The Shit to Know Thursdays

Happy Holidays fellas,

I’m sorry the upload dates have been so skewed lately, but my Christmas has been very busy.

I hope you’ve had a banger of a holiday season, but it’s time to get fucking serious.

On that note, go follow our X to stay up-to-date with all the latest news.

Market Indices & Commodities

Politics
UK’s Reform Party Membership Overtakes Conservative’s Public Membership

Trump’s besty Nigel Farage celebrated yesterday as Reform UK’s membership tally surpassed 131,680 which is the figure the Conservative Party announced during their leadership election earlier this year.

The result comes after a successful year for Reform, with the party taking 5 seats in the General Election in July. Perhaps even more impressively, Reform came second place in 98 seats (there are a total of 650 seats in parliament). The party was key in splitting the Conservative vote.

The 131,680 figure revealed when the new Conservative leader was announced on November 2nd was the lowest Tory level on record. The number of Conservative Party members was around 172,000 in 2022. Clearly, there has been a big drop since then.

The right-wing, anti-immigration, populist party Reform UK is clearly having one hell of a run. Is it just a matter of time until they get in power?

Military
Crashed Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Reportedly Downed by Russian Missile

The Azerbaijani government said today that a Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) hit the Azerbaijan Airlines flight, subsequently causing it to to crash during an emergency landing attempt in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau on Christmas Day.

A Russian SAM was fired at the plane during a drone swarm above Grozny, the capital of the Chechnya region in Russia. The SAM detonated near the jet and its shrapnel hit the plane’s flight controls and rear fuselage.

As such, the plane was not able to land successfully. A real tragedy.

Just as I was about to publish this, news hit of another crash involving a commercial airliner.

179 people have died after a Jeju Air aircraft skidded off the runway at a South Korean airport.

What on Earth is going on?

Politics
Biden is Still Busy

I don’t know how I didn’t hear about this sooner, but Joe Biden signed another 50 bills into law on Christmas Eve.

These included the likes of preventing federal agencies from issuing “useless reports” (who knows what the fuck that’s supposed to mean) and establishing the first federal anti-hazing college campus standard.

Steady on Joe, you didn’t even run for President, and your political party lost the vote, yet my man is just chilling signing bills. How is he still allowed to do this?

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That’s all Folks

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!!