Meme - Alex Armstrong @alexharmstrong: "It is insane that this man has been appointed as the Governments top lawyer. He has spent an entire career trying to undermine the UK, smear our past and criticise our sovereignty. I’m beginning to wonder if this whole cabinet has been devised as some sort of foreign coup!?"
"Lord Hermer 'advised Caribbean nations on slavery reparations'. Attorney General said to have helped human rights lawyers to prepare legal case for payments from Britain"
Anger over shameless proposals by left-wing think tank which would allow Labour to 'rig' election by easing ID law and allowing millions of foreign nationals to vote - "Proposals made by a left-wing think tank which would allow Labour to ‘rig’ the next election by meddling with voting laws were last night described as ‘deeply concerning’. Sir Keir Starmer’s government is being recommended to allow millions of foreign nationals to vote and abolish measures to prevent voter fraud. Ministers are being urged to consider plans to overhaul the way elections are held by scrapping voter ID laws and give five million foreign nationals the right to vote in UK elections. It has led to accusations that the party could try to lock in a Labour majority by removing obstacles designed to tackle voter fraud."
Thread by @sam_bidwell on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Last July, four independent MPs were elected in heavily-Muslim seats. They capitalised on Muslim frustration with the Labour Party's position on Gaza. Their campaigns focused primarily on winning Muslim votes. But what have they been up to since the General Election? A short 🧵
Adnan Hussain was elected in Blackburn - a seat held by the Labour Party since 1945. The constituency is 47% Muslim. Hussain won with a narrow majority of 132 seats - the Muslim vote was split between Hussain and a candidate representing George Galloway's Workers Party GB. Hussain has spoken twenty-five times in Parliament since he was elected. Eleven of his interventions have focused on Israel or Gaza. He has campaigned for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, and the immediate cessation of all arms sales to Israel. His Twitter feed tells a similar story. Hussain posts regularly about Israel and Gaza. He has also argued that Muslims make an outsized contribution to the UK. The figure cited below suggests Muslims generate 2.5% of the UK's GDP despite making up 6% of the population.
Shockat Adam was elected in Leicester South, a seat held by the Labour Party since 1987. Leicester South is 35% Muslim. Adam won with a narrow majority of just 979 votes - beating Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth in an upset victory. Adam has spoken seventy-six times in Parliament since he was elected. Eighteen of his interventions have focused on Israel or Gaza. Adam has also been vocal on a number of other foreign conflicts, including the ongoing civil war in Sudan and the recent coup in Bangladesh. In October, he argued that it should be compulsory for children to learn about race, empire, and slavery. In December, he complained that Bangladeshi migrants could not find work because of their poor English skills, claiming that this was "affecting their mental health". In January, he denied the idea that there was any link between "immigration, race or culture" and the predominantly-Pakistani grooming gangs which have terrorised British towns over the past few decades. He claimed that highlighting such a link "demonised a community". In the same month, he argued that drawing a link between Muslims and child sexual exploitation was an example of "Islamophobia". This is despite the fact that the vast majority of those involved in grooming gang cases are, in fact, Muslim men. Later in the same month, he chastised the Government for "focusing solely" on Islamist terrorism, arguing that this left us "blindsided to real threats" from elsewhere. That's despite the fact that Islamist terrorism constitutes three-quarters of the MI5 anti-terror caseload.
Ayoub Khan was elected in Birmingham Perry Barr, a seat held by the Labour Party since 1974. Birmingham Perry Barr is 43% Muslim. Adam won with a narrow majority of just 507 votes, beating Khalid Mahmood, one of the Labour Party's most prominent Muslim MPs. Khan has spoken thirty-three times in Parliament since he was elected. Fifteen of his interventions have focused on Gaza, Kashmir, or Bangladesh. He has repeatedly argued that Britain ought to take a more assertive role in all of these conflicts. In October, he sought to downplay the threat of intimidation at pro-Palestine protests on university campuses, instead encouraging the Government to focus more resources on an apparent rise in "Islamophobic hate". He has argued that fears about "two-tier justice in favour of minorities" are "disingenuous". That's despite the fact that the Sentencing Council's recently-overturned guidelines would have compelled judges to give lighter sentences to ethnic and religious minorities.
Iqbal Mohamed was elected in Dewsbury & Batley, a new seat previously split between Labour and the Conservatives. Dewsbury & Batley is 44% Muslim. Iqbal won with a relatively large majority, of 6,934 votes. His campaigned focused primarily on the issue of Israel's war in Gaza. Mohamed has spoken fifty-eight times in Parliament since he was elected. Fifteen of his interventions have focused on Israel, Gaza, or Kashmir. Like his colleagues, Mohamed has pressured the Government to take a more hard-line stance against Israel. Infamously, back in December, he defended the value of cousin marriage in a Parliamentary debate. He described cousin marriage as "very positive overall; as something that helps to build family bonds and puts families on a more secure financial foothold." In January, he attacked the Government's anti-extremism scheme, Prevent, arguing that it "unfairly associated certain ethnic minorities and religious groups with extremism." That's despite the fact that three-quarters of MI5's anti-terror caseload concerns Islamist terror.
Similar candidates came close in a number of other Labour-held seats. Which might be why a number of Labour MPs are now exhibiting similar behaviour - focusing obsessively on Gaza and advocating for the construction of a new airport in Pakistan's Mirpur district. In Tahir Ali's seat, two such candidates split the opposition vote, allowing the Labour MP to hold on by 5,656 votes. But while Ali has been silent on Birmingham's ongoing bin strike, he has called for the introduction of laws to criminalise criticism of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Gaza obsession is a symptom of a bigger problem - thanks to decades of mass migration, millions of people in Britain have radically different priorities and interests. A number of MPs are now focused on obscure issues which bear little relevance to the majority of Britons. The Labour Party is now explicitly competing with sectarian independents for the support of particular ethnic and religious communities. In this May's local elections, a number of seats in Lancashire will be fought on this basis - as I set out in my 2025 local elections guide. This has deeply concerning implications for the future of our politics. In diverse democracies, politics can descend quickly into a zero-sum competition for power and resources. This leads to social fragmentation, foreign interference - and violence. This trend shows no sign of slowing. People like Birmingham's Akhmed Yakoob are emerging as prominent figures in the British Muslim community. Yakoob intends to challenge Birmingham's Labour-led council next year, and is likely to draw his support primarily from Muslim voters. This problem isn't going away. It's a feature of demographic change. Muslim voters have found a distinct voice, and have begun to organise themselves against the British establishment. It's time for our country to wake up - and address the underlying causes of this trend."
Meme - Chris Bryant @RhonddaBryant (2017): "Yesterday I wrote to the Prime Minister asking her to ban Donald Trump from entering the United Kingdom on account of his support for far-right groups in this country."
BBC Politics @BBCPolitics: ""It's shocking that we have Labour MPs who other countries will not allow through" Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says countries must be able to "control their borders" after two Labour MPs were denied entry to Israel #BBCLauraK"
Chris Bryant @RhonddaBryant (2025): "I think it's more shocking that a putative leader of our country should choose to applaud another country detaining and deporting British MPs rather than stand by the UK's elected representatives. What price free speech? What price democracy?"
Martin Daubney 🇬🇧 on X - "THE FINAL BETRAYAL OF THE FALLEN Yesterday, Labour gave £120million for the war in Sudan Today, we learn they're CANCELLING a pledge to pay for the travel of the last surviving WWII veterans to Normandy They MUST change tack on this! We MUST put our war heroes first!"
Paul Embery on X - ""Paintings of Lord Nelson have been taken down under plans to make parliament’s artworks more diverse." Is there another country on Earth which sees its history and traditions so routinely trashed by its own elites?"
Lord Nelson paintings scrapped in Parliament diversity drive - "Images of William Pitt the Elder and George Canning, both former prime ministers, have been taken down, along with a print depicting the abolitionist William Wilberforce. Despite the aim of increasing the representation of women in Parliament, four images of Elizabeth I have been removed. These depict the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the monarch commissioning Sir Walter Raleigh to begin colonial expansion in the Americas... Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has also made changes to No 11, where portraits of David Lloyd George and Benjamin Disraeli, the former prime ministers, have been replaced with artworks commemorating lockdown."
Basil the Great on X - "🚨NEWS: It has been confirmed that the Labour Government have replaced pictures of British Heroes such as Lord Nelson with images of Labour figures including Yvette Cooper in parliament. I guess the only people who love this government are themselves."
We're still told that left wingers don't hate their countries
Labour’s education bill catastrophic for children, Birbalsingh warns - "A head teacher has attacked Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, as “blinded by a Marxist ideology” and says her planned reforms for schools risk destroying gains for poorer children. Katharine Birbalsingh, head of Michaela Community School in Wembley, northwest London, criticised legislation that would limit academy freedoms over pay, uniform, teacher recruitment and curriculum. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is progressing through parliament, would introduce the same pay scales across all state schools, ensure that all followed the national curriculum, make schools employ only qualified teachers or those working towards it and limit uniforms to three branded items... Addressing Phillipson in a letter published on X and in The Spectator, she wrote: “I am worried your time in office will destroy the huge gains made over the last decade and a half in helping disadvantaged children across England. “I don’t know if you are being ideologically blind and therefore ignoring the obvious negative impact of your decisions — or perhaps you just don’t understand the harm your changes will cause. I am hoping it is the latter and I am writing to offer my advice and help so that you might see that the road you are taking will have catastrophic consequences for the poor in this country.” Birbalsingh criticised the education secretary for cancelling a grant for state school children learning Latin, which she said would allow them to “compete with kids from Eton”, adding: “What was the problem you were trying to solve?” Forcing all schools to follow the national curriculum, which is currently under review, would cost schools time and money and lead to standards dropping, she said... England’s schools have performed strongly in international rankings and Birbalsingh — whose school has the highest “value added” score, a measure of how much better a student does than their baseline data would predict, in the country — said: “You might want to leap at the chance to learn from the success of England’s schools, and then advise your colleagues on how to improve other public services. But instead, you are spending precious energy, political capital and parliamentary time on destroying the reforms that led to this success.” She criticised part of the bill that would stop schools from hiring teachers who are not qualified or working towards this, saying: “Why would you want to prevent schools from hiring graduates and then getting them trained through a variety of routes, when nationally we have a teacher shortage and a recruitment problem?” Restricting the number of branded uniform items would lead to less of a cohesive identity and more children being exposed to bad influences on the streets, Birbalsingh said. “You have spoken about the importance of children feeling as if they ‘belong’, for attendance to improve. For children to feel as if they belong, they must have something to belong to: their school must be allowed to brand their uniform items. Without this, a sense of team is impossible, and the most disadvantaged will suffer.” Branded school bags allow teachers to see from a distance whether children are safely crossing the road or behaving on buses and branded trousers and skirts make it harder for pupils to pull them down or roll them up for style reasons, “limiting opportunities for sexual exploitation”, Birbalsingh said."
Support for Labour drops to new poll low | The Spectator - "Support for Labour has dipped to a new low in more bad news for the reds. Data released today reveals that support for Sir Keir Starmer’s party has dropped to the lowest level yet in a More in Common survey, with Westminster voting intention for Starmer’s army at just 21 per cent – leaving the party of government in third place behind both Reform and the Conservatives. Oh dear… almost two-thirds of Brits rank the cost of living crisis as the most important issue facing the UK. A quarter and a fifth respectively say dealing with immigration levels and small boats are top priorities – with the latter increasingly concerning Britons. Concerns about climate change, however, barely make the top ten. How interesting…"
Clearly, they need to double down on net zero and can definitely not pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights even though the ECHR means they can't control migration. It's only oligarchy if the majority support the left wing agenda but politicians don't deliver
Lee Harris on X - "🚨I'm sorry, WHAT?! Rachel from Accounts has cut £17 million from a 'highly successful' maths support programme in our state schools. Reason: The fictional £22bn black hole. On the VERY SAME DAY she gives £17 million to Hamas-infested UNRWA. This is an absolute DISGRACE!
This is on top of taxing farmers out of existence to raise £500 million, while at the same time giving £500 million to foreign farmers. This is INSANE! Labour literally hate the British people."
Labour accused of hypocrisy over lavish spending by civil servants - "Labour has been accused of “hypocrisy” as lavish spending by civil servants on government credit cards has continued in the aftermath of the election. Analysis conducted by The Times has found that thousands of pounds has been spent on meals at private members’ clubs, crystal glasses used in Downton Abbey and English sparkling wine. In February 2023, Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, criticised the Tory government for similar spending, accusing them of a “scandalous catalogue of waste” that showed money was being “frittered away across every part of government”."
Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "One way to look at what's unfolding in Westminster is that it's less a crisis of politics than of legitimacy. The electorate hasn't turned on Starmer on a whim, or moved towards rejoining the EU because people are fickle. They're trying to make a system respond, and getting nothing back. We can take immigration, where the electorate voted to cut the numbers arriving in 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019, only for Boris Johnson to introduce a regime that quadrupled net migration to 906,000. We could look at the grooming gangs left to operate for years with the full knowledge and tacit complicity of state authorities that deemed interfering to be too likely to stir up social unrest, while police forces arrested parents who attempted to rescue their daughters. But perhaps the most relevant issue is economic underperformance. Average weekly earnings are still below their 2008 peak in real terms, we’ve been through a bruising episode of inflation that has toppled incumbent parties across the globe, the tax burden has risen to a 70-year high, and the median house in England and Wales has risen in price from 3.5 times average income to more than eight times. On any reading, these are bad outcomes. It's no wonder younger generations are increasingly disaffected with the system that's produced them:"
Why Britain’s Gen Z wants a ‘strong man’ leader like Donald Trump - "Having won an election just six months ago, Sir Keir Starmer is now more unpopular than Rishi Sunak at his nadir... police forces have failed to solve a single burglary, personal theft or recover a stolen bike in 30pc of the country... the only thing surprising about the finding that 52pc of Gen Z would support a dictatorship in Britain is that the numbers are so low. The promise of liberal democratic capitalism was that it would marry dynamic wealth generation with redistribution... What we’ve got instead is a curious hybrid: a prolonged period of stagnation, a state that seems less concerned with policing crime than policing critical speech, and a political system that appears to be entirely unwilling to give voters what they say they want... In 1998, the economist John Roemer asked why poor people in democratic countries don’t vote to expropriate the rich. He concluded that this question was best answered not by a concern for long-run economic growth or a sense of fairness, but the existence of multiple axes of political competition: poor people might vote for less redistribution if bundled with conservative social policies. In Britain, this question is flipped on its head. Older generations are much more supportive of reducing migration, but – with much grumbling – tolerated the defection of parties that promised to cut it so long as they kept the pension and health services in tolerable condition. Those parties, in turn, have seen migration as a get-out-of-jail card for a welfare state structured like a Ponzi scheme, with younger generations funding the retirement of the generations before it. Lower birth rates wrecked this pattern, and made the burden intolerable: migration can balance it out again. The flaws in the plan were predictable. Bringing in low-skilled labour has added to the fiscal burdens on the state, rather than relieved them. Crowding our stock of infrastructure has failed to boost growth in per capita terms. And crowding our stock of housing has added to rental costs, further suppressing birth rates, and in turn driving the state’s demand for more migration. Young people souring on this shouldn’t surprise us at all: support for democracy has been dropping for decades across the Anglosphere, within and between generations. Gen Z lives in a state which often seems actively hostile to their interests, and which has shown no capacity for course correction: the democratic system is working as intended, and delivering for the majority. Most of the pushback against this has so far been confined to bad-tempered polling answers, or spiky commentary online. But an increasingly disaffected young population locked out of property ownership and extorted by the state seems like bad news for long-term stability. The less they have to lose, the more likely it seems that they might take a gamble on alternative means of change... The politicians attempting to head this off would be best advised to stop asking what young people can do for their state, and start asking what their state’s done for them."
Andrew Gwynne has every right to rant in private - "I would be lying if I said I’m not enjoying the Schadenfreude of the Andrew Gwynne affair. A pious, hectoring Labour MP being exposed as a hypocrite is always going to make for delicious tabloid fodder. After all, this is the same Andrew Gwynne who once cheered on the cancellation of the late Roger Scruton for supposedly racist and sexist comments. Nevertheless, it is important to maintain the principle that no one should be punished for off-the-cuff remarks that they make in private – and yes, that includes politicians... What is ultimately at stake here is whether we can maintain a private sphere, where people can have open, honest and unfiltered conversations, without worrying what the rest of the world will think... Nowadays, ‘transparency’ is often held up as an unimpeachable good. But just consider what politics would be like if there was no expectation of privacy at all. Everything that was once confidential, from WhatsApp chats to cabinet meetings, would be turned into a mere performance. Politicians would be unable to express themselves openly. They could never be frank or forthright about the challenges their party or the country faces – ever. Ironically, politics without privacy would make our leaders even more dishonest than we suspect them of being today... Thanks to the UK’s hate-speech laws, expressing yourself in private can now be a risky business."
Patrick Christys on X - "Keir Starmer is currently talking about the ‘dangers of right wing politics’ after several cases of Labour councillors and staff members reporting members of the public to police for posting benign stuff on social media. Absolutely mental."
RadioGenoa on X - "A man takes some photos of the landscape with his smartphone and is stopped and questioned by the British police who want to see the photos on his smartphone. England like North Korea, maybe worse."
Inevitable West on X - "Today North Korea forced Apple to give them access to their citizens messages and photos so they can spy on them. Sorry, that was the Labour Party."
Thread by @CF_Farrow on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🚨As someone who has been arrested and had my devices seized and examined by the police, I want to explain how dangerous this is. 🧵
As probably everyone knows by now, 2 years ago I was arrested in front of my children, while preparing dinner for the family. The police claimed that they needed to do this in order to seize my devices for examination. The police took all my devices and some belonging to my children. They used the RIPA act to force me to disclose all my passwords. I was told that if I did not disclose I would be charged and jailed. The alleged crime: misgendering and posting a meme. I am currently suing the police: they have literally cited misgendering and their suspicion that I might have deleted tweets as the necessity to arrest. It was only by arresting me that they could access my devices. For memes that I did not post. Leaving aside the wrongful arrest, I want to tell you what the police found once they had access to all my data.
39 screenshots from the complainant which were abusive of me. The police knew that the complainant had sued me three times. They knew that there had been a long dispute on social media. They told me that if the complainant had been abusive towards me they would find it on my hard drive or in my iCloud. Reader, they did. Having found the evidence of abuse I received on social and the 39 screenshots, guess what the police did next? They claimed I had no business collecting these screenshots (despite being embroiled in a civil case) and used it to apply for a draconian anti-stalking order. The stalking order required:
1) an offender manager to whom I would have had to disclose all my email and social media and app passwords
2) I would have needed written permission to access the internet or contact anyone electronically - including my family
3) all my family members in my house would have needed to disclose their devices and serial numbers
4) a police officer could enter my house between 8am and 8pm and check everyone's devices
You can only imagine the havoc wreaked on my family. The complainant and his supporters would have been claiming every single criticism of them was my doing And I had not even been charged with a criminal offence. The police admitted that this draconian order constituted a massive infringement of my Article 8 rights but was deemed necessary to "prevent serious crime" and because I presented a "threat to life". It was only because I was able to access a decent legal team, that the application was dropped. Even the CPS could not find any evidence that would support charges being brought. My case demonstrates that the UK police cannot currently be trusted. They were so captured and so determined to do me, that they tried to twist the data they found on my devices that supported my case, against me. This is the background to which Apple are surrendering.
This won't be used to combat terrorism. I literally had to surrender all access to my devices or face jail, like Tommy Robinson has. I knew I was innocent and had nothing to hide. They went through my hard drives, my emails, my photos, my messages. I still feel violated. If the police are captured by ideology, they will take whatever they find and try to use it against you. Apple's ending of our privacy should worry us all. If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Finally. Lots of people who have been active or high profile on social media about gender ideology, have faced constant attempts at hacking and doxxing. It's been terrifying. Apple has just made life even easier for those who would do us harm."
Labour will use AI to snoop on social media - "The Government’s controversial disinformation team is developing a secretive AI programme to trawl through social media looking for “concerning” posts it deems problematic so it can take “action”. Records show the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) recently awarded a £2.3 million contract to Faculty AI to build monitoring software which can search for “foreign interference”, detect deepfakes and “analyse social media narratives”. The platform is part of the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) which was set up in 2019 and sparked widespread criticism for amassing files on journalists, academics and MPs who challenged the Government’s narrative during the pandemic. The unit, which has since been rebranded the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT), has links to the intelligence agencies, which has allowed it to avoid public scrutiny. DSIT said the new AI tool, called the Counter Disinformation Data Platform (CDDP), is looking solely for posts “which pose a threat to national security and public safety risk”... Since 2021, contracts show the Government has spent more than £5.3 million on developing the CDDP and other disinformation projects including “detecting coronavirus disinformation” and “analysing climate related mis/disinformation on social media”. FoI documents reveal counter-disinformation teams are concerned about “anti-vaxx rhetoric” and have taken an interest in social media posts “criticising Covid-19 vaccines”... Documents also show officials were concerned about Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s endorsement of the lupus drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid – a drug that in September was proven by Oxford University to reduce symptoms of the virus. A recent report on the CDDP – disclosed via FoI – shows the platform would be used by analysts to “find the most concerning posts” so they can be reported to “policymakers and ops teams on what may require action”. It comes after JD Vance, the US vice-president, launched a scathing attack on the British Government and its European counterparts at the Munich Security Conference last week, warning that “basic liberties” such as free speech, were under threat. Lord Young of the Free Speech Union said: “To scale up the British arm of the censorship-industrial complex at a time when it’s being dismantled on the other side of the Atlantic is politically unwise, to put it mildly. “It’s particularly tin-eared given that the social media platforms that will be targeted by this new robo-censor are all American-owned. “To the Trump-Vance administration this will look like another attempt to ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’, the self-professed agenda of a pro-censorship lobby group founded by Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.”... past Subject Access Requests have revealed that the CDU and their contractors produced reports on mainstream commentators and experts for criticising government policy. Dr Alex de Figueiredo, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was identified as a potential source of misinformation for querying whether all children needed to be vaccinated against Covid-19. The activities of Prof Carl Heneghan, the Oxford epidemiologist who advised Boris Johnson, were also monitored by the unit, as well as Molly Kingsley, who set up a campaign to keep schools open during the pandemic."
International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds quits over aid cuts
Darren Grimes on X - "It’s instructive that Labour Ministers will resign over foreign aid to the Ethiopian Spice Girls, but not over the assault on our farmers and pensioners. Their interests don’t lie with Britain."
Why shouldn’t we call the Chancellor ‘Rachel from accounts’? - "Dr Peter Prinsley, a Labour MP, has indignantly told the Tories to stop calling Rachel Reeves “Rachel from accounts”. He thinks it’s sexist and belittling. Is it, though? If anything, it’s generous. After all, it exaggerates the depth of her economic experience. In her career before entering Parliament, she didn’t work in accounts. According to recent reports, she worked in “customer complaints”. Then again, the Tories really shouldn’t make fun of her over that. It sounds like the perfect preparation for her current role. Because now she’s having to handle complaints from pensioners, parents, farmers, businesses… Anyway, even if Dr Prinsley finds the nickname “Rachel from accounts” offensive, he was unwise to say so, because his protest will simply encourage her opponents to use it all the more. Only last week, Liz Truss made the very same mistake, by sending Sir Keir Starmer a legal letter that haughtily ordered him to stop saying she “crashed the economy”. Better to rise above it. Besides, Ms Truss shouldn’t be cross with Sir Keir. She should be grateful to him – because he’s doing such a bang-up job of rehabilitating her. After she was forced out of No 10, she was widely held to be the worst prime minister of all time. Next to Sir Keir, however, she looks like Churchill. And thanks to Ms Reeves, her period in office increasingly resembles an oasis of financial stability. So forget legal letters. She should be sending them both flowers and champagne. At the very least, both Labour and Tories need to accept that, if you’re going to dish it out, you have to take it, and not start hypocritically squealing the second someone on your own side comes in for a bit of teasing. Also, make your insults more varied, so we don’t have to hear the same ones again and again. In Ms Reeves’s case, there’s plenty of material to draw on. For example: in her room at university in the 1990s, she kept a framed photo of Gordon Brown."
No 10 slaps down Reeves for suggesting Trump to blame for weak economy
Rachel Reeves 'to axe universal free school meals for infants' - "It has also been said that the Education Secretary offered to axe funding for free period products in schools, as well as dance, music and PE schemes. In addition, schools will be told to give teachers pay rises – but will not be given the funding to pay for them, according to reports. Instead, they will be expected to find the cash from by making “efficiencies”. In practice, this could mean that some are forced to reduce staff numbers."
Weird. We're told that if you don't want school children to get free meals, you're heartless and evil
Angela Rayner red-faced as mad request on taxpayer-funded trip exposed - "Angela Rayner requested to go on a private safari tour of Ethiopia when visiting last year, it has been revealed. The Deputy Prime Minister visited the east African country last month to meet leaders and oversee the signing of an investment deal. However, government sources have now claimed that Ms Rayner asked officials whether she could use the taxpayer-funded trip to go on a private safari tour. Ms Rayner was informed by her officials that such an excursion for personal enjoyment was “not how these things worked”. The Local Government Secretary’s team have not denied the allegations... The trip to Ethiopia has already come under fire after it was revealed it cost more than £20,000. Some officials, including Ms Rayner, flew there in business class despite blasting the Tories for wasting taxpayers' cash on similar trips prior to winning the election. Kevin Hollinrake, Ms Rayner’s Tory opposite in the local government brief, said: “You’d think she’d have enough on her plate dealing with the realities of setting a totally unrealistic target of building 1.5million homes, abolishing every district and county council in England and trying to save the high street from the disastrous impact of massive tax hikes and new employment red tape. “Clearly she has more important things to do swanning around the world.”"
Family businesses will be lost to foreign ownership under Labour, warns Mel Stride - "a cut to business property relief (BPR) would mean “Britain’s beloved family businesses, the family silver, will be sold off to the highest foreign bidder”. “This tax raid could mean family firms have to put themselves up for sale when the owner dies and see British companies, that have been family-run for generations, end up being bought by foreign buyers or private equity,” Mr Stride said. “And they might have to sell at a cut price because buyers will know it’s a forced sale and they need to sell quickly.” From April 2026, the rate of inheritance tax relief on businesses will be cut, meaning only the first £1 million of a family firm’s assets can be passed on tax free to the next generation... Mr Stride said the changes show Labour has “lost sight” of the entrepreneurial spirit... “I think the trade unions, and the left in particular, have a strong line into Labour, the parliamentary party and the Labour Party leadership, and that’s why you’re seeing very anti-business legislation coming through, and that’s why you’re seeing businesses being taxed.”"
Storm Rachel will be unlike anything Britain has ever weathered - "Already we are seeing the expectation of what Rachel Reeves’s Budget tax hikes will do to the economy, with businesses battening down for a tough economic storm, economic growth forecasts being slashed by the Bank of England, OBR and IMF – and now inflation reaching 3pc, and predicted to reach 3.7pc. There can be no doubting Storm Rachel is all set to bring devastation across the whole of Britain the likes of which we’ve not seen for generations. This is one forecast we can be certain of. No one can blame climate change for Storm Rachel though – it owes its origins to the decisions of the Chancellor, and no amount of deflections and excuses can shield her from the blame."
Blow for Government as Lords vote against ending tax relief for private schools - "The House of Lords has voted against ending tax relief for private schools in a major blow for the Government. Peers supported by 232 votes to 141, majority 91, a Conservative amendment that cut this key provision from the Non-Domestic (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill. It came after a string of earlier defeats for the Government on the same Bill, as peers called for changes to their new plans for business rates, including an exemption from the higher band for hospitals. The Government wants to use this Bill to end charitable rate relief eligibility for those private schools in England that are charities. This would mean that around 1,040 private schools, roughly 40% of all independent schools, would lose their current right to claim business rates relief. Tabling the amendment, shadow education minister Baroness Barran said that she stands by the principle that education should not be taxed... The former schools minister said that charities should not be subject to “any kind of political overreach” and that the Government is set to create a “two-tiered system, punishing charities that don’t conform to its views”. Lady Barran also argued that ending tax relief for private schools will impact vulnerable children, such as those with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), many of whom are currently educated in the independent sector... Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin, who himself has a genetic condition called osteogenesis imperfecta and was educated at private schools, said the Government is treating children with Send as “expendable”. He insisted that removing the part of the Bill set to end tax relief for private schools is the “only way to protect all pupils with Send that attend independent schools, like those that I attended, where the proportion with Send is much less than 50%”. Lord Shinkwin said: “The sad fact is that, in the Government’s eyes, the damage to many of these children’s life chances seems to be a price worth paying. “They are expendable, immaterial, inconsequential collateral damage caught in the crossfire of what appears to be an ideological obsession with punishing anyone they perceive as rich. “Yet, many of these children’s families are not rich and the Government knows it. But they seem not to care… “They seem not to care, incredibly, about pupils with Send’s mental health, which is undoubtedly going to be hurt by the impact of this measure.” The Tory peer branded the measure “deeply damaging and wholly disproportionate”, insisting that schools could close as a result and that it will put more pressure on the overstretched state sector, which is “already failing to meet demand”. Lord Black of Brentwood, deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, accused the Government of burying its head in the sand and being “impervious to rational thought” on the topic of private schools. He said: “Their policies simply won’t end up benefiting the state sector in any meaningful or visible way. The 6,500 teachers promised are likely to be a fantasy and will end up just being another broken promise. “But they will end up profoundly impacting the independent sector and the lives of tens of thousands of pupils and their hard-working parents.” He added that it will negatively impact military families, faith communities, gifted children who benefit from bursaries, and local communities through a loss of partnerships with private schools."
Time to disband the House of Lords for standing in the way of the left wing agenda!
This is like how left wingers don't understand why churches aren't taxed, and think it's some unfair concession given to them
Labour council leader suspended for ‘sexually explicit messages’ to Ukrainian refugees - "Labour’s leader of Edinburgh Council has been accused of "bombarding Ukrainian refugees with social media messages, asking about their sexual preferences, complimenting them on their appearance, and trying to organise dates”. Two refugees told the Sunday Mail they felt unable to ignore Cammy Day’s advances, given his position as the city council leader"
Labour accused of ‘sabotaging’ Britain amid £2bn blow to tourism sector - "A tax raid on tourists is backfiring at a cost of £2bn as Britain loses ground on European competitors, a study has found. Labour has been accused of “sabotaging” growth with “deliberate policy changes” that have hurt visitor numbers. It is feared visitor spending will continue to decline as a result of cuts to VisitBritain’s budget and the potential introduction of daily tourist taxes. International visitors spent £2bn less in 2024 than before the pandemic, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). The findings come as Labour considers giving local councils the power to introduce tourist taxes for overnight stays, while marketing authority VisitBritain had its budget slashed by more than 40pc at the start of the month... Increased air passenger duty, a lack of tax-free shopping and the introduction of election travel authorisations are policies blamed for hurting visitor spend... English local authorities currently have no powers to raise a tourism tax, although a visitor levy is implemented by some areas using a legal workaround. The Scottish government introduced tourism tax powers last year, and the Welsh government has similar plans. Should England follow suit, councils would be able to apply levies to hotel bills and bed and breakfast stays, most likely by £1 to £2 per person per night."
Reeves cannot blame Trump for UK growth downgrade, warns IMF - "The IMF said UK government policies were stoking price pressures and would push Britain’s inflation rate to the highest in the G7. It means inflation in the UK will outstrip the US rate even as the president continues his tariffs onslaught. Pierre Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF chief economist, said “domestic factors” were the main driver behind Britain’s downgrade, signalling that the Chancellor’s £40bn tax raid had damaged growth. The UK is now expected to grow by 1.1pc this year and 1.4pc in 2026, down from projections of 1.6pc and 1.5pc just three months ago. In a further blow to Labour’s ambition to boost living standards, the IMF also said that GDP per head – a better proxy than overall growth – would almost stagnate this year and barely rise in 2026... The forecasts will deal a blow to Ms Reeves’s attempts to balance the books. Lower growth and higher borrowing costs have already eroded the wafer-thin headroom she has to meet her borrowing rules, with even a small deterioration now enough to wipe out her £9.9bn buffer... In analysis that will alarm the Bank of England, the IMF also suggested that surging prices in recent years had eroded public trust in its ability to tame inflation. Households now believe the UK’s ability to meet its inflation target five years ahead is closer to an emerging market like Brazil or India than other developed economies like the US or Germany... The IMF urged policymakers to tackle the prospect of permanently “mediocre” growth. It said: “The lingering effects of the recent cost-of-living crisis, coupled with depleted policy space and dim medium-term growth prospects, could reignite social unrest.”"
Clearly, the solution is to "tax the 'rich'"
