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You can't demand seats in the Lords and still be an establishment rebel, Mr Farage
You can't demand seats in the Lords and still be an establishment rebel, Mr Farage

The Independent

time4 days ago

  • Politics
  • The Independent

You can't demand seats in the Lords and still be an establishment rebel, Mr Farage

As soon as Nigel Farage wrote to Keir Starmer demanding that the prime minister allow him to make some nominations to the House of Lords, I reached for my well-thumbed copy of Reform's 'contract' with the voters at the last election. In its first 100 days, the document says, a Reform government would start to ' replace the crony-filled House of Lords with a much smaller, more democratic second chamber'. It is easy to mock, so let us enjoy the contrast between Farage's high-minded manifesto promises and his demand that some of his cronies should join all the other cronies in the upper house. Let us, in particular, enjoy the next two sentences in Reform's manifesto. Readers wanting to know how this 'more democratic' chamber might be constituted are dismissed briskly: 'Structure to be debated.' The structure of a more democratic second chamber has been debated for more than 100 years; it seems unlikely that anything will be decided in 100 days. Then there is this gem: 'Immediate end of political appointees.' As St Augustine didn't quite say, Lord make it immediate, but not yet. Before the arrival of a Reform government and the immediate end of political appointees, Farage would like the prime minister to ennoble some political appointees on his behalf. It is not fair, the Reform leader says in his letter, that 'the Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru and UUP have 13 peers between them, but Reform UK has none'. The Scottish National Party also has none, but that is because it disagrees with the House of Lords and means it. Reform, on the other hand, disagrees with the House of Lords but thinks it is a 'democratic disparity' – not that Britain has an appointed upper house but that Reform isn't in it. It is not as if Farage's parties have never had representatives in the Lords. Malcolm Pearson, a former leader of the UK Independence Party, is still a member, sitting as a non-affiliated peer. David Stevens, former chair of United Newspapers when it owned the Daily Express, was also Ukip and is now non-affiliated. Claire Fox, the former Brexit Party MEP, is also a non-affiliated peer. Pearson and Stevens were originally Conservative peers but switched, whereas Fox was nominated by Boris Johnson as a way of mischievously celebrating Britain's departure from the EU. But Farage hasn't been able to hold onto any of them and now wants to put some of his current allies in the Lords. The Times lists Ann Widdecombe, Nick Candy and Zia Yusuf as possible candidates. It is not going to happen. 'This is the same Nigel Farage that called for the abolition of the House of Lords and now wants to fill it with his cronies,' said John Healey, the defence secretary, this morning. 'I'm not sure that parliament is going to be benefiting from more Putin apologists like Nigel Farage.' The constitutional position is simple: nominations to the Lords are a matter for the Crown, as advised by the prime minister. The monarch is a cypher; Keir Starmer is the sole decision-maker. He may choose to invite other party leaders to make nominations, but that is entirely up to him. David Cameron and Boris Johnson, when they were going through green phases, even allowed the Green Party of England and Wales to nominate – Jenny Jones in 2013 and Natalie Bennett in 2019. But it is up to the prime minister, who usually allows him or herself to be fettered by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission – although Johnson overruled it when it advised against making Peter Cruddas, the Tory former treasurer, a peer. It might be tempting for Starmer to agree to Farage's request. It would make it harder for Farage to present himself as the doughty outsider, locked out of the Establishment. It would mean that Reform had more public representatives and therefore more chances that one or more of them would embarrass the party. And it would be the responsible thing to do, given that there is a real chance that Farage might soon be prime minister: he ought then to have some back-up in the House of Lords. But it is not going to happen, and Farage knows it is not going to happen. His letter is a classic August news story, designed to get attention and to drive home the point that Reform, the most popular party in the country, is treated as unrespectable by the establishment parties. At a time when anti-government and anti-establishment feeling is running high, Farage's status as an outsider is a priceless asset to him.

GOP mayoral candidate urges Trump to stay out of New York City race
GOP mayoral candidate urges Trump to stay out of New York City race

The Hill

time10-08-2025

  • Politics
  • The Hill

GOP mayoral candidate urges Trump to stay out of New York City race

New York City Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa said that President Trump's interference in the New York election could embolden Democratic candidate Zohran Mandani. 'In this situation, it doesn't help if he intervenes in New York City,' Silwa told Fox 5's Morgan McKay on 'Politics Unusual' on Friday. 'Every day it's Trump versus Zohran Mamdani, it's a good day for Zohran Mamdani. Every day that Cuomo and Adams talks about you, 'you drop out, you job out,' it's a good day for Zohran Mamdani,' he continued. The New York City race for mayor has sparked heavy tensions. Zohran Mamdani, the democratic nominee, surprisingly won the Democratic primary against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo is now running as an independent alongside the current NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Trump has been adamantly opposed to Mamdani's campaign for NYC mayor. He has called him a ' communist lunatic ' and said that if he is elected in November, 'He better behave. Otherwise, he will have big problems.' The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Trump had multiple phone calls with Cuomo and was considering 'getting involved' in the mayoral race. Sliwa, who is the only Republican candidate and in an underdog position, said he was not surprised that the president called Cuomo, as 'Cuomo's been talking to Trump for years.' He added, 'I would just say to the president, spend your time where it's needed more, on geopolitical interests that affect all Americans. This election in New York City does not affect all Americans.' Other candidates also raged against Trump's move. Mamdani posted on X, 'Today we learned Andrew Cuomo is directly coordinating with Donald Trump, even as this President sends masked agents to rip our neighbors off the streets and guts the social services so many New Yorkers rely on,' posted Mamdani on X. 'It's disqualifying and a betrayal of our city,' he added. But Cuomo on Thursday pushed back on the report. 'I can't remember the last time I spoke to President Trump,' Cuomo said during a press conference, adding that he has 'never spoken to him about the mayor's race.' Silwa has previously attacked Mandani and blamed Adam's mayoral term for Mandani's win in the Democratic primary. 'There is no Zohran Mamdani if Eric Adams had done a decent job,' Sliwa said.

Is This the End of Google As We Know It?
Is This the End of Google As We Know It?

Gizmodo

time23-07-2025

  • Business
  • Gizmodo

Is This the End of Google As We Know It?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrived in Washington this week with a carefully crafted message for policymakers: Artificial intelligence is already boosting productivity for millions of Americans, and his company intends to keep it 'democratic' by putting it in everyone's hands. As the capital buzzes with debates over AI regulation, Altman is positioning OpenAI not as a disruptor to be feared, but as an engine for universal progress. 'It's not about stopping disruption, but putting it into people's hands so they have the opportunity to benefit,' a source familiar with Altman's thinking told Axios. The timing of this pitch could not be more strategic. ChatGPT is now handling a staggering 2.5 billion prompts every day, with 330 million daily queries coming from the U.S. alone, OpenAI told Axios. Just eight months ago, that figure was a billion daily prompts. For perspective, Google processes an estimated 14 to 16 billion daily searches. This means that in less than two years, OpenAI's conversational AI has grown to handle a volume equivalent to one sixth of the world's largest search engine. For decades, search meant one thing: 'Google it.' A new analysis by marketing researcher Rand Fishkin of Datos shows just how ingrained this behavior has been. In 2024, the average active American desktop user performed 126 unique Google searches a month. That includes everything from navigational queries like 'Facebook login' to shopping, news, and local lookups. But AI tools like ChatGPT are starting to chip away at that habit, and not just for power users. A small but growing cohort is using AI as a direct replacement for search engines, asking it to find, summarize, or create answers instead of scanning a list of blue links. Fishkin notes that while most users have not ditched Google yet, the threat is real enough that Google has defensively rolled out its own AI powered 'Search Generative Experience' and even a 'Web' tab for users who still prefer traditional links. Google's core business is search advertising, which generated $175 billion in revenue last year, accounting for more than half of its total $307 billion in revenue. If even a fraction of high value searches migrate to ChatGPT, Google's economic engine faces a significant long term risk. The company is spending billions to integrate its own Gemini AI into search, but that strategy carries two major dilemmas: Altman's Washington trip is about more than bragging rights. He is pitching a third path between the 'AI will take your job' doomers and the 'AI will save the world' optimists. His economic case is that AI is a productivity driver that should be broadly accessible, not a tool hoarded by a handful of corporations or governments. OpenAI is betting that ChatGPT will evolve from a curiosity into a daily utility that users consult for work, shopping, and creativity. In Altman's words, the goal is to build a 'brain for the world' with intelligence that is 'too cheap to meter.' The fight between ChatGPT and Google could fundamentally change how we experience the web. For consumers: You may get faster, more conversational answers, but at the cost of seeing fewer diverse links and perspectives. AI could centralize information power even more than search engines did. For creators and businesses: Google's dominance once meant optimizing for a single algorithm. AI driven search means content could be summarized and stripped of attribution unless strong guardrails are built in. That is a looming threat to publishers already fighting for traffic. For society: Altman argues democratization is key, asking, it's who gets how much of a slice of the economic pie? But AI also raises the risk of misinformation, bias, and greater economic concentration in fewer hands. We may be watching the first major shift in online behavior since the smartphone. Fishkin remains skeptical that AI will replace Google for most people anytime soon, but he admits the early adopters are showing what is possible. If ChatGPT can handle one sixth of Google's volume today, what happens when AI native search is built into our phones, cars, and voice assistants? Google is not going away, but its once unassailable dominance is under pressure for the first time since the days of Yahoo and AltaVista. The fight for the future of search is about whether information online remains open and distributed, or collapses into a handful of powerful AI driven platforms.

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