The British establishment media has spent days targeting Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, for branding Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer.” Media organizations including LBC, The Huffington Post, and the notionally right-leaning Daily Mail, which employs former Labour and Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hogdges, have joined the deeply chequered Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake in attacking Reform figures, including Robert Jenrick and Danny Kruger, for declining to denounce Kassam as “racist,” with Kruger dismissing the supposed controversy as “rumbustious debate online.”

Kassam has responded to the attacks with a detailed thread providing evidence that Badnenoch is a “scammer,” and noting that “Nigerian” is not a race. Significantly, Badenoch has also indicated that she does not believe “Nigerian” is a race, previously stating that she identifies with her “specific ethnicity” as a Yoruba, and that she regards northern Nigerians as her “ethnic enemies.”

I enjoyed this. Nigerian isn't a race, and calling her a scammer because she invokes it when its politically convenient isn't racism.

Kemi is a scammer.

On race, on politics, on the economy, on her own background, and more.

The fact she has the most left wing reporter in… pic.twitter.com/TBglJ4SWgG

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 25, 2026

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Selective Nigerian Identity.

Kassam’s core point is straightforward. Badenoch was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1980 to visiting Nigerian parents, who immediately returned to Nigeria to raise her. Early in her British political career, she directly appealed to Nigerian diaspora voters for support, and suggested she entered British politics to “[speak] for the Africans,” particularly on foreign aid.

Badenoch has at times emphasized her Nigerian roots and, in footage highlighted by Kassam from 2022, told a Nigerian audience she loves Nigeria “just as much as” England while speaking in a Nigerian accent. At other times—particularly when speaking to British audiences—she has said she no longer identifies as Nigerian, or even, as mentioned previously, that she has never identified as Nigerian, but only as a Yoruba.

Kassam argues this is convenient identity politics: using her Nigerian background for career advancement or making emotional appeals situationally, but downplaying it when dual loyalty concerns arise. He has noted he is Indian by heritage, but would never declare equal love for India and Britain.

Have you seen this before???

When Kemi Badenoch speaks to other Nigerians, she turns off her fake English accent.

She also tells them that she loves Nigeria just as much as England.

And what’s all this about saying Islamic prayers in Nigeria?

She is running to be PM while… pic.twitter.com/thVCrPxblk

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) September 24, 2026

The Stanford ‘Pre-Med’ Claim.

Badenoch has repeatedly said that at age 16, while attending school in the U.S., strong SAT scores earned her an offer and partial scholarship to study medicine or “pre-med” at Stanford, but her family could not afford it. Former Stanford admissions staff have called this implausible or impossible, as Stanford has no undergraduate pre-med degree.

Admissions were also not based on test scores alone, and partial scholarships of the type Badenoch described were not how the university operated at the time—if they admitted someone who needed aid, they covered the full cost so the student could enroll. Badenoch has stood by the story, but says she no longer has the paperwork to prove it.

This is one of several origin-story embellishments. Earlier reporting has also challenged a claimed national girls’ chess championship win at age seven, which, if it ever took place, appears to have involved only two competitors, and questions around Badenoch’s account of a supposedly difficult Nigerian childhood, despite the fact that her father was a doctor with a clinic and she attended elite schools.

Inconsistencies.

Kassam also referenced “Melonigate,” a conversation reported by The Times in which Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni supposedly advised Badenoch against any electoral arrangement with Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Meloni’s party subsequently indicated that no such discussion took place, and The Times made extensive stealth edits to remove the claims without a proper correction note.

On the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Badenoch previously said leaving it would not be a “silver bullet” for immigration control. She now claims she would abrogate the convention, despite her party upholding it over 14 years in government while overseeing record immigration and falling deportations.

As Equalities Minister, she advanced the “Inclusive Britain” agenda, including ethnicity pay gap reporting and pushing for greater racial diversity in the judiciary and policing, despite public criticism of DEI. Farage has called the shift “totally disingenuous.”

On the Chagos Islands, Badenoch attacked Farage’s comments about offering the U.S. perpetual use of the vital Diego Garcia base as “humiliating” and falsely claimed the Reform leader was advocating giving away the British territory. The U.S. government publicly rebuked her for “spreading fake news,” clarifying that Farage was referring to continued U.S. use of the Diego Garcia base, not transferring control over the islands to the U.S. Significantly, Britain’s negotiations to hand the territory to Mauritius began under the Conservatives, while Badenoch was a government minister.

British Conservative (Tory) Party leader Kemi Badenoch has been rebuked by the White House after she attacked Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage over recent comments about the Chagos Islands, with a senior official accusing her of spreading “fake news” and undermining the… pic.twitter.com/GFcMMxjmnC

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 14, 2026

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Same Old Tories. 

Kassam noted that the vast majority of Badenoch’s top team are, like her, veterans of the failed 2010–2024 Conservative governments which botched Brexit and accelerated Net Zero and mass migration, warning voters: “There is a REASON that 92% of her shadow cabinet are the same Tory ministers and spads from the failed 14 years. Don’t fall for the great Kemi scam.”

He also noted that her husband Hamish Badenoch has been described in the press as a “sopping wet Remainer,” firmly on the left of the Conservative Party.

The Woke Tories only have two modes of attack:

1. Call people racist
2. Call people sexist

That’s literally it.

No policies, no principles, no depth. https://t.co/xntwdgaHUC

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 23, 2026

Free Speech and Priorities.

Kassam has doubled down on the original “Nigerian scammer” line as a colorful way to draw attention to his underlying critique of Badenoch as, at best, a serial embellisher and political chameleon, whose record and actions do not match her public positions.

The Conservatives joining the left-wing media in focusing on Kassam’s reference to her Nigerian nationality and demanding ritual disavowals from Reform figures, instead of focusing on the substance of the critique, shows they remain a fundamentally center-left party in hock to leftist identity politics and political correctness.

American observers will recognize the pattern. When a politician’s résumé, past statements, and policy consistency face detailed challenge, establishment outlets and politicians pivot to policing the tone of the critique on woke, left-wing terms. Kassam’s receipts are there for anyone with the wherewithal to read past the familiar accusation of “racism.”

Kemi Badenoch is an unrelenting scammer, and she has used her Nigerian background as a means by which to advance her career when it suits her. Of that there can be no doubt. A thread… 🧵

Lets start with HER STORY of how she joined the Tories in order to promote foreign aid to… pic.twitter.com/lvLRrODAwh

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 25, 2026

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Sir James Cleverly, the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Braintree and frontrunner for his party’s 2028 London mayoral nomination, stepped down from Kemi Badenoch’s Shadow Cabinet in late August 2026 to focus on the City Hall contest. A former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary during the Conservatives’ most recent stretch in government (2010–2024), he now positions himself as an alternative to Lord Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party incumbent. However, a closer look at his views and record reveals a center-left politician more at ease with open borders and a multicultural redefinition of Britishness than with traditional conservative priorities such as immigration enforcement and maintaining national cohesion.

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Open Borders in the Guise of ‘Free Market Labor Movements.’

Despite the party’s center-right branding, Cleverly has long advocated positions that treat mass migration primarily as an economic boon. He has written approvingly of a future defined by “free market labor movements”—that is, open borders for foreign workers, prioritizing employer demand over domestic wage pressures or community capacity.

He did advocate for the shift towards open borders to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, due to the social upheaval it would cause, but still predicted that “At some point in the future we will look back at our current (fairly) protectionist policies on free market labour movements with the same disbelief that we look back on the corn laws.”

As Home Secretary, Cleverly presided over the tail-end of the Boriswave influx. While he claimed that the unprecedented post-COVID migration spike his party engineered had been a “fatal mistake,” his earlier enthusiasm for liberal international labor markets puts him firmly in the camp of Conservatives whose public, restrictive position on immigration did not match his record.

Woke on Identity: Redefining Britishness as Defined by Foreign Foods and Imports.

Cleverly has a distinctly woke-left view of national identity. In one article, he described Britishness exclusively in terms of consuming foreign goods: “Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.”

Cleverly’s view elevates the enjoyment of foreign goods, cuisine, and media as the essence of Britishness. It echoes the broader progressive insistence that diversity is the defining feature of modern Britain, rather than national traditions or the national language, institutions, and history. Critics see it as the opposite of a coherent civic or cultural identity, replacing nationhood with a cosmopolitan marketplace.

I’m proud to be Chairman of the @Conservatives, I’m proud to be part of the most diverse cabinet in history, and I’m proud of how my party is championing diversity. https://t.co/baKpndOWYo

— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) July 28, 2019

Labeling Immigration Skeptics ‘Extremist and Racist.’

The son of an immigrant from Sierra Leone, Cleverly has repeatedly insisted that Britain’s social cohesion and sense of identity “is not being watered down by immigration.” Those who argue otherwise, he has maintained, are “extremist and racist.”

He has extended this claim across centuries of arrivals: “We have managed to stay British through immigration from the Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Huguenots, Jews, Irish, West Indians, West Africans, East Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, etc., etc., etc. Britishness evolved, but it did not diminish.”

Notably, the “immigration” of the Romans, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans generally involved the violent overthrow of the existing political, social, and sometimes cultural order, suggesting that their arrival did indeed fundamentally alter the national character.

Party Context Under Badenoch.

Cleverly’s outlook sits comfortably within the current Conservative leadership. Party leader Kemi Badenoch has described herself as a “first-generation immigrant,” being born in London but raised in Nigeria. Like Cleverly, Badenoch publicly strikes a restrictionist posture on immigration, but her record in government includes lobbying to have limits on foreign students and migrant workers removed, which helped create the Boriswave.

Longstanding Hostility to Trump and America First.

Cleverly’s liberal instincts on migration and identity pair with strong disdain for President Donald J. Trump and the America First movement. In 2015, he publicly urged Republicans not to nominate Trump, writing on Twitter (now X): “Dear Republican colleagues, please, please, please don’t choose Donald Trump as the front man for American Right-of-Centre politics. Please.”

After Trump’s 2016 election and 2017 inauguration, Cleverly denounced the administration’s policies on immigration and Syrian refugees as “indefensible, unworkable and almost certainly unconstitutional.” By contrast, he later spoke warmly of meeting then-President Joe Biden in 2024, calling the Democrat “a great friend to the UK” despite his open hostility to Britain in general and the English in particular.

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A Biden-era grant to a Serbian political organization is raising fresh questions about the legacy of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the foreign aid organization targeted for dismantling by President Donald J. Trump.

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For decades, USAID presented itself as being engaged in altruistic operations like humanitarian assistance and economic development. However, its real, deeper history involved financing political opposition movements and so-called “color revolutions,” partisan media operations, voter-mobilization campaigns, and progressive ideological initiatives worldwide.

From the campaigns to topple former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević in 2000 to covert social media operations in Cuba, USAID’s political activities have frequently flown under the radar compared to more prominent humanitarian spending on things like food and medical aid.

The agency’s involvement in foreign politics is not simply a matter of speculation. Congressional documents, official USAID records, and various investigations have proven its role in promoting political transitions, cultivating activists, and advancing the preferred policies of agencies like the CIA and the Deep State overseas.

Serbia: American Money and a New Political Crisis.

The Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability (CRTA), a Serbian NGO involved in election monitoring and public advocacy, has received $832,432.47 under a Biden-era USAID grant, with approximately $2.8 million yet to be given, meaning that despite massive cuts to USAID under the second Trump administration, money is still flowing to its political programs.

The award, established in 2023, supposedly for election integrity activities, was expanded on January 17, 2025, just three days before President Trump’s second inauguration.

The revelations come as Serbia prepares for parliamentary elections on October 25, with student-led protests presenting a serious challenge to the political establishment associated with former President Aleksandar Vučić. CRTA has publicized the protesters’ demands, while Vučić has accused foreign-backed NGOs of attempting to destabilize his government.

USAID’s Cold War Origins and CIA Connections.

USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, consolidating America’s foreign development programs into an agency intended to promote economic growth and stability overseas. The agency was created amid the Cold War and was largely used as a tool of “soft power” to influence regimes away from the USSR.

Its activities sometimes overlapped with American intelligence objectives. Accounts of Cold War operations in Southeast Asia describe the CIA’s use of USAID-related arrangements, including testimony concerning USAID cover in Laos. Some have even described USAID as a “cover” for CIA activity.

USAID’s political functions were also openly acknowledged. A Congressional Research Service examination of the agency’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) detailed its involvement in politically sensitive transitions, including support for opposition organizations in Serbia in the 1990s.

How Washington Helped Overthrow Serbia’s Milošević.

The most striking historical parallel to the current Serbian controversy is the American-financed campaign against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević in 2000. A Washington Post investigation published in December 2000 documented approximately $41 million in American appropriations during 1999 and 2000, much of which supported the political infrastructure opposing Milošević.

The campaign included political consultants, opinion polling, opposition training, election monitoring, and mass-produced propaganda. American taxpayers financed 2.5 million stickers bearing the Serbian slogan “Gotov je,” meaning “He’s finished,” as well as 5,000 cans of spray paint used by activists to spread anti-Milošević messages.

The International Republican Institute also trained leaders of Otpor, the student resistance movement that became central to Milošević’s downfall. American-funded consultants helped opposition groups develop messaging and mobilization strategies.

Popular culture was another weapon. A separate Washington Post report revealed that American assistance reached Serbian heavy-metal bands participating in voter-registration concerts under the banner of “Rock the Vote.”

A subsequent USAID evaluation documented the political importance of the agency’s Serbian activities. According to a Congressional Research Service summary, OTI spent approximately $8.68 million on 631 grants in Serbia and Montenegro between 1997 and October 2000.

Cuba: USAID’s Secret Social Media Network.

During the Obama administration, USAID secretly financed a Twitter-like communications network in Cuba called ZunZuneo. The platform used intermediaries and offshore arrangements to conceal its American government financing.

The service initially distributed material about sports, music, and entertainment, attracting Cuban users who were unaware of USAID’s involvement. Internal documents described ambitions to introduce political messaging and encourage mobilization against the Castro government. The operation even exploited interest surrounding a major concert by Colombian singer Juanes to test its messaging capabilities.

A subsequent USAID Inspector General investigation confirmed that implementers had deliberately concealed the American government’s role, including through offshore corporate arrangements. USAID disputed allegations that the project constituted a covert regime-change operation, arguing that discretion was necessary to protect participants and circumvent Cuban censorship.

Despite USAID’s statements, the operation revealed yet another time the agency had meddled in the political affairs of another country under the guise of being simply dedicated to humanitarian ventures.

Millions for LGBT Activism and Progressive Causes.

Beyond attempts to influence foreign governments, USAID also became an important international financier of progressive social ideologies across the globe, much of which was revealed when President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) looked into USAID’s activities in 2025.

Under former President Barack Obama, the agency expanded its involvement in LGBT advocacy through partnerships with organizations including the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute, and the Swedish Federation for LGBT Rights. According to USAID’s own partnership report, the LGBT Global Development Partnership represented an $18 million, four-year public-private initiative spanning 15 countries.

Its objectives included strengthening LGBT civil society organizations, training activists to participate in democratic processes, and conducting research intended to influence policy.

A Williams Institute analysis reported that USAID’s dedicated LGBT programming increased from approximately $6 million in 2021 to $25 million in 2024 under President Joe Biden. The agency also supported initiatives in Asia and Latin America addressing LGBT legal rights, discrimination, and political participation.

A 2015 Obama White House fact sheet disclosed approximately $3.3 million in USAID spending on stand-alone LGBT programs during fiscal year 2014, alongside $113 million in broader health and human-rights programs relevant to LGBT populations. Critics have questioned why American taxpayers were financing overseas social advocacy and political organizing, particularly in countries with different cultural and religious traditions.

Trump’s Crackdown—and the Political Networks Left Behind.

President Trump’s effort to dismantle USAID’s massive institutional structure represented a major challenge to Washington’s traditional foreign-aid establishment. For supporters of the America First agenda, the agency’s record raised a fundamental question: Why should American taxpayers finance political activism, foreign NGOs, and ideological initiatives overseas?

The historical record provides considerable evidence that USAID supported more than humanitarian assistance. In Serbia, its funding helped opposition activists defeat an incumbent government. In Cuba, it financed a communications network whose American sponsorship was deliberately concealed. Elsewhere, it supported organizations seeking changes to social policies and political participation.

The renewed controversy in Serbia suggests that dismantling an agency’s bureaucracy has not necessarily eliminated the infrastructure it created, nor stopped all of its funding.

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Image by Gary Bembridge.

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A left-wing Liberal Democrat politician in England has been suspended after recording minors outside a primary (elementary) school and flatly refusing official requests to delete the footage from social media.

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Adrian Chapmanlaw, an elected official serving on the Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) Council in Dorset, England, was stripped of his party affiliation as an internal inquiry gets underway.

The disciplinary action follows administrators at Manorside Academy lodging a formal objection regarding a clip shared to Chapmanlaw’s “Dorset Safer Roads” social media page. While the politician insisted the recording was intended to document driving infractions on the restricted lines near the school, the published media displayed parents and children uncensored.

Leadership at Manorside Academy repeatedly urged the councillor to delete the broadcast because the faces of vulnerable youngsters and guardians were clearly visible. Chapmanlaw refused. According to school officials, leaving unedited recordings of parents and children visible to the public severely jeopardized student security and inflicted unnecessary panic on local families.

The Liberal Democrats’ local leader, Millie Earl, stated: “As a council group, we take safeguarding concerns raised by our partners very seriously. I have therefore suspended Councillor Chapmanlaw from the Liberal Democrat Group until the council’s standards procedure has been concluded. In line with our Standing Orders, we will then consider what further action should be taken.”

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Chapmanlaw responded on the same Facebook page where he displayed his recordings by portraying himself as a victim. “This is what happens when you take a stand and try to make a difference. Kids die outside of schools, I am merely trying to protect them using the legal systems available to me,” he insisted.

He accused his political allies of abandoning him, writing: “People try to tear you down. Even people who are supposed to be your friends will throw you under the bus rather than support.”

Dismissing the school’s concerns, he added: “The complaint is complete cow excrement. There was no ‘safeguarding issue’ anybody with eyes can see that. I find this action completely disgusting, I am currently considering my options.”

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A methodological error in the latest FindOutNow/Electoral Calculus Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) projections left Restore Britain’s constituency vote shares untouched under tactical voting scenarios, even as other parties’ shares were reallocated. The result temporarily showed the Elon Musk-backed, Conservative-allied Reform splinter party leading the “parties on the right” in 21 Scottish seats. After the error was identified by Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, that figure fell to zero.

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Restore Britain founder Rupert Lowe boasted on Thursday morning that the poll had the party ahead of both Reform and the Conservatives in more Scottish constituencies. He cited figures of Restore Britain 21, Conservatives 13, Reform 12, and 11 ties, writing, “This is remarkable. Restore Britain is now the second largest party in Scotland, and the largest party on the right – bigger than both Reform and the Tories.”

Those numbers did not survive scrutiny.

On Thursday morning, @RestoreBritain founder @RupertLowe10 tweeted: “This is important – the latest huge MRP poll has Restore Britain ahead in more Scottish constituencies than both Reform or the Tories.”

The data he cited envisaged a hypothetical tactical voting scenario in a… pic.twitter.com/xvralbURug

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) October 22, 2026

The Flaw Kassam Identified.

Raheem Kassam examined the tactical-voting tables and found that Restore’s share remained fixed at its pre-tactical level in every constituency, while other parties’ shares changed according to the modeled reallocation of voters who said they would switch. As Kassam put it: “I found that although the tactical-voting calculations appeared to affect support for other parties, they actually incorrectly left Restore’s share in every constituency exactly as it was prior to tactical voting.”

In a Labour–Scottish National Party (SNP) contest, for instance, the model reduced Reform’s share by shifting some of its supporters to the two main parties. Restore voters who had also indicated a willingness to vote tactically were not treated the same way. Their share stayed constant, producing an artificial relative gain for Lowe’s party.

Kassam tested this on Midlothian. Baseline figures showed SNP 31.96 percent, Labour 29.73 percent, Reform 15.62 percent, and Restore 8.92 percent. Under the flawed tactical adjustment, Reform fell to 8.15 percent while Restore remained at 8.92 percent. Once the reallocation was applied correctly, Restore dropped to 5.28 percent—below Reform.

Kassam contacted Electoral Calculus chief executive Martin Baxter the same morning. Baxter replied that there was “a problem with the re-allocation of Restore votes.” Corrected figures were published within hours.

Corrected Scottish and National Results.

Across all 57 Scottish constituencies, the three-party comparison among Restore Britain, Reform, and the Conservatives reversed. The original tally of 21 (Restore), 13 (Conservatives), 12 (Reform), and 11 ties became zero (Restore), 13 (Conservatives), 44 (Reform), and zero ties. Reform, not Restore, now leads the right-of-center pack in the large majority of Scottish seats under the tactical scenario.

Nationally, the correction also shifted seat projections under the tactical-voting model. Reform’s projected total rose from 83 to 108 seats. Labour’s fell from 287 to 263. Restore’s national tactical-voting vote share was revised from eight percent to six percent, placing it below the far-left Greens. Electoral Calculus’s updated page, reposted with corrections on October 22, 2026, confirms the six percent figure and the 108-seat Reform projection under first-past-the-post with tactical voting.

The same error had underpinned Lowe’s separate claim that the poll showed Restore matching the Greens on a “record 8%.” That national figure no longer holds under the corrected tactical scenario.

Why the Numbers Mattered—and Why They Did Not Hold.

MRP models produce constituency-level estimates precisely so that small absolute shifts can change relative rankings. Leaving one party’s share static while others declined created the appearance that Restore was gaining ground against Reform and the Conservatives in Scotland. Once the reallocation was applied consistently, those relative gains disappeared.

The corrected pattern is consistent with broader findings in the same poll: anti-Reform tactical voting is measurable, and right-of-center support remains fragmented. Restore continues to register a non-trivial national share, but the specific claim that it had overtaken both Reform and the Conservatives as the leading right-wing option across more Scottish seats than either did not survive the methodological fix.

“The incident obviously raises questions. If this can happen in a needle-in-a-haystack example in an MRP like this, and be seized upon by a party leader, what other polling errors have occurred in the past that have never been spotted?” Kassam asked, adding: “The other question that springs to my mind is didn’t Rupert Lowe, or anyone who runs his accounts check this before they posted 5 times about it on X, and multiple times on Facebook?”

It was good, he continued, that “Electoral Calculus were so swift and honest in correcting the error,” but noted that “hundreds of thousands of voters” had already been exposed to Lowe’s false claims, potentially lending weight to Restore’s largely narrative that it is achieving genuine momentum as a right-wing force. The evidence suggests that this is largely unsupported, and that voters concerned about mass migration and related issues would be advised to consolidate behind Reform, with Restore being a vehicle mainly to help Labour and the Conservatives retain their grip on British politics, rather than a future party of government, or even opposition.

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