General Election 2024: Politicians ‘not professional enough to be clowns’ as performers and punters weigh up votes in election circus
Even the world of escapism can’t escape politics.
Decisions made on the green benches of parliament could be life or death for the circus. Like many businesses, it is walking the wire between rising costs and cash-strapped audiences.
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As part of our Bench Across Britain series we visited a circus tent in south Leicestershire where punters try to forget the world for an hour or so – only to be confronted by Sky News, asking them about the general election.
First, we spoke to the performers: high wire walker Ksenia Archer literally dropped in on our bench while still attached to her safety harness.
“Our costs have gone up miles high,” she said.
“Unfortunately, our customers’ costs have gone up as well. We’ve not been able to increase ticket prices – they have had to go down, to ensure we get any customers at all.”
She added: “The circus was invented in England – it’s over 250 years old. But unless we get support we will be slowly dying out.”
High wire walker Ksenia Archer says the circus’ ‘costs have gone up miles high’
At Circus Cortex, the performers thrill and petrify, suspended from ropes, spinning in the air, balancing on precarious structures – but what scares them is empty seats.
The industry has campaigned for VAT to be reduced to 5% on ticket prices, as happens in some other European countries, and as happened briefly in the wake of COVID-19.
Paul Archer, circus director, said: “Politicians do not understand the difficulties we have: bringing performers into the UK [means] we have increased visa costs; we have difficulties with transport costs going up. The circus industry needs help.”
As for the performers, behind the masks and grease paint they have the same mundane struggles as everyone else.
In the dressing room, dancer Rebecca Peters said she is watching the pennies. “Rising prices, shopping and stuff, travelling to London for auditions, it’s just got very expensive,” she said.
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Dancer Rebecca Peters agreed the cost of living is biting for performers
The Circus Cortex tent sits in a field in south Leicestershire, one of the Conservatives’ top 40 safest seats, where in a recent poll the Tories led Labour by eight points – but that was just before right-wing showman Nigel Farage entered the arena.
Check which party could win in your constituency
Even though he is standing in Clacton, the Brexit ringmaster could take chunks out of the Tory vote. Several audience members at the circus seemed to have lost faith in the larger parties.
“I’m literally done with the current government, including Labour,” said HGV driver Denzil Furtado. “I don’t think they are offering something substantial.
“I’m really convinced by the recent lead of Nigel Farage. He has the charisma of being a prime minister actually.”
His partner, software developer Priya Fernandes, disagreed: “We should give the current government one more chance to prove what they are,” she said.
“Inflation is coming down right now – I think they deserve a second chance.”
People, like Denzil Furtado and Priya Fernandes, are split on who to back in this year’s election
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Others in the audience said they are not going to vote – even though there are things they want such as tackling the cost of living or lowering taxes, or more support for single mothers, or reducing immigration or improving public services.
But they just don’t see their vote making a difference. Some are making an unenthusiastic choice.
Programme manager Margarita Grigorian said: “I will only go with Labour because I don’t want to go with the Conservatives – and the other parties are too little and too weak.”
Keir Starmer recently told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby “I’m not running a circus”, but the sense in south Leicestershire is that they want a show – a strongman, something daring, and eye-catching.
Asked who the biggest clown was in this election, Mr Archer replied: “They are not professional enough to be clowns.
“You have to understand humour and timing – they haven’t got any of it, have they?”
With days left until polling day, we are entering the finale, and the audience seems bemused – still trying to work out what it all means.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is seeking permission from the court to drop an appeal against prediction market Kalshi. The move could allow the platform to offer political event contracts to users without contest.
In a May 5 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lawyers for the CFTC filed an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal, suggesting an agreement with Kalshi. The motion, subject to approval by the court, could end the CFTC’s appeal against a federal court ruling that the financial regulator could not bar Kalshi from listing political event contracts, i.e., bets on elections.
Kalshi stipulated in a joint filing that the company would “bear its own costs, court fees and attorney fees incurred” if the court granted the CFTC’s motion to dismiss. The platform said that “election markets are here to stay” in a May 6 X post following the filing.
The betting platform initially filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023 in response to the regulator ordering Kalshi to stop offering political event contracts. The company won in the lower court, prompting the appeal by the CFTC in September 2024.
Motion to drop the appeal after the change in administration?
The case was handled mainly before the US election and the appointment of acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham under President Donald Trump. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, nominated by former President Joe Biden, reportedly echoed Kalshi’s sentiment in February, claiming that election prediction markets were “here to stay.”
Related: Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users
Launched in 2021, Kalshi became popular among many crypto users in part due to bets related to the 2024 US election. Though the CFTC argued in its appeal that betting on the elections could result in “spectacular manipulation” of markets and harm to the public interest, the regulator under Pham and Trump appeared to have reversed its position with the motion to dismiss.
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Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.
The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.
Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet.
Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.
NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk
The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).
Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.
NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.
The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.
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Through Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.
The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.
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New Hampshire became the first US state to allow its government to invest in crypto currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), after Governor Kelly Ayotte signed a bill passed by the legislature into law.
In a May 6 notice, Ayotte announced on social media that New Hampshire would be permitted to “invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals” through a bill passed in the state Senate and House of Representatives. House Bill 302, introduced in New Hampshire in January, will allow the state’s treasury to use funds to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion, eliminating many tokens and memecoins.
“The Live Free or Die state is leading the way in forging the future of commerce and digital assets,” said New Hampshire Republicans in a May 6 X post.
With the signing of the bill into law, New Hampshire becomes the first of several US states considering passing legislation to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, including an initiative with the federal government. A similar bill in Arizona passed the state’s House in April but was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs on May 2, and Florida’s government withdrew two crypto reserve bills from consideration on May 3.
Related: Bitcoin’s role as a reserve asset gains traction in US as states adopt
New Hampshire’s crypto plans to precede the US government’s?
The efforts to create crypto reserves in different US states come as US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers propose similar policies at the federal level. Trump signed an executive order in March to establish a “Digital Asset Stockpile” and a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who sponsored the Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act, proposed that the US government could hold more than 1 million BTC through civil and criminal forfeiture seizures. The bill is currently being considered by members of the US Senate Banking Committee.
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