Notes from my Bunker - July Edition

Iran ended the ceasefire by firing on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz this week. The United States responded by making at least 90 strikes on targets in the south of Iran. A ship off the coast of Oman caught fire after being struck by some sort of projectile last Monday. According to Axios at least two missiles were fired at ships in the Strait at the same time. Whilst the two oil tankers were damaged there were no casualties. It is unclear if the two reports overlap. The attacks were carried out as Iran and the United States are still in peace talks and whilst the extended funeral of the late Ayatollah is ongoing. His son Mojtabab Khamenei has remained out of sight during these proceedings.

According to the BBC traffic through the Strait responded to the attacks by a sharp reduction in ships making their way through. Just 23 ships made the journey on the Wednesday, half the number of ships that were traversing the Strait before the attacks took place. This is in comparison to the usual 138 ships daily prior to the Iran war. The peace talks seem to still be stalled with the major sticking point of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. According to Iranian officials the attacks on the ships in the Strait were carried out by Iranian hardliners in an attempt to derail the peace talks. The talks resumed this Saturday with officials from both sides, including Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff, making their way to Oman. Iran has however accused the United States of violating Paragraph 9 in the Memorandum of Understand between the two countries by striking at numerous targets in Iran, after President Trump declared that the ceasefire was over after the Iranian attacks on the tankers. Iran retaliated to the US strikes with a number of attacks on US targets in the Middle East. Iran said that the US attacks had killed 17 and injured over 100 people. The Oil markets reacted to the strikes in the Strait of Hormuz with sharp increases. Brent Crude rose to over $80 a barrel, which, according to the Guardian is the sharpest increase since the beginning of the cease fire.

Meanwhile President Trump has said on Social Media that if Iran makes an attempt on his life, the United States will ‘decimate and destroy’ Iran in response. He declared in a post on Truth Social, on Saturday 11th July that a 1000 missiles were locked and loaded ready to fire at Iran if they went through with their threat, and that more would follow. Israeli intelligence had uncovered a specific plot to assassinate Trump, according to CNN, and had shared this with the US administration. This comes on the back of US gathered intelligence which also suggested that there would be an attempt. Trump appears to be at the top of a list of people Iran want to take out. There are additional officials that are likely to also be targeted by Iran. Some view the Israeli reports with scepticism.

The shocking news of Ann Widdecombe’s untimely death at the hands of a murderer hit the headlines on 10th of July. A 26 year old white male was arrested, questioned and released after police established that he was not connected to the crime. A second white male aged 28 was arrested on Saturday in South Yorkshire. CCTV footage of the area has not been released following careful consideration. Police believe that Ann’s murder is not related to terrorism or a political motive but could also not confirm whether the murder was connected to a burglary or not. Investigations are ongoing and they have estimated that she was attacked around 12:30pm on Wednesday, which means she had been dead for around 24 hours at the point when she was found. Ann Widdecombe’s text messages to and from a media contact show that she failed to attend a zoom meeting around midday on Wednesday.

People across the political spectrum have expressed their shock about her death and paid tribute to her unrelenting dedication to British politics, irrespective of whether they agreed with her or not. She will be missed by many. Her relatives are being supported by the police in what must an incredibly distressing time. I remember attending a few Brexit Party meetings prior to the 2019 election. Ann Widdecombe did a session on how to campaign, addressing all the prospective parliamentary candidates. She said that all press is good press even if it is less than favourable. She was also a great advocate of the use of loud speakers during campaigning. I cannot imagine how she must have felt facing her attacker that Wednesday. Ann was no wallflower, being well known and admired for her outspokenness and grit. One can imagine that she may have tried to reason with and talk her assailant down from committing this most heinous of crimes.

Nigel Farage has been the subject of numerous hit pieces in relation to his receipt of $5,000,000 from the Crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne before he stood for the 2024 election. Farage has stated that the payment was received to provide him with adequate protection as this is not provided for him by the State. Farage did not declare the gift, which he says was unconditional and was not subject to Parliamentary declaration regulations due to it having been made before he announced he would be standing for a seat in the election. The payment was reported to the National Crime Agency by bankers who were concerned that it might have been part of a money laundering operation. Chakrit Sakunkrit, Harborne’s adopted Thai name, owns the Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary on Koh Samui and has been known to host large gatherings at the retreat. Farage attended an event there in 2022. Harborne uses his two names interchangeably on business filings. He has massive holdings in Bitcoin and Ethereum, owns part of the Cryptocurrency blockchain enabled platform called Tether, which issues the Tether stablecoin and was the largest individual investor in the Defence company Qinetiq. He is, according to the Guardian, an intensely private man. Born in 1962, he is a Cambridge graduate and received his MBA from INSEAD. He worked for McKinsey and Co. and then moved to working in Asia. He has worked at CEO level in and founded a number of companies, venturing in to aviation and AI. Harborne made two separate payments of £3,000,000 in 2019 to the Brexit Party as they prepared for the forecast election later that year. Initially he had backed the Conservative Party by making a number of smaller donations. It is clear from the change in his donation patterns, that he backs Farage’s political career as leader of first the Brexit Party and now Reform. As Harborne is a self-made man in Cryptocurrency it is difficult to see how dealing in crypto in itself might trigger bankers to report the £5 million no-strings-attached donation as possible money laundering, unless they know something about Harborne that we don’t.

In 2023 Harborne brought a case against the Wall Street Journal. They reported that Tether and Bitfinex were turned down by Signature Bank for accounts, after suggestions that they ‘used falsified documents, “shadowy intermediaries,” and shell companies to open bank accounts around the world’. The WSJ then suggested that Harborne and his aviation company AML Global were introduced to Signature Bank under his Thai name without disclosing that he was an investor in Tether. They also claimed that his name ‘Harborne’ appeared on a list of people who “were trying to evade anti-money laundering controls.”. Harborne sued for defamation as the implication was that he was part of a larger scheme designed to ‘defraud banks’. The Journal failed to issue a full retraction of the article, but removed the last five paragraphs on its own website. However the full article can still be found on other sites.

Farage is also plagued by his acceptance of undeclared benefits from the convicted aristocrat George Cottrell. Cottrell was found guilty of felony wire fraud in the United States in 2017. Cottrell has been a senior adviser, campaigner and fundraiser for Nigel Farage. According to the Sunday Times Cottrell provided Security and Social Media Staff in support of Farage the year before he became a Member of Parliament. Politicians must declare finances and registrable benefits for the year before they become an MP. Nigel confronted Sky News as he arrived at an airport on the 7th July about their harrassment of his family. Nigel has further courted controversy by announcing that he was stepping down as MP for Clacton to trigger a by-election, in which he would then stand. The reasoning behind this move is that Farage hopes the electorate in Clacton will decide once and for all whether they believe that he has done anything wrong. All major parties announced within hours that they would not field candidates in what they considered to be a falsely triggered by-election. It looks likely that the most well known competition Farage will face could be from Count Binface.

There are a number of major sporting events going on simultaneously providing us with a little bit of light relief from the more serious news stories. The World Cup football hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada went to quarter-finals this weekend with England playing Norway. The temperature and humidity in Miami was visibly slowing play down. By the end of the 90 minutes the score was 1-1. Thankfully Jude Bellingham scored a second goal just minutes in to extra time. England managed to hold Norway off for the rest of the match. England will be playing Argentina in the semi-final at 8pm next Wednesday. Haaland, who had been expected to present a real problem for England, shoved Elliot Anderson to the ground and as a result of VAR analysis, lost Norway a second goal.

The Wimbledon Tournament at the All England Tennis Club has raced through rounds seeing many exceptional players being knocked out, including Great Britain’s wildcard Arthur Fery, who lost in the Semi Final to the German Alexander Zverev. He was only the second wildcard to ever reach the Semi Finals of the Men’s competition, second to Goran Ivanisevic. Saturday 11th July saw Czechs Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova faced each other in the Ladies final under the watchful eye of Catherine the Princess of Wales, Patron of the Tennis Club. The first set was won decidedly 6-2 by Noskova. It looked like Noskova was going to make quick business of the second set with 5-2 at just over 1 hour in to the match, but Muchova fought back to win the set 7-5, taking the match to a third set. There was a lot of support for the older Muchova. Noskova dominated the first three games of the third set. Muchova was 2 games down to Noskova’s 5 and tension was building on Centre court. Each point was hard earned. On the sixth championship point Linda Noskova finally closed the set with 6 games to 3, winning the Ladies women’s singles Championship at Wimbledon 2026. Her mother had died just two years before and there were plenty of tears in celebration as she climbed up in to her team’s box to embrace her father and members of her team.

The Men’s Wimbledon Final on 12th July saw Alexander Zverev (29) face the Italian Jannik Sinner (24). Zverev is number 2 seed at Wimbledon to Sinner’s number 1 ranking. Sinner started out his sporting career as a champion skiier, having grown up in the Tyrol, German speaking region of northern Italy. He claimed the Championship for the Giant Slalom in his class aged 8 years old. By the age of 13 he had swapped skiing for tennis. Zverev has courted controversy over not one but two allegations of physical abuse of two past girlfriends - Olga Sharypova and Brenda Patea. The second allegation made by Patea, the mother of his daughter, led to an out of court settlement after initiation of a criminal court case against him.

On the court at Wimbledon Zverev won the coin toss but opted to receive. Sinner was not looking like he was going to readily drop his serve, staying 1 game ahead of Zverev throughout the first set. At 5-4 to Sinner Zverev pulled things back with some impressive volleys and an ace. The volleys between Zverev and Sinner were intense. The speed of first serve was well over 130 miles per hour for both players, sometimes going over 140 mph. The first set went to a seven point tie break and Zverev defied the odds to win 9 points to 7. In the second set Zverev got the advantage over Sinner early on bringing it to 3-2, before a break where he injected himself with some insulin to manage his type one diabetes. The second set went again to a tie break. Sinner was up 4-1. The crowd was going crazy in support of the defending champion. Sinner defended the set winning by 7-2. Zverev was seen taking on glucose in a break early in the third set trying to keep on top of his blood sugar levels, but Sinner went on to win the third set decidedly 6 games to 3. Zverev edged forward in the fourth set, often neutralising any advantage Sinner managed to gain, until Sinner edged to 5-3 at 3 hours 35 minutes. This was the turning point in the match. Sinner crushed Zverev 6-4 in the final and fourth set. What a fantastic championship!