@votebates
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Joined April 2015
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Thoroughly enjoyed #DonGiovanni tonight @ROH_London - great cast, super singing and excellent music all round. The long performance meant I missed the #NUFC game - but given the result, we might as well have played Don Giovanni at the back to shore things up.
Interesting #DavidBowie anecdotes from Geoff MacCormack & Jérôme Soligny’s new book #MusicLover expertly led by #AlanEdwards with a few anecdotes of his own! at #Lightroom followed by excellent exhibition. Most impressive of all: spotting Hermione Farthingale in the crowd👨🏻🎤
A great end to this years #ChelseaHistoryFestival with fascinating talk tonight from @aroberts_andrew about his new book #Napoleon & his Marshals,examining their complex interrelationships-with some excellent stories and insights. Very much looking forward to reading my new copy!
Lovely sunny afternoon overlooking the vines - where the entire 2026 crop has already been harvested - at the always wonderful Gusbourne estate in Appledore this afternoon.
Interesting lecture at @CburyCathedral lodge tonight arguing case that #BayeuxTapestry was made to hang on refectory wall at St Augustine’s Abbey #Canterbury Not 100 pct sure I buy that,but interesting theory and evidence.Either way,Cathedral a glory to behold-both going in &out!
Sadly no apples this year,but a bucketful of grapes-quite literally-from my Chardonnay vine,given by @WestwellWines a few year back.Some good theological lessons in their development!Chateaux Bates2026 anyone?Hopefully good year for real-world excellent #Kent wine producers too!
Glad to see this misguided and wrong bill defeated in the Commons now too. Time to move on and instead work to improve palliative care across the country, doing our best as a society to positively support those in the final stages of their lives and their families.
Terminally ill Labour MP Ashley Dalton delivered a gut-wrenchingly powerful speech in the Commons today, imploring colleagues to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill.
Dalton, who has metastatic breast cancer, described how patients with terminal diagnoses are bombarded with terrifying accounts of painful deaths, even as their own agency is overlooked.
The former health minister urged MPs to improve palliative and social care rather than expose some of society’s most vulnerable people to the risk of coercion. With good palliative care, she insisted, ‘death can be gentle’.
✍️ Steerpike
Article | spectator.com/article/watch-… | @MrSteerpike
Remembering and praying for the families, loved ones and all those affected by the evils perpetrated in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on this day 25 years ago 🇺🇸🇬🇧 #911Remembrance
Stephen Bates retweeted
The Big Issue celebrates its 35th anniversary this September, and as a magazine and social enterprise, it has been extremely successful in doing what its slogan suggests: being "a hand-up, not a handout".
In London, there are currently about 615 people selling the magazine, with 358,000 copies sold in the past year. We caught up with a couple of them to hear about how and why they started.
#London #LondonNews #TheBigIssue
Congratulations to my local MP @Katie_Lam_MP and neighbouring MP @Helen_Whately on respectively being appointed and reappointed to the renewed @Conservatives shadow front bench this week. Enjoyed their encouraging speeches at a great and timely joint local event last night too.
This could be - or at least I’m very much hoping this will be - 2.0’s Trippier moment🤞#NUFC
🚨⚪️⚫️ Newcastle have agreed deal with Benfica to sign Amar Dedić, here we go! 🇧🇦
Deal in place at €35m package with sell-on included for Benfica.
Portuguese club wanted Dedić to stay but player wanted #NUFC move as top priority and excited to work with Matthias Jaissle.
I was on train-thought someone had pulled toilet alarm.Everyone in carriage’s-what I now realise were phones-went off at different times,so sounded very distressed in loo. Good to know system works. But wild fires?- kind of obvious.Hope #Govt doesn’t end up crying wolf with this!
Watched the solar #Eclipse pretty close to the exact spot I watched the one in 1999! Nowhere near as eerily green and cold - not at all in fact - but a beautiful night nevertheless. Some paragliders were also up there for a better view. Hopefully they knew their Icarus!
It’s good to see in all the ‘X’ madness and toxicity that common sense and decency eventually prevail. 👏🏻 all round to a thread that ultimately shows two fine and talented people eventually doing the right things. Maybe there’s a new Linehan-Laurie sit com from all this!
Stephen Bates retweeted
This is pure magic from @alexewing_ & @editor_drs
5 weeks in 4 minutes
Even Bob The Cat gets a mention
Stephen Bates retweeted
"He was mesmeric as a player, but also as a person."
@Iandennisbbc pays tribute to Kevin Keegan after it was announced that the Newcastle and Liverpool legend has died at the age of 75.
#BBCFootball
Stephen Bates retweeted
Andy Burnham must now show how he will control public spending, especially the welfare bill.
A failure to do this will mean more ruinous, growth sapping speculation in the run up to the next budget around which taxes he will raise.
@KemiBadenoch has set out a clear and sensible offer to avoid this.
Andy Burnham should take it.
I wish Andy Burnham every success as Prime Minister. But it is my job to hold him to account.
Every announcement he makes should be properly funded. We cannot borrow more money and the tax burden is already too high, so the only answer is spending cuts.
I will work with him in the national interest to find savings from the benefits bill. If we reach agreement, my Conservative MPs will vote for those cuts in Parliament. That's the way to get Britain working.
Stephen Bates retweeted
Sky's @BethRigby spoke to Andy Burnham on behalf of UK broadcasters on the day he took up the role of prime minister.
Andy Burnham says that he has a mandate according to the process of parliamentary democracy and does not suggest he will be calling an election
Stephen Bates retweeted
I wish Andy Burnham every success as Prime Minister. But it is my job to hold him to account.
Every announcement he makes should be properly funded. We cannot borrow more money and the tax burden is already too high, so the only answer is spending cuts.
I will work with him in the national interest to find savings from the benefits bill. If we reach agreement, my Conservative MPs will vote for those cuts in Parliament. That's the way to get Britain working.