The Editor's Desk - Fri 12 Dec 2025: Reform UK upends the polls – and why the establishment can’t see it

Reform UK’s surge exposes how establishment politics and media misread the world. I unpack the UK shock, South Africa’s parallels, and key portfolio shifts.PS. You can book tickets for the inaugural NdB Liberty Indaba by clicking here. And you can book tickets for the post BNC#8 golf day sponsored by Shyft, by clicking here..Don't miss out on future episodes of The Editor's Desk. Subscribe to BizNews Premium and get the podcast delivered to your inbox daily..Listen here.Read the full transcript of The Editor's Desk podcast below.Hello and welcome, I’m Alec Hogg. You’ve read the headlines on BizNews.com, watched the interviews on BizNews TV and caught up with BizNews Radio. Now let’s talk about what the latest developments mean for your money.This is the Editor’s Desk, exclusive analysis for BizNews Premium members. Today is Friday, 12 December — just 13 days to Christmas. Glad to have you with me.We’ve just wrapped our last BizNews Briefing for eNCA, which went out last night, but we’ll continue with Daybreak next week as well as the Editor’s Desk. From the 19th, I’ll be taking some leave, so consider this fair warning. I hope you’ll continue joining us on BizNews Radio, BizNews TV and, of course, on the website, where the team has put together some excellent highlights of the year.A good place to start today is the UK, where two big political stories are worth unpacking. The Economist reports that Reform UK is now topping the polls — and, more importantly, has a 75% chance of winning the most seats if an election were held today. If you’re going to trust anyone’s research, you’d trust The Economist’s.Some UK political insiders are sceptical. They point to the last election, when Reform only won five of 650 seats. And right on cue, Theresa May — prime minister from 2016 to 2019 — wrote in Bloomberg that the panic over Reform UK is misplaced. But the deeper data says otherwise. Researchers Jane Green of Oxford and Marta Miori of Manchester analysed British Election Study data and concluded Reform is still rising. Almost 40% of remaining Conservative voters would switch to them today.Nigel Farage, despite his missteps, is onto something big. You’ll recall from our BizNews Conference in Hermanus last year that Arron Banks, one of Farage’s closest allies, gave us extraordinary insight into the movement’s strength. Many may have wondered at the time what he really knew. Well, the horse he backed — Reform UK — is running very well.It’s not only a UK story. The Economist’s lead analysis today is on Europe’s populist right, which continues to gather momentum. The question: can anyone stop them?Politics swings like a pendulum, and this swing is significant. What interests me most, as an entrepreneur-editor, is how this moment exposes the workings of establishment media. I’ve seen it firsthand: how institutions scratch each other’s backs, and how stepping outside the establishment line gets you shut out.Early in my career at The Citizen, you didn’t criticise the National Party — the paper was part of the Perskor group, which backed the Nats. Then, at the Rand Daily Mail, anything supporting the government was unlikely to get published. No one told you the rules; you simply absorbed them. The same dynamic exists today in the UK, the US and South Africa.That’s why BizNews has always tried to give everyone a say. I don’t want politicians or executives to like me; I want them to respect us. Many media organisations are embraced by one side and despised by the other. That’s never been my ambition.The legacy media ecosystem still broadly aligns with establishment political parties — Democrats in the US, the ANC in SA, Labour or the Conservatives in the UK — because of the idealism built into universities and journalism schools. But that monopoly no longer holds. Individuals like Mike Sharman, with “State of the Nation”, can build an audience without a broadcast licence. The tollgate to media is open — and that threatens legacy incumbents.So I don’t feel too bad about not being invited to Davos this year, despite still getting the side-event invites. Clearly I’ve annoyed someone powerful. It is what it is. We’ll rely on excellent reporting from The Economist, Bloomberg and the FT — our partners — and save about R150,000 by not sending me. Perhaps that’s a better investment.On the investment front, one story stands out: the fallout from Mr Price’s German deal. The share dropped 13% on Wednesday and another 4% yesterday. Only two public critics have surfaced so far: Piet Viljoen, who spoke to me in the Director’s Cut, and Sy Jacobs of 361, who posted a strongly worded open letter to chairman Nigel Payne on X. We’ve reached out to Sy for an interview; he prefers to wait for the board’s response. Watch for that next week.It’s fascinating — where are the big asset managers? Why so silent? I’ll leave that question with you.Looking ahead, on Tuesday we release our BizNews Portfolio update — the final one of the year. Changes are coming. Out goes gold. The BIS warns gold is in bubble territory. When Peter Major and I dug deeper, the key insight was this: historically, gold trades at about 20 times the oil price. Today it’s at 70 times. Upside is limited; downside is not. So gold exits the Ricardo portfolios.We are also removing the EC10 crypto bundle. Bitcoin belongs in the portfolio, yes — but not bundled with a bunch of “shitcoins”, as the insiders say. The Bitcoin ETF remains in the US portfolio.We’re adding two new South African stocks and one US “Buffett mystery stock”. Buffett obtained special dispensation to buy it quietly for three quarters, which tells you how much conviction he has. It’s in an industry he knows exceptionally well.That’s coming next week — I look forward to sharing it with you. And as Christmas approaches, if you have clever gift ideas, I’m all ears. My wife’s birthday is on 28 December, so it’s a double-gift challenge every year, and after many years together, it doesn’t get easier.Thank you for being with me on the Editor’s Desk. Keep an eye on the Premium newsletter for links to our latest content. Thanks for trusting us with your time.I’m Alec Hogg. Until Monday — cheerio.

The Editor's Desk - Fri 12 Dec 2025: Reform UK upends the polls – and why the establishment can’t see it

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