Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotland
Click on the above.
By Liz S
“Reform UK is now under police investigation after admitting it distributed by election material disguised as a private letter from a “concerned neighbour”.
Voters in Gorton and Denton received personalised letters urging them to back Reform, presented as the views of a local pensioner. The material carried no legal imprint stating it was funded and distributed by the party, despite being produced and circulated as part of an organised campaign.
Failing to include an imprint on election material is a criminal offence. Reform’s claim that the omission was a printing error does not alter that fact. The matter has been referred to Greater Manchester police, with the Electoral Commission confirming enforcement sits with law enforcement.
This is not a misunderstanding or a technical slip. It is a case of party messaging being passed off as a personal appeal during a live election, and it has now crossed the line into a police matter”.
Watch out for similar tactics in their campaign for the Scottish elections, indeed the election material I have had so far from Reform UK describes Malcolm Offord as “plain old Malcolm from Greenock”.
He may indeed be “old” but his current wealthy status makes him anything but “plain Malcolm from Greenock”.
Words matter and the misrepresentation of a candidate also matters and there is not many “plain old people from Greenock” that one is to assume means ordinary people that can donated £150, 000 to the Tory party, be awarded a peerage by the Tory party , drive a pretty nice Jaguar car and have various business interests as a company Director.
That is anything but “plain” it is instead exceptionally fortunate “old Malcolm” .
Indeed online his registered interests were noted as:
“Lord Offord of Garvel (Malcolm Ian Offord), a Conservative-turned-Reform UK peer (as of Dec 2025), holds significant registered interests focused on finance and investment. Key interests include controlling shares in Cashmaster (Holdings) Ltd, Badenoch & Co (and related firms), investments in air monitoring and whisky, and various property holdings”.
Below is what was listed in the UK Parliament website for his registered interests:
Category 2: Shareholdings etc. (a)
- Cashmaster (Holdings) Ltd (manufactures intelligent cash counting machines)
- Badenoch Investments (family office and family investment company)
- Badenoch & Co Limited (family office and family investment company)
- Badenoch Partners Limited (family office and family investment company)
- Badenoch Advisors Limited (family office and family investment company)
- The Badenoch Trust (family charitable trust)
- Peleus Property Ltd (residential property fund)
Category 2: Shareholdings etc. (b)
- AirSensa Ltd (air pollution monitoring sensor)
- Putt Shack (leisure experience based around crazy golf)
- Borders Distillery Co Ltd (formerly Three Stills Co Ltd (whisky distillery))
- Alpha Whisky Ltd (whisky bottlers)
- The Silver Liqueur Company Limited
More really a case of ‘fortunate old privileged Malcolm formerly from Greenock many years ago’ but then Reform UK knows that when they campaign in Scotland , they then need to downplay the reality of the current privileged life as lived by old Malcolm Offord and so then hark back to his humble beginnings…….he has now left behind.
Indeed since leaving his humble beginnings he chose careers with banks , investment companies and he is still the founder and chair of Edinburgh-based private equity company, Badenoch and Co.
He failed to gain a seat as a Tory MSP in 2021 but after donating thousands to the Tory party he was made a life Peer and in his maiden speech Offord expressed support for the UK’s Net Zero objectives arguing that the UK could demonstrate global leadership on climate change.
Offord was then appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (against) Scotland by Boris Johnson , so an unelected Tory Peer got to Lord it over our elected Scottish government. (He was also reappointed to this role by Liz Truss & Rishi Sunak). In 2023 he was also appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business and Trade, in addition to his role as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Scotland Office.
Now Offord is the so called ‘leader’ of Reform UK in Scotland, still as yet unelected , but then democracy be damned and disrespected as UK politics rides roughshod over democracy. (as democracy is something that is for sale in UK politics to those UK political parties- real and pretend ones- who manage to have the most wealthiest donors and also the biggest donations).
I would love Reform UK to fall flat in May just to show them that Scotland’s voters cannot be bought (same goes for other parties too where it was recently declared that Labour had spent £80k on promoting Anas Sarwar on social media ahead of the May election).
However ultimately the decision lies with us the voters, so do hope that finally , for some voters , “now is the time” that they realise it is best for them and their families that they vote for a Scottish party and not vote (again) for a party whose HQ is based elsewhere within the UK.
Failure to do so will reap huge detrimental consequences in the years to come for all of us within Scotland.
They were all warned about all of the pitfalls and guaranteed bad experience that would unfold in them voting NO to Scottish independence and also some voting LEAVE in the EU Referendum.
Now they have experienced the pitfalls, endured the instability and also the suffering since both 2014 and 2016.
But will they now finally heed these predicted future warnings and signs ?
Let’s wait and see, part of me is not hopeful, solely based on the past votes from some here within Scotland……….how far in the gutter are some people in Scotland willing to descend before they finally say enough is enough.
Liz S
Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotland
Click on the above.
Talking-up Scotland 
”Plain old , Malcolm ” has proved his democratic principles time and again in his failure to get enough suckers to elect him to ANY parliament .
In the Holyrood election he will , undoubtedly , be top of the List for Reform as ”Plain old Malcolm” knows he won’t get elected by the voters , again !
LikeLike
Online it was stated that:
“The problem is, the letter has been sent out by the Reform party itself, without any form of party branding, and Patricia Clegg , the concerned neighbour, doesn’t actually exist“.
“That’s illegal“.
Read this online:
“Update: Reform have admitted sending the letter, but are claiming there was a “printing error” resulting in the lack of any Reform party identification”
“The printer has claimed that they accidentally cropped out the reform logo (as per the Manchester evening news). Whether it was a genuine mistake, or the printer decided it didn’t wish to lose a lucrative contract is anyone’s guess”.
Well I am very very cynical, given who this involves, and had this been an incident that had not been highlighted as a piece of rogue correspondence then it would have stood as if genuine.
(Reminds me of the Labour in Scotland campaign literature for this year’s Scottish elections , where “Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar gave an “unequivocal apology” after a party leaflet was delivered to homes with a made-up quote from a maternity campaigner” Sarwar said “It shouldn’t have happened. A mistake was made by a member of the team”. The campaigner who was falsely quoted asked a fair question: if they have written that out of nowhere, what else have they lied about?”……………surely then the same goes for Reform UK ?).
Also how many people in that area of Gorton and Denton, upon receiving this actual campaign literature disguised as being a real letter via a “concerned neighbour” , are now perhaps still oblivious to the truth or in fact they now actually believe it was indeed just a ‘printing error‘.
Just as when, in January 2026, it was reported there had been a ‘inadvertent error’ made by Nigel Farage:
“Farage inadvertently breached MPs’ rules, says watchdog”
“Reform UK leader Nigel Farage breached MPs’ rules 17 times by failing to register financial interests totalling £384,000 within the 28-day limit, the parliamentary commissioner for standards has ruled”
How and why ?
Well first of all “Farage said he was “sincerely sorry” for the rule breaches adding that there had been “no malicious intent”.
“He also said he had been “extremely let down by a very senior member of staff”.
“During a meeting with the commissioner on 11 December 2025, Farage said he had been “a little bit shocked” by the “gross administrative error”.
“Following his investigation, the commissioner could decide whether to close the case or recommend a sanction for the MP”
“In his report, he said his decision to close the case was “finely balanced” particularly given the high value of some of the interests”.
“However, he said he was satisfied that the breaches had been inadvertent and that he would not be referring the case to the Committee on Standards”.
“Rule five of the parliamentary code of conduct states that new MPs should register all their financial interests received in the 12 months before their election and that MPs “must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days”.
“Farage missed the deadline 17 times, with delays spanning from four days to as long as 120 days”
“The highest payment registered was £91,200 from gold dealer Direct Bullion, for whom he (Farage) works as a brand ambassador.
Farage a so called ‘man of the people’ , but what people ?
Not the working man that’s for sure.
So let’s see where this latest political scandal i.e. the supposed “concerned neighbour” letter goes with Reform UK and see if that is also dismissed and so determined to be yet another “inadvertent mistake” by Reform UK…………or the scapegoat i.e. the Printers.
So many supposed mistakes and oversights , that coincidentally seem to benefit Reform UK politically , that all go unpunished, that one then wonders how the Hell Reform UK would ever be considered as competent or be trusted at any political level.
The new Reform UK leader (unelected) in Wales, Dan Thomas, was appointed by Farage as was Malcolm Offord (Dan Thomas, like Malcolm Offord in Scotland, is yet another ex Tory, as he, Thomas, was a Tory Councillor from a London Borough Council).
Indeed how on earth could Reform UK potentially be seen as in any way suitable as the next UK government………they are really just both the current Labour party and the Johnson/Truss Tory party on steroids.
Liz S
LikeLiked by 2 people
At the same time as inadvertently cropping Nigel’s limited company logo, did the same printer inadvertently invent concerned neighbour Patricia Clegg? Hmmm…
John Lawson
LikeLiked by 2 people
“did the same printer inadvertently invent concerned neighbour Patricia Clegg”?
Spot on John Lawson
Liz S
LikeLiked by 1 person
I, and others, in the Highlands have had many leaflets, from the Tories, where there NO mention that it was a ” Conservative” party leaflet. I expect many similar in the near future. (Sic Reform) [I typed “sic”, for “Reform” computer said “Sick. Can’t disagree with some Spellchecks, occasionally]
LikeLiked by 1 person
The other rogue party, that is the Labour party, who previously said they wanted to implement ‘change” and then recently they ‘changed’ that slogan in saying that they now want to “reset’ the UK State , well Labour have now been more widely exposed as being no better than those whom they always thought that they were, as a party, far better than.
They are not.
For example.
Remember Mandelson opposition to Jeremy Corbyn
Mendelson once said that he was working “every single day” to bring to an end his , Corbyn’s, leadership.
Of course now that we all know (more of) what we now know about Mandelson and also the Labour party under a Keir Starmer leadership.
We can then ask why did he want to do this ?
As Corbyn was then only the leader of the Labour party but he was never the UK PM.
So who really has caused all of the problems within the UK other than previous various Tory UK PM’s and Tory governments and now also currently a Labour PM and both past and new Labour governments.
So what the Hell did Corbyn do that Mandelson felt was so bad that he had to bring him down.
Well now we know more about Mandelson , we surely all realise that it was essential for him that he had the kind of Labour leader in charge that would overlook his ‘external’ interests (past and present) and so then stupidly choose to appoint him, Mandelson, to a position that he was not in any way deserving of or fit to hold.
His actual quote was “I work every single day to bring forward the end of [Corbyn’s] tenure in office. Every day I try to do something to rescue the Labour Party from his leadership.”
Ironic then that it is now Mandelson who may “bring forward the end of Starmer’s tenure in office” and that the UK State may then finally be “rescued from his Labour party leadership”.
Though I suspect that any new Labour leader will fall into the category of the ‘new boss (being the) same as the old boss’.
Also remember it is not just Keir Starmer who should take all of the blame for the ongoing Labour fiasco’s, the various Labour party scandals and the various catastrophes associated with this new Labour UK government,.
As let’s not forget how the majority of the newly elected Labour MP’s in Scotland in 2024 have all helped pass every cruel bill and bad policy that targets the old, the most vulnerable, the poor and also they have all publicly supported Starmer’s bad decisions and his cruel policies.
Funny is it not , that it was not Corbyn who got their UK State into the mess that it is now in, what with various Tory and now Labour UK governments , but then what we had at the time of Corbyn’s leadership of Labour was a politically compromised UK State media who did their bit for all of the greedy and self serving careerists that infest UK politics, in them all promoting the anti semitic smear that was attributed to Corbyn leading the Labour party.
We also now see the supposed rise of Reform UK and yet that has nothing to do with Jeremy Corbyn but everything to do with the Tory party and the Labour party.
The UK State is indeed a rogue State……but until certain voters within Scotland finally wake up to that fact and then actually care ,I fear that everything will just stay the same.
As in still be S**** for us in Scotland as a part of their rogue UK State !
Liz S
LikeLiked by 3 people