paul Feig having a successful film for the first time in ages after a string of duds. It looks like it’s his most successful film since “Last Christmas”, which surprised me because a) I didn’t realise he directed it, and b) because of its bad reviews I assumed it was a financial flop as well, but it looks like it had healthy takings.

Why is “Boys Don’t Cry” climbing?

Tonight’s episode was cut by 10 minutes, with Red Panda’s performance cut due to insensitive lyrics given the recent Swiss fire tragedy (some suggestions that the song was “Disco Inferno”, so I can understand why).

Brett-Butler’s Contrary Opinions for 2026 - UK Politics: In Scotland, SNP win the most seats, albeit surprisingly short of a total majority. They enter into a confidence & supply arrangement with the Lib Dems. Reform come a distant yet strong second. In Wales, Plaid Cymru win the most seats, with Reform a close second and Labour nearly wiped out. Plaid enter a coalition with the Welsh Greens. In the local elections, Reform win the most seats considerably, with Labour taking major losses. The Conservatives make small but manageable losses after Kemi’s attempts to steady the ship seem to be taking effect. Whilst the Greens were expected to make major gains, these end up being muted after a major story breaks about their leader that the papers had known about, but were holding off on releasing until just before the local elections. The Liberal Democrat’s also make major gains, but nobody notices. In the UK Parliament, Reform win the majority of by-elections in 2026. This includes a humiliating by-election loss for Andy Burnham, who tries to get back into parliament to jostle for the role of PM in a by-election in a safe Greater Manchester seat. The biggest surprise however this year is Your Party, which gains a shock seat in a London by-election. Two Tories defect to Reform, and in a massive shock, so does one Labour MP. Keir Starmer resigns as Prime Minister after the local elections. The Angela Rayner factions and Ed Miliband factions agree to a compromise candidate, leading to Shabana Mahmood becoming not only Labour’s first female leader, but also the first Muslim Prime Minister. US Politics The Republicans face a wipeout in the midterm elections, losing both the House and Senate comprehensively. Trump will not be president by the year end (70% chance standing down/30% chance death, natural and otherwise). JD Vance becomes President, and overnight abandons his “Baby Trump” persona he adopted on becoming vice president and adopts an approach more in line with Rerorum Novum. Other A “peace deal” is finally agreed between Ukraine and Russia, with Ukraine effectively losing Crimea for good, with Russia also taking ownership of parts of Ukraine as well. By the end of the year, there are reports that emboldened Russian troops are encroaching on the Moldovan border, with the expectation that they will invade early in 2027. The uprising in Iran will fizzle out. Spain wins the World Cup, the UK wins Eurovision, oil prices collapse.

I ruddy hope not, it is the most overrated song ever. Plus, there’s at least three better songs in the finale that I would prefer to see chart, “Sweet Jane”, “Here Comes Your Man”, and “The Trooper” with the initial two never making the top 40 before.

The news stories for this haven’t given much information as to the scheduling of this as of yet, will it be a midweek chat show? An American style daily show, or a Friday evening seasonal replacement for Graham Norton (although given it’s by his production company, possibly not). I just hope she can ask more incisive, deeper, and biting questions of celebrities than Graham Norton tends to with his love-ins. What wouldn’t give for Claudia to give us another moment like this:

As someone who spent his tweens enjoying ridiculously silly comedies that spoofed films & genres I’d never seen at that point (“Airplane”, Blazing Saddles & “Naked Gun” on one end, all the way through to “BASEketball”, “Jane Austin’s Mafia!” and “Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday 13th on the other), it was well up my street, even though I’ve never watched a minute of Downton Abbey. The cinema was near empty when I went to see it at the weekend, so I’m surprised it’s not done as badly as I’d thought, I’d not seen any promo for it bar its trailer on YouTube

Went to see this in the cinema last night. Haven’t laughed so much in a film since The Naked Gun, with the Downton Abbey gets the NG treatment being the perfect descriptor of what you get. Not all of the jokes land (about 75% of them do), but they fly at you so fast that if one doesn’t amuse you, there’ll be another one around the corner soon. Anna Maxwell Martin was great as the housekeeper (one line in particular when she is giving Eric an outline of his duties had me literally laughing for minutes afterwards), and there are a few very niche jokes that I caught - two characters whose only dialogue consists of fawning over men are introduced as the “Bechdel Sisters”. However I doubt it’ll be a hit - when I saw it last night there were only six other people in the audience, and I was the only person rolling with laughter. It hasn’t been well promoted either, if it wasn’t for funding the trailer by chance I would have never knew it was out. It’ll likely find its home when it comes into streaming in a few months.

“Running Up That Hill” is featured quite heavily in the episodes of Stranger Things released last week (its continued use remains an important plot point), no I’m not surprised it’s made a reappearance. I thought that one of the other reoccurring songs in those episodes would also re-enter, although I don’t think Tiffany is back just yet.

It feels at least 10 years too late to release a parody of Downton Abbey, but then again the Naked Gun films were parodying a genre that was well out of fashion at the time and they’re some of the best comedies ever. The trailer was really enjoyable and very much in that ballpark, but I hope they haven’t put all the best jokes in the trailer.

One long serving Labour MP has already called for David Lammy to resign over this - In other Labour news, they’ve suspended the whip from their poshest-named MP for voting against the government -