Joined December 2018
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I have decided to leave twitter as I don't think my opinions or ramblings add anything to the sum of knowledge and frankly it takes too much free time up reading stuff which I could use conversing with my family 😀 bye bye.
Interesting Times retweeted
"Any politician who seeks to avoid the taxes they owe in this country is not fit not be in charge of taxpayer money."
There is *always* a video.
Keir Starmer has no option.
He has got to sack Angela Rayner.
£7,500,000,000 to basically dig a hole in the ground and connect to grid (obvs a bit more complicated but common there is something very wrong with UK infrastructure projects)
telegraph.co.uk/business/202…
Interesting Times retweeted
The more Starmer’s government disappoints the more it resorts to absurd windy rhetoric to mask its failures
A green energy superpower — Miliband
A science superpower — Starmer
A defence industry superpower — Reeves.
None of those things are true. Nor will this Labour government (or the Tories for that matter) ever get close to realising them. Indeed it most of these areas it’s already going backwards.
Interesting Times retweeted
And all of this is before taking into account the cost of Chagos, which could be hundreds of millions of pounds from the Defence budget in this SR. No pathway to 3%; no pathway beyond 2.5%; in fact, it appears Labour won't even reach 2.5% at all.
Interesting Times retweeted
🇬🇧 The recent capital gains tax increase in the UK was expected to bring additional tax revenue.
Instead, high-net-worth individuals and families are leaving the country, leading to a 10% fall in net capital gains tax revenue.
Welcome to the Laffer curve, suckers.
Interesting Times retweeted
Italy now talking about going to 3.5% - 5% GDP on defence spending. This follows Germany, Poland and a growing number. We on the other hand are handing out £££ from the defence budget to the Chagos Islands. That’ll deter our enemies….NOT!
Interesting Times retweeted
Starmer Peddles Disinformation to Sell Chagos Surrender order-order.com/2025/05/22/s…
Interesting Times retweeted
Please, no… Don’t go further & faster in the same direction. That is definitely NOT what people want.
The only sensible answer is to sack Miliband & Reeves & have a restart. 🥀
Interesting Times retweeted
This is absolutely ridiculous.
'The Government’s land use framework states that 9% of England’s farmland will need to be taken out of production for climate goals.'
farminguk.com/news/controver…
Interesting Times retweeted
Journalists need to stop accepting this false frame from Trump that he is trying to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Putin. He is not. He is throwing the Ukrainians under the bus and embracing Putin. That is NOT mediation.
Interesting Times retweeted
One other thing. The idea we can only increase defence spending to 2.5%, with some vague 3% aspiration is for the birds. We now need a major programme of rearmament. And it needs to start immediately because Putin will calculate his maximum window of opportunity is aligned with Trump's second term.
Interesting Times retweeted
Starmer’s “£13bn per year increase” for defence is only £6bn in real terms.
Labour won’t deny they’ll use the uplift to fund their £9bn payment to Mauritius.
It’s not clear what this money is paying for besides rent to a partner of China for a military base that’s already ours.
Interesting Times retweeted
War footing
Interesting Times retweeted
This train rolls by me 10 times a day. 150 cars full of coal going to China. They burn it to generate the electricity needed to build solar panels then send them to us on giant oil burning ships.
We put the panels on our roofs & call it “emissions free”.
Green energy is a scam.
Interesting Times retweeted
Defence Secretary John Healey admits in the morning media round that the REAL increase in defence spending (i.e after inflation) is around £6 billion. A figure I estimated before the announcement.
On a mere £6 billion some media reporting that Starmer has put us on a ‘war footing’ and Ministers claiming it’s a major boost to defence which will also kick start economic growth. Both claims are nonsense.
But perhaps most significant of all Healey doesn’t deny that the £9 billion+ that the Chagos Island deal with Mauritius will cost — most of it upfront — won’t come out of the defence budget.
He’d better hope Trump knocks it back when he sees Starmer tomorrow — otherwise even the paltry extra £6 billion will quickly disappear in the Indian Ocean.
PS Re my original post below, the nominal (ie before inflation) rise in defence spending between 2024-2027 is £14 billion (not £12 billion) which equates broadly to the government’s claim of a £13.4 billion cash increase. Apologies. But my caveats below still stand, endorsed by IFS.
Starmer’s ‘£13 billion more for defence’ by 2027 claim looks increasingly dodgy.
UK GDP in 2024 was £2.8 trillion. Spending 2.3% on defence gives you £64 billion — which is pretty much what we did spend last year if you include military pensions.
UK GDP in 2027 is projected to be, in nominal terms, £3.132 trillion. Spending 2.5% on defence, as Starmer says we will now do, gives you £78 billion.
A £12 billion rise. I assume the £13 billion is based on a variation of these figures.
BUT this is a nominal rise not a real rise i.e, it does not take into inflation.
Moreover we’re already in 2025 when GDP is projected to be £2.9 trillion. Spending 2.3% of that on defence is £67 billion.
SO it looks like defence spending will rise by only £11 billion or so between now and 2027.
AND remember, again, that’s before allowing for the impact of inflation.
So be very wary of that £13 billion being bandied about by Starmer, his spin doctors and a compliant media. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Indeed it is pathetically inadequate for the security challenges we face.
Interesting Times retweeted
Anyone who really thinks that a relatively tiny increase in defence spending is either 'ratcheting up' or especially, putting the nation 'on a war footing' has NO concept of what is required to ready our diminished Armed Forces for a sustained conflict with a major power.