Tomorrow is not a promise
Dartmoor National Park, Devon
Joined July 2014
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Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
For the many UK politicians @UKLabour and journalists @BBC who don't know anything about UK trade, here are the highlights:
1. The UK is now predominantly a service exporter. 57% of UK exports are services, which are not affected by EU 'red tape'.
2. UK goods exports have dropped from almost 70% of our total exports in 1997 to just 43% in 2025. This trend began long before Brexit and is tied to Net Zero mandates, high UK energy prices, and EV mandates.
3. Machinery and transport goods, such as cars and aircraft parts, are 42% of all UK goods exports. This is by far the UK's largest export sector, although it is also falling. It was 50% of UK exports in 2000. But if the UK joins the EU's CBAM, companies in this sector will see their imported material costs rise, making their exports even less competitive.
4. Chemicals are the UK's second-largest export sector. They account for 19% of UK goods exports, but this share is shrinking due to UK and EU energy costs and Net Zero regulations. These will increase if the UK joins the EU ETS.
5. Miscellaneous Manufactures account for 11% of UK goods exports. This is still the UK's third-largest export sector, even though it includes many goods the UK no longer makes because of our high Carbon taxes, which will increase if the UK signs up to the EU's even higher ETS on November 20th.
6. Fuels account for 9% of UK exports. This is still the UK's 4th largest goods export sector, even though the current and previous governments are/were trying to destroy it with bans on new exploration and ultra-high taxes.
7. Material Manufactures account for 8% of UK goods exports. This sector includes iron, steel, aluminium, ceramics, and glass manufacturing - industries that have gone, or are going, out of business in the UK because of high UK energy costs, which will rise if the UK joins the EU ETS.
8. These five sectors make up almost 90% of UK exports. The other 5 industry sectors are insignificant. But the government and our journalists think the UK is New Zealand and that the only goods we export are food and live animals to the EU. We don't! UK food and live animal exports to the EU were just 1.3% of the UK's total exports.
9. The government is about to sacrifice all of the export industries listed above to slightly reduce the IMPORT costs of a handful of Supermarkets, at least two of which are privately owned German companies.
These savings will not be passed on to UK shoppers because the government has also increased wages again, and supermarket energy costs will increase if we join the EU's ETS.
10. UK exports of food and live animals will not increase because we are paying farmers to not produce them, this has nothing to do with EU red tape. Instead we are paying farmers to plant trees and wildflowers or plaster their farmland with solar panels. (54% of UK electricity is coming from gas today, 12% from solar and 3% from wind.)
11. Write to your MP and tell him to #StoptheReset.
If you don't stop this, don't complain when all of our goods export industries have closed because of EU higher carbon taxes, EU higher carbon import tariffs, and the cost of complying with the EU's new packaging and process regulations.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
The current chancellor has NEVER had a job outside of a union or the Labour party.
Let that sink in for a minute.... He is 66 and has never had a proper job!
Anyone surprised that his budget was useless?
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
Ok unless something bizarre happened just after the door this appears to be a straight up lie from the Lib Dems.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
Nothing highlights the fiscal failure of this government more starkly than the plight of Poundland. The chain's 600 stores and 12,000 workers sit on the verge of collapse, not because its customers have walked away - Poundland's sales grew by 6.7% in September - but because of this government's unaffordable tax rises, which makes it impossible to run a business that works on slim profit margins to keep its prices down for its customers. How ironic that a government preaching about helping the least well-off is forcing a company out of business that does just that.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
Sir Keir Starmer stayed in an £18.35m luxury central London apartment owned by Lord Alli of Norbury, the millionaire Labour donor, after leaving Downing Street.
Read our exclusive into the arrangement ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
There is a tidy version of John Healey. St Peter's School, York. Christ's College, Cambridge. Twenty nine years in Parliament. Now the Chancellor, signing the cheques, setting the budget, deciding what you are allowed to keep.
There is another version. It is not tidy.
In 1997 he took a Rotherham seat. For the sixteen years that followed, in the streets he represented and the schools he walked past, fourteen hundred girls were being passed around by men the state had quietly decided not to notice. Some of them twelve. One was doused in petrol and told to burn if she talked.
He was their MP. He had a seat, a voice, a vote, and the standing to make a noise. He made none.
In 2012 the Times finally broke it and demanded an inquiry. His own website still carries the verdict. He had an open mind. He was "not convinced this would help the abused girls."
Not convinced. Fourteen hundred of them. One of the few men in the country who could have forced the truth out, and he wanted more time.
Then he sued the woman who said so.
A UKIP MEP, Jane Collins, accused him and two colleagues of knowing and doing nothing. They took her to court and won. Fifty four thousand pounds each. Healey pocketed his. He did not give it to the girls. He kept it. He had been called out for inaction and he turned it into income.
The pattern held. Forty thousand pounds from two donors whose addresses the register lists only as "private," while he lectured Farage on secret money. His own council tax, on his own second home, unpaid, an administrative error, and he meant to claim the fifteen hundred back from you while his party took the winter fuel payment from millions of pensioners.
Then, in June, he resigned as Defence Secretary with a letter that buried Keir Starmer. Six weeks later Starmer was gone. Burnham moved in. And Burnham made Healey Chancellor.
The knife went in. The chair was warm. The reward was the Treasury.
Now he wants to tax the banks, because a war abroad has emptied the purse and the IMF has told him to cut spending instead. He has run out of other people's money and he is going through the City's sofa cushions.
Meanwhile the legacy gathers dust. The Child Trust Fund, his idea, one point six billion pounds of children's own money left to rot in forgotten accounts while the City takes a hundred million a year in fees. Housing, where he decided families renting rather than owning was "a good thing." A children's charity he vouched for, whose founder was later convicted of child sexual abuse. In Rotherham. Of course.
The girl who was twelve is thirty seven now. She lives with it every day.
He was not convinced her rape was worth an inquiry.
And now he decides how much of your money you keep.
That is the Chancellor.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
Every word of this. If you want to really educate yourself with facts not cult like mantras, or ‘be kind’ slogans take just 5 minutes to read. With the conversion bill coming, which WILL remove your parental rights, it’s worth your time.
I wrote a new piece about women’s rights and whether or not I want trans people dead. (Spoiler: I don’t)👇
jkrowling.com/opinions/an-up…
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
I wrote a new piece about women’s rights and whether or not I want trans people dead. (Spoiler: I don’t)👇
jkrowling.com/opinions/an-up…
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
There’s a lot of self-serving spin emanating from the UK government about how virtuous it is re fiscal consolidation.
Here are the facts.
Labour inherited an OBR budget deficit forecast of £87bn (3.1% GDP) for FY2024/25. After R Reeves’ 1st disastrous budget the actual deficit was £153bn (5.2%). Massive jump.
Labour inherited OBR budget deficit of £77bn (2.7%) for FY2025/26. After RR’s disastrous 2nd budget that turned out to be £133bn (4.3%).
So in its first two years it added over £120bn to borrowing/deficit (despite huge increase in taxes).
The OBR forecast it inherited for this FY2026/27 was £69bn (2.3%). It is now forecast to be £116bn (3.3%). That looks like an underestimate. More likely to be closer to £130bn again.
Inherited budget forecast for 2027/28: £51bn (1.6%). Latest forecast: £97bn (2.9%).
Inherited budget forecast for 2028/29: £39bn (1.2%). Latest forecast: £86bn (2.5%).
Far from fiscal consolidation Labour is forecast to borrow an incredible £260bn more over the 5 years from 2024/25 than the forecasts it inherited. Despite the tax rises.
Which will continue. Alone among G7 countries the IMF projects the UK tax burden to rise by 3.7% of GDP 2025-31. The only other country with a rising tax burden is France (0.8%). Italy is static. Rest of G7 have falling tax burden.
And let’s not forget Labour’s so-called ‘fiscal consolidation’ is all backloaded to end-decade. Unlikely to happen. So taxes will have to rise by even more.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
France in total chaos - cars drifting around fires, barricades in the street. If this generation is the future of France and Europe, we should be very worried. Zero values, zero patriotism. Only chaos, destruction and anarchy.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
Excellent article in the Wall Street Journal on Britain's unsustainable welfare spending:
— 7 million people (over 10% of the UK population) now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefit. This is up 60% in the past 6 years.
— The UK will spend over £100 billion pound this year on sickness and disability benefits. This is projected to increase to £130 billion a year by 2030.
— No other Western country has seen such a rise in disability claims. In the US, 10.6 million people claim some form of federal disability payment, despite the population being 5x larger.
— 1 in 7 new cars sold in the UK are under the Motability scheme; however, only 10% of cars are modified for a disability. In one dealership, 25 out of 26 cars they sold in August were all under the Motability scheme.
— Charities, consultants, YouTubers and TikTokers have all sprung up, telling people how to maximise benefit access. Some of these videos receive hundreds of thousands of views. Over 1,000 people a day are signing on for PIP.
— According to a Government survey from 2024, 25% of the UK's working age population could theoretically be classed as disabled under the current criteria and access these benefits.
— A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours per week would take home around £1,880 per month after tax; however, if you are classed as too sick to work and claim PIP, you can take home £2,000 tax free per month.
wsj.com/world/uk/united-king…
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
This is Brussels. EU headquarters. Broad daylight. A mob smashes a car, jumps on the roof, destroys everything. Media calls them "students". If these are students, what do criminals look like? Europe imported chaos and now pretends to be shocked. Europeans must wake up now.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
WATCH: Britain’s ITN has released ~4 hours of previously sealed 1989 Tiananmen footage — filmed by the team that smuggled the tapes out of China.
The material, archived for ~35 years, includes a 2-hour crackdown compilation and 90 minutes of secretly filmed raw rushes from the days after, showing military trucks on Beijing streets, crowds, and the aftermath.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
🚨BREAKING
WTF
A UK judge Gemma Loughton, has ruled that a Gazan refugee and a mother of three must be allowed to bring 18 family members to Britain
THESE JUDGES NEED INVESTIGATING
WHY IS THE LAW ALL OF A SUDDEN PRO MUSLIM AND ANTI WHITE
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
23 arrests at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march resulted in endless news articles and MP’s condemnation. 20 arrests at a typical Palestine march - including assaulting police officers and Nazi salutes and there’s silence from everyone. Why is that?
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
In 1940, British fighter pilots began noticing something deeply frightening about their aircraft.
Push a Spitfire or Hurricane into a sharp dive, and the engine could suddenly splutter, lose its strength, or stop altogether.
German pilots already understood the advantage. Their fuel-injected Messerschmitt Bf 109s could dive aggressively without suffering the same problem. British Merlin engines relied on carburetors, and when the aircraft experienced negative G forces, fuel rushed through the carburetor in the wrong way, leaving the engine without the mixture it needed.
In a fight for your life, even a few seconds could mean everything.
Then Beatrice Shilling stepped in.
Shilling was an aeronautical engineer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, but she was far from the quiet, conventional engineer people might have expected. Before the war, she raced motorcycles at Brooklands, one of Britain’s most dangerous racing circuits. She became one of the few women to earn its prestigious Gold Star after completing a lap at more than 100 mph.
She knew machines.
Rather than attempting to rebuild the entire carburetor, Shilling found a remarkably simple answer: a tiny metal restrictor placed in the fuel system to control the sudden rush of fuel during negative-G maneuvers.
From 1941 onward, Shilling and a small team traveled from RAF station to RAF station, fitting the modification directly onto fighter aircraft.
The pilots soon gave the little device a nickname that would follow it into history.
“Miss Shilling’s orifice.”
It was not a perfect solution. Later carburetor technology eventually dealt with the problem more completely.
But that little piece of metal gave RAF pilots something precious when they needed it most: an engine that was far less likely to betray them during combat, without having to wait for an entirely new engine design.
And perhaps the best part of the story is the woman behind it.
Before Beatrice Shilling helped keep British fighters alive in the sky, she had already been spending her weekends pushing motorcycle engines beyond 100 miles per hour on a dangerous racing circuit.
When war placed a dangerous engine problem in front of her, she did what she knew best.
She understood the machine.
Crickety Dartmoor retweeted
For such an intolerant country, we seem to be expected to tolerate a hell of a lot.
Toddler girl fighting for life after being stabbed in face by stranger at bus stop who cops say was previously ruled unfit to stand trial after stabbing two other children trib.al/jUtE0wg
