Noit

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is in the US where he is due to attend an election day party at Donald Trump’s Florida home in Mar-a-Lago. In an interview with the Telegraph, he has said that Trump, who is a friend, should accept defeat if he loses the presidential election. (See 10am.)

But Farage said he expected Trump to win. And he said he was particularly excited by the prospect of a Trump victory because Trump has said he will put Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and X owner, in charge of a government efficiency commission. Farage said that Musk would slash government spending, and that this would provide a blueprint for what Reform UK would propose for Britain. He told the Telegraph:

"This is the sexy bit: Elon comes in and takes a knife to the deep state. Just like when he bought Twitter he sacked 80 per cent of the staff.

There are going to be mass lay-offs, whole departments closing and I’m hoping and praying that’s the blueprint for what we then do on our side of the pond.

Because that’s what Reform UK believes in - that we’re over-bureaucratised and none of it works. This assault on the bureaucratic state is the thing that’s really exciting.

They’ll all be gone. They’ll all be fired. Why do we need Whitehall with all these useless, ghastly Marxists? Universities have all become madrassas of Marxism. The whole thing is appalling.

Trump’s first term taking on the deep state was impossible because they had no idea how it worked; he finished up with a lot of people around him who weren’t supporters and who were imposed upon him.

They didn’t know an American president has the power to appoint 3,000 people. This time they have been working really hard on that for 18 months."

Rightwingers regularly complain that the state is too large (Kemi Badenoch believes this too), but it’s unusual to argue that Musk’s management of Twitter has been a success. Since he took over, it has lost three quarters of its value, equivalent to a sum worth around $30bn. That is partly because, after Musk sacked most of the moderators, people were less willing to use and advertise on the site.

I bought a Thule Crossover eight years ago and the zip on it has finally gone. Short of getting a local seamstress to fit a new zip, I think it's time for a new one, and am a bit tempted by the Thule Crossover 2 30l. Are Thule still good? Is there anything else of the same sort of size that I should be considering?

A by-election will be triggered in his Kingswood seat.

I’m looking for a lightweight waterproof jacket with a hood, ideally available in the UK. I don’t buy jackets very often so I don’t know what I should be looking for asides from that broad category. Suggestions welcome!

I buy a few kilos of dog biscuits at a time and at the moment we keep them in the bag in the garage, and decant enough for a week into a plastic kitchen tub. I’m worried about rats attacking what’s in the garage, so I suspect I want some kind of hard plastic tub, but I’m concerned about it being too big and awkward to easily get out the week’s food. Has anyone else got this solved?

A few months ago I bought some Amazon knock-off fingears to see if I vibed with the concept on the cheap. I liked the idea but the execution was dreadful, magnets were weak, plastic was incredibly cheap and rattly.

So I splashed out thirty quid on the official fingears. They’re definitely much better, the gearing is much smoother and the plastic is much better quality. But the whole thing still doesn’t quite cut the mustard, the magnets still feel a little weak and the sound is still a bit rattly. Does anyone know of anything that’s a step up in quality? I know they’ve got a wood and metal version for £90 but that’s quite a jump up and I’m concerned about spending that much on something that flies out of my hands so frequently.

Does anyone have any experience with the wooden fingears, are they significantly more satisfying and ideally a bit more sticky, magnet-wise? Or are there any other similar products that bridge the gap between £30 and £90?

Series 16 starts on September 21st, 9pm on Channel 4.