Cynic65 retweeted
🧵Three blacklisted supertankers holding 140,000 tons of Russian fuel are drifting in circles in the Atlantic because the White House begged US traders to buy Putin's diesel, and literally zero buyers answered the phone. 1/🧵
Cynic65 retweeted
Britain’s food security problem goes further back than Brexit to 1964.
Think of the economy as a wildlife 🦁 park. After the war, Britain put fences around strategically important food production. We understood that farmers needed to remain viable because the country needed to eat.
Then in 1964 we increasingly embraced the idea that removing the fences and exposing everything to ever fiercer competition would make everything cheaper.
EU membership subsequently kept some substantial fences around agriculture through the CAP, common standards, market protections and a huge neighbouring market.
But Brexit removed many of those fences.
And now we’re feeding more and more of the wildlife park to the lions 👉the corporations and enormous pools of capital with the scale to survive conditions that smaller businesses cannot.
But eventually the lions run out of things to eat.
The independent shops disappear.
The family businesses disappear.
The farms and farmers disappear.
Ownership concentrates.
Competition diminishes.
Communities hollow out.
Eventually you have created a desert.
A resilient economy is an ecosystem.
If policy allows its most powerful inhabitants to consume everything else, eventually there is very little life left to sustain it.
🚨 🚩 The Brexit earthquake didn’t begin in 2016, it began in 1964.
That year, Britain 🇬🇧 scrapped Resale Price Maintenance. A huge political earthquake that everyone has forgotten about.
It was sold as giving consumers lower prices. What it actually did was shift power dramatically from manufacturers and small producers to giant retailers.
Tesco and the supermarkets won big. Independent shops, high streets, and primary producers (including farmers) began a long, slow decline.
This was the moment we started prioritising cheap imports and corporate scale over domestic production and resilience. The foundations of today’s broken food system, where farmers are squeezed and we rely on fragile global supply chains were laid then.
Brexit was the latest tremor in a 60-year earthquake.
The end of high streets and the hollowing out of British industry didn’t start with Brexit or EU membership, it began in 1964 when Resale Price Maintenance was scrapped.
That decision empowered giant retailers to undercut everyone else, shifted power away from producers, and encouraged reliance on cheap imports. We lost the ability to protect and nurture our own manufacturing and farming base.
This resulted in a consumer economy that worked while we were rich but left us vulnerable when times got harder. We don’t make enough, we can’t afford to make enough, and food security is now at risk.
Cynic65 retweeted
A high school girl in Mexico just won a gold medal for putting out fires with a speaker. It plays one deep, low hum and the flames die in about 5 seconds.
DARPA tried the same idea back in 2012 with a rig so big and clunky they never took it any further, and hers runs on a 12-volt battery and a speaker she can carry around.
Sound is just air being pushed back and forth. A low note at 30 hertz means the air around the flame is flipping direction 30 times every second.
Flames only exist in a thin layer where fuel vapor mixes with oxygen. Shake that layer hard enough and it keeps getting stretched thinner, the heat gets pulled away faster than the flame can make more, and eventually the flame rips right off the fuel. Whatever tears off is too cool to keep burning, so it just goes out.
DARPA's report put a number on how little it takes. Once the air at the flame is moving about half a meter per second, which is barely a breeze, the flame goes out, and pretty much any pitch can get there if you crank the power high enough.
Low notes just get you there way cheaper, because a speaker moves a lot more air on each push when the pitch is low. Two engineering students at George Mason figured this out by trial and error in 2015. They started with super high pitches, 20,000 to 30,000 hertz, and all the flames did was shiver. It only worked once they dropped down to 30 to 60 hertz, which is basically the bass on a hip-hop track.
Ángela Karime's build is a 12-volt battery, a frequency generator, an amplifier and a speaker, tuned to 30 hertz. She named it Vortex Tech and talks about it shooting out little rings of air, and that's real physics. When loud, low sound gets pushed through a narrow opening, the air curls up into rings like a smoke ring, and those rings carry a puff of air way farther than the sound would get on its own. In her tests it put out small flames from about 2 meters away.
She went through five prototypes and over 100 tests in about a year, and she says it's put out burning wood, flammable liquids, electronics and cooking oil.
The cooking oil one is a big deal. Throw water on a grease fire and it flashes into steam and flings burning oil all over your kitchen, which is exactly the kind of fire where you'd want something that doesn't put anything into the pan.
Now, sound can't cool anything down, so a big fire sitting on red-hot fuel can come right back the second the speaker shuts off. The George Mason guys worried about the same thing in 2015, and it's why this is still a prototype for small flames and the red extinguisher under your sink isn't going anywhere yet.
Space might end up being where this matters first. Up there water floats off in blobs, while sound works the same with or without gravity, and acoustics researchers have already published experiments on fighting fires with sound on spacecraft.
She's still in high school, and she's already working on a version that spots a fire and puts it out by itself. The gold in Indonesia also came with a special award that gets her into another international competition.
Cynic65 retweeted
Richard Tice claims two police forces “are investigating ITV and their reporters for possible criminal offences against Reform UK”. The public record doesn’t support that.
Both forces have only confirmed they are assessing or reviewing complaints that Reform UK itself made, which is routine triage of any report and not a formal investigation.
He also merges the two forces into one story. The electoral allegations sit with Hampshire, while the Met’s matter reportedly doesn’t involve electoral offences at all.
The phrase “offences against Reform UK” is odd too, since the canvassing complaint is that ITV paid reporters to campaign for Reform, not against it.
Finally, “they will have to answer to the police, courts and Electoral Commission” presents outcomes as settled when nothing has been established and ITV denies wrongdoing.
The effect is to turn Reform’s own complaint into the appearance of police action, lending it an authority it hasn’t earned.
You cannot trust a word these increasingly desperate chancers say.
Two police forces, Met Police and Hampshire Police, are investigating ITV and their reporters for possible criminal offences against Reform UK
Scrutiny is fine, but journalists don’t get free pass to break the law
They will have to answer to the police, courts and Electoral Commission
thetimes.com/article/ab0fafc…
Cynic65 retweeted
Ooooo you're so smart. Busted.
But you're unable to see the wood for the trees.
Why? The EU is a political project founded on law, not a legal project founded on politics.
Sweden has avoided adopting the euro for 31 years.
Newer members - Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Romania all joined after Maastricht. All are legally committed to the euro. None have adopted it.
Also, France and Germany breached the EU's deficit rules in 2003. Denmark rejected Maastricht in 1992, so Europe negotiated opt-outs to keep it aboard.
As for Britain, Article 49 makes rejoining a negotiation, not a punishment. Even Michel Barnier has said Britain could negotiate its old opt-outs.
You're so obsessed with the letter of the law you've completely missed the spirit.
You can keep quoting the rulebook to scaremonger. I'm explaining how the game is actually played.
Cynic65 retweeted
The decline of the British car industry came in two Brexit stages.
1. Uncertainty post-referendum weakened the industry
2. Trade arrangements that replaced EU membership did lasting damage.
ukandeu.ac.uk/from-pace-sett…
Cynic65 retweeted
This guy utterly dismantles the populist politics of Reform and Restore in 90 seconds. It’s actually quite beautiful.
Take decades of deep-rooted problems in Britain and convince people that a relatively tiny proportion of the population is responsible for all of them. Housing, the NHS, crime. Blame illegal migrants for everything.
Suddenly, you don’t need credible solutions to the housing crisis, NHS waiting lists or crime. You just need increasingly extreme policies on immigration.
And by the time people realise you never had meaningful answers to the vast majority of Britain’s problems, you’re already in power, handing out tax cuts to your donors.
Cynic65 retweeted
I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime. I know people who served with Putin in the KGB and sat in on his deals with St. Petersburg crime bosses. So let me explain the "diesel deal" the way they would — in gangster slang. Because that's the language Putin actually thinks in.
First, the facts.
Putin just raised Russia's 2027 military budget by 27% to a record 17.1 trillion rubles — about $203 billion. Who budgets that kind of money for a war they're about to end?
The FT reported yesterday that Western intelligence has warned the heads of European defense companies that Russia is plotting to assassinate them.
Since September, Tusk, Macron and the intelligence services of Poland, Czechia, Latvia, Belgium, France and Denmark have all warned that Russian hybrid attacks — including drone and missile strikes — will intensify in the coming months.
None of this looks like a country preparing for peace.
Who actually benefits?
🇺🇸 What the US gets: Every serious analysis I've read says the announced volumes won't move American diesel prices. This is a PR move for Trump before the midterms — a story about prices that will "very, very soon" come down once his friend Vladimir's tankers reach US shores, plus the chance to claim he ended another war (I've lost count). The only US "benefit" is Trump's rating.
🇷🇺 What Russia gets: billions of dollars to keep funding its genocidal war against Ukrainians. Sanctions relief. A demonstration of power to the rest of the world. A deeper rift between the US and its European allies. And a real chance to disrupt US weapons and intelligence flowing to Ukraine.
So what is Putin's actual goal?
Trump's disapproval is at record highs and polls show his party will most likely loose midterm elections. In less than a month his power will be badly weakened. Why would Putin sign a long-term peace deal with a lame duck whose signature will soon be scrutinized at best and annulled at worst?
He wouldn't. And here's where the slang comes in.
In the eyes of Putin and his siloviki, Trump is a baryga — a greedy, unscrupulous businessman who puts profit above law and principle. Gangsters despise barygas, but they love using them. The goal is always to turn a baryga into a lokh — a mark, an outsider who doesn't understand the rules of the underworld and gets played to serve the gang's interests.
By signing the diesel deal, Putin plays two scenarios at once:
A) The deal miraculously helps his lokh keep power — great.
B) The deal changes nothing, the baryga loses the midterms — but by then it has already done its job: inflamed US political tensions and acted as arson inside the American system.
Putin knows that the majority of Americans support Ukraine. He knows that by signing, Trump draws unprecedented criticism, including from his own party. And he knows a baryga won't give up power easily, because he will have to answer for everything he did in office — this deal included. That's classic gangster/secret-service method: tie a man to your organization, make him a partner in your crimes, so he can't walk away.
Pouring more oil — diesel, in this case — onto the most explosive fault lines of American politics, raising the stakes for Trump and pushing him past the point of no return serves Putin far better than a peace deal that could be voided within months.
Remember: Putin's goal in the West is chaos, not peace.
Cynic65 retweeted
🧵
Matt Goodwin demanded to be fact-checked live on air when he claimed the UK spent "£100 million PER YEAR on family planning and condoms in Pakistan".
He then 'corrected' himself to £74.3 million, saying it was based on a "major news story from October 2025"
He was, of course, still wrong...
1/30
ALT Screenshot of LBC tweet: How much has the UK actually spent on condoms in Pakistan? Henry Riley is sceptical about Matt Goodwin's numbers so the reform politician calls himself to be fact-checked live on air.
Cynic65 retweeted
They arrived by small boat in 2020 and 2023? Who are these “establishment” figures that “ignored” Farage?
In 2023, privately educated former solicitor Robert Jenrick was Minister of State for Immigration (25 October 2022 – 6 December 2023). His brief explicitly covered small boats policy, illegal migration strategy, asylum decision-making and accommodation, and Border Force operations.
From 25 October 2022 until 13 November 2023, privately educated former barrister Suella Braverman was Home Secretary.
Privately educated Old Etonian former director of research at the Centre for Policy Studies and former chief leader writer at the Daily Telegraph, Danny Kruger, was a backbench Conservative MP in both 2020 and 2023.
Ignorant dimwit Lee Anderson was a backbench Conservative MP throughout both years. From 7 February 2023 to 16 January 2024 he was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
What about Farage’s other claims?
When Farage says “Nine years ago I specifically highlighted the Iranian threat via illegal migration”, this needs checking. Nine years before October 2026 is 2017. What he was saying then was the general European-boats warning, repeated after a Libyan PM said terrorists could be among migrants heading for Italy. That is not a specific warning about Iranian operatives using illegal routes into Britain. UK small-boat crossings were still negligible in 2017.
“Six years ago… the invasion in the Channel” matches the 2020 filming. “Invasion” is his inflammatory misleading word, not a description anyone else was obliged to adopt. Documenting the handovers is not the same as having identified terrorists on those boats.
The 2023 line is vague. In 2023 he said some arrivals could be terrorists or criminals. He did not identify these two men, or the alleged plot they are now charged with preparing.
The 2025 Commons claim is overstated. On 13 May 2025 he said that of 600 young men processed through Dover that day, “perhaps the odd Iranian terrorist among them - who knows.” That was a speculation about nationality and intent, not a discussion of identified Iranian terrorists at Dover.
The April 2026 claims rest on an unnamed “source within the Iranian-Persian diaspora” who, he said, knew “for a fact” that operatives had crossed in recent weeks. No public evidence was produced.
On 28 September, before the Fairford suspects had been identified, Farage called them “bomb plotters” and used the case to back his claim that Iran is sending operatives over on small boats. Police then said the five were British nationals in their early twenties from Camden, Westminster and Willesden. They were bailed without charge, and no explosive devices were found in the vans. Whatever Iran’s role turns out to be, he attached a live case to his boats story before the facts were in.
How do you know when Farage is exaggerating, distorting reality or lying? His lips are moving or he’s posted something.
Eleven years ago I warned that terrorists were using illegal routes into Europe to attack us. The establishment ignored me.
Nine years ago I specifically highlighted the Iranian threat via illegal migration. Crickets.
Six years ago I specifically warned about the invasion in the Channel, often taking to sea myself to document the horrors. Again, I was dismissed.
In 2023, I reported on terrorists coming into Britain on small boats, just like these men did under the Tory government.
In 2025, in the House of Commons, I discussed Iranian terrorists at Dover. And in April and May of this year I cited sources that told me Iranian terrorists were already in our midst. They said shame on me. No. Shame on them.
We now have a state of national emergency on our borders, and this government is trying to open them to even more unknown individuals.
We are inviting terror and horror into our communities. It must end now. And if this Home Secretary disagrees, she must resign.
Cynic65 retweeted
James Sawkins is a Reform UK councillor for the Waltham ward on North East Lincolnshire Council, elected in May 2026. He was the portfolio holder for safer and stronger communities.
His register of interests lists him as a director and shareholder of Grab and Go Grimsby Ltd and as having a land interest at 168 Yarborough Road, Grimsby.
In April 2026, just before the May local elections, Reform UK’s Oliver Freeston described Sawkins on @X as a local business owner and “a former police officer”. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. Details are hard to find. A public LinkedIn profile for a James Sawkins in nearby Humberston links the name to Lincolnshire Police in an IT context, but does not describe a warranted officer. His council register withholds his employment as a sensitive interest.
Freeston is Reform UK leader of North East Lincolnshire Council and councillor for Croft Baker. Elected as a Conservative in 2018 at 18, he defected to Reform in 2024, stood for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and became council leader on 21 May 2026. On Facebook, on 9 July 2026, Freeston posted a video of a woman in a hijab collecting a juvenile seagull from a front garden in West Marsh, Grimsby, with the caption: “Grimsby in 2026. I would remind all that in the UK, all wild gulls are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Perhaps Nigel Farage was right…”
It transpired that the woman was rescuing the bird, not harming it. He deleted his post a few hours after posting it and offered a donation to an animal charity. The council’s standards committee questioned him about bringing the council into disrepute. He said “I'm afraid this probably won't be the last mistake, but I'll certainly learn.”
Then on 28 July 2026, Freeston posted that the Islamic Centre of England (a charity under investigation over alleged links to the Iranian regime) had “now been granted” the ability to bring migrants to Britain, and that Labour had signed this off. The centre has held a Home Office sponsor licence since at least March 2017, under the previous Conservative government, not as a new grant in 2026. It has not sponsored any workers since 2022. Labour inherited the existing licence and has not (yet) revoked it; that is not the same as approving a fresh power to bring migrants in.
Back to Mr. Sawkins: on 11 September 2026, Humberside Police executed warrants at properties on Yarborough Road, Grimsby, and Grange Close, Waltham, after reports of the sale of unlicensed medicines. Officers seized unlicensed prescription drugs, Class A drugs and phones.
A 43-year-old man (Sawkins is 43) was arrested on suspicion of concealing criminal property, administering a noxious substance with intent, supplying an unauthorised medical product and possession of Class A drugs. A 43-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of concealing criminal property, administering a noxious substance with intent and supplying an unauthorised medical product. Both were released on conditional bail. Police did not name either person.
HMCTS-derived court lists (His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is the agency that runs courts and tribunals in England and Wales) show a defendant named James Sawkins listed for a hearing at Hull and Holderness Magistrates’ Court on 17 September 2026 at 10am, case 2600034212. The published entry gives no prosecutor and no offence details. A listing is not a conviction or a published charge sheet.
On 2 October, Labour MP Melanie Onn wrote to Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson saying she understood Sawkins was under police investigation and that proceedings had been listed at the magistrates’ court. She said she was not commenting on the merits. A Reform spokesperson said he had not been charged and that the party understood the allegations concerned a third party, so he remained a councillor.
On 3 October, council leader Oliver Freeston said the same, and that Sawkins was stepping away from cabinet duties while grieving his father, who died last month and had not yet been buried. Portfolio work was to be shared among other cabinet members.
Other information, not confirmed by police or a charge sheet, includes reporting from local media outlet Gi Grimsby, a local online news site for Grimsby. It reports that Sawkins appeared at Hull Magistrates’ Court on 17 September in connection with the raids. That matches the listing date and name, but the outlet did not publish the charges put, if any.
Grimsby Live, the website of the Grimsby Telegraph, the main local daily paper for Grimsby and North East Lincolnshire, said it understood the raids were at the Grab&Go outlet where he is a director and at the family home in Waltham. That is consistent with his declared interests and the addresses police named, but police have not said the arrested man was Sawkins.
There are in circulation some speculative or contradictory claims saying Sawkins was charged with those offences, convicted, or that he resigned as a councillor. These claims go beyond the published record. Reform and the council leader say he has not been charged and remains a councillor.
Reform UK’s line that “the allegations concern a third party” is its own account, not a police finding. No published source sets out what was said in court, any plea, or any further hearing date.
Candidate James Sawkins for Waltham Ward has been out meeting residents, alongside @TiceRichard, listening to people’s concerns and delivering a clear message of hope.
James is a local business owner with strong roots in the community, and a former police officer, who understands the importance of tackling anti-social behaviour and standing up for residents.
If elected, he will be a strong voice for Waltham, focused on accountability, community safety, and putting local people first.
On the 7th May - Vote Reform! 🗳️🇬🇧
@reformparty_uk | @reformuknelincs
Cynic65 retweeted
Say what you like about the 1970s. But there wasn't a 105-year wait for social housing or a seven-year backlog for routine NHS surgery, and nobody in a full-time job needed to use a food bank.
Cynic65 retweeted
Farage wants to ban Afghan immigrants "to put the safety of British women and girls first."
The route he's slamming shut reserves around a quarter of its places for Afghan women and girls, who are barred from school, banned from work, confined to their homes, and shot at when they protest.
In Herat this June, Taliban police used live fire to break up a protest against the arrest of women over their headscarves; medics told the BBC two people died.
Farage has said "yes" to sending women back to that regime.
In August 2025, launching Reform's mass deportation plan, he said a Reform government would negotiate with the Taliban to take people back, and his party proposed a £2 billion fund to pay countries, the Taliban among them, to accept returns. Asked whether returnees might be tortured or killed, Farage replied: "It bothers me, but what really bothers me is what is happening on the streets of our country."
It wasn't always so. In January 2025 he signed a cross-party letter calling the Taliban's record the "appalling oppression of women and girls" and urging a "message of solidarity and hope" to Afghan women and girls that "their suffering has not been overlooked." Eight days later he posted: "I don't usually think sport and politics should mix, but we must take a stand to allow young girls in Afghanistan to play cricket."
Their suffering, it seems, is worth a cricket boycott, but not a place of safety.
To justify shutting them out, in the clip below, recorded for an American podcast, he claims: "A young male that comes to England from Afghanistan is 22 times more likely to commit rape than someone born in England."
The figure comes from the highly partisan one-man Centre for Migration Control, a think tank committed to reducing migration. It measures recorded sexual offences, charges or convictions depending on the cut, not rapes committed; no published data can tell you who commits rape, only who is charged or convicted.
It compares young men with everyone born in England, women, children and pensioners included. And its size depends almost entirely on which population estimate you use: Sky News, using country-of-birth figures, found a gap of around three times. Even Reform's own MP, Sarah Pochin, told a press conference in August 2025 that the figure was three times. Farage chose 22.
But note who his own statistic is about: young men. The places he wants to abolish include those set aside for Afghan women and girls. Even on his own numbers, he has no case for turning them away.
It is cowardice wearing the costume of chivalry. He invokes women's safety to deny safety to the women in the greatest danger, and calls it protection.
Afghan women's suffering matters to him when it costs nothing: a signature on a letter, a stand on cricket. When it would mean offering them safety, he turns them away.
It is utterly shameful, and every voter who cares about women should see it for exactly what it is.
Cynic65 retweeted
This is so historically and factually illiterate it’s funny. Prices rose 10.5% in the year after privatisation. Private firms prioritized profit margins and shareholder dividends over immediate consumer savings. 🧵
Andy Burnham doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. He's just told the BBC that our energy crisis has its roots in the privatisation of energy in the 1980s onwards.
Actually energy prices for households and businesses FELL in the years following privatisation.
And the supply of domestically produced gas and oil rose because of North Sea Oil drilling.
Britain is harder hit by global energy price hikes due to the Ukraine and Iran wars because of our own governments' mad Net Zero policies. If he won't abandon Net Zero, our energy prices won't come down.
Cynic65 retweeted
A soul and a basic understanding of of how the criminal justice system works in the UK for starters.
Farage is comparing two people at completely different stages of the criminal process, whose liberty was decided by different people under different rules.
1. One has been charged, the others haven't.
Thomas has been charged: he appeared at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court on 25 September, where he denied criminal damage and a separate charge of failing to disclose the PIN to his mobile phone under Section 53 of RIPA 2000.
The Fairford five have not: the suspects have not been charged and "remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of enquiry," according to Counter Terrorism Policing's Laurence Taylor.
2. Different kinds of bail, different decision-makers.
Taylor said the men had been released on police bail on Monday. That is pre-charge bail, an operational police decision. Thomas's bail was refused by a judge in court after charge.
Even the government made this point: Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said decisions around bail were operational matters for the police and prosecutors.
3. The judge gave a reason.
The Deputy Senior District Judge told the court there was a "real possibility of an immediate custodial sentence". Farage doesn't mention it.
The court was also told Thomas is 37, of no fixed address. He is described as a convicted kidnapper. These are the sort of factors the Bail Act asks courts to weigh.
4. "Suspected terrorists" is doing heavy lifting.
They were arrested on suspicion. PA reported, without citing sources, that police had not found viable explosives. That's unconfirmed, but it's the kind of detail an investigation may still be weighing, and "suspected terrorists out on bail" presents an open inquiry as a settled threat.
5. They aren't free and clear.
Taylor said they are "subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others."
6. Thomas's custody isn't final either.
He was remanded in custody until a scheduled appearance at Portsmouth Crown Court on 29 September, and Tommy Robinson said his legal team would fight at the Crown Court for his bail. So "sits in a cell" may change tomorrow.
7. What "two-tier" implies.
The phrase normally signals that ethnic or religious minorities get softer treatment. But police have not publicly released their names, ethnicities, birthplaces, immigration histories or any information indicating whether they hold additional nationalities; all that is known is they are British nationals from the London area, aged between 23 and 25.
The tweet invites readers to fill that gap themselves, which Farage can then deny having done. Hence the "or am I missing something?" hedge.
In short: charged defendant remanded by a judge versus uncharged suspects released by police mid-investigation. Those aren't two tiers of justice. They're two stages of it.
Cynic65 retweeted
As I say on fiscal rules in the glossary to my blog:
"Fiscal rules are targets set by governments to limit borrowing, debt, or deficits over time. They are presented as if they are neutral, technical constraints on what governments can do. In reality, they are arbitrary political choices.Governments adopt and abandon fiscal rules at will. Each new government tends to change the rules it inherits. That alone proves that they are not immutable laws of economics but rhetorical devices designed to give the impression of discipline."
I added:
"The primary function of fiscal rules has been to justify austerity measures. By pretending that there are financial limits to what governments can do, they have provided cover for cuts in public services, social security, and investment in social infrastructure."
Yesterday at the Labour Party's conference in Liverpool, Chancellor John Healey said:
"[T]he Prime Minister and I are in lockstep that we will meet the fiscal rules.That we will maintain control of Britain's finances."
The UK actually has, at present, three fiscal rules:
Rule 1. The current budget should be on course to be in balance or surplus by 2029/30 (‘stability rule')
Rule 2. Net financial debt should fall as a share of the economy in 2029/30 (‘investment rule')
Rule 3. Some types of welfare spending must remain below a pre-specified level (the ‘welfare cap')
To put these another way, they mean:
Rule 1. That the government will stop injecting net new money into the economy by 2029 to support its growth objective, and will rely entirely on the private sector to achieve this goal by then.
Rule 2. That the government will cease to provide the additional savings facilities that an economy that is growing in financial terms will need if financial security and stability are to be provided to the UK's financial institutions that underpin the operation of the UK's financial services sector and its overseas trade. Financial risk will, therefore, be increased as a result, with a resulting increase in the likelihood of financial instability.
Rule 3. That the government will maintain a policy of austerity that reduces the likelihood that those with the greatest needs in the UK will have those needs met.
I have little doubt that the government will not agree with my interpretation of these rules. However, read what they say, and understand what they are meant to achieve, and my version of their statements expresses the reality of their supposed priorities, to which John Healey recommitted this Labour government yesterday.
No doubt Andy Burnham will do so again today.
The history of these fiscal rules, introduced as they were by Gordon Brown in 1997, makes clear why this is the case, and what the real priority of government since then has been.
Brown was, entirely inappropriately, terrified of the City of London. He and Blair won a massive majority from the people of this country, as Starmer did again in 2024. In both cases, the victory represented rejection of Tory sleaze as much as it did enthusiasm for any Labour programme, and Blair, Brown and Starmer alike reflected that fact in their behaviour. Not one of them had any confidence in the mandate they had been given. None of them believed that a parliamentary majority provided them with the authority to challenge the status and power of the City of London. All of them, and now Andy Burnham, signed up to the belief that the purpose of government was to meet the needs of the financial services sector, and not the people of this country. Every single fiscal rule created since then has had this sole purpose. The aim has been to:
Confirm that the government will bow to the interests of the City.
Reiterate that, whatever the wishes and needs of the people of the UK, their priorities and political mandates, the City and those who speak for it will instead dictate the agenda of the government.
State that if there is a conflict between the interests of the City and the interests of those who might elect governments in the UK, then the City shall have priority, whatever the cost to human well-being.
Make clear that sovereignty has been surrendered by the democratic will of Parliament on the altar of high finance.
That is what John Healey confirmed yesterday. He did, to use the language I created in my 2011 book, The Courageous State, confirm himself to be a cowardly politician who will, when he sees a problem requiring attention, defer to the interests of the City and declare that markets will provide a solution, washing his hands of responsibility in the process.
I am so bored of this type of government. I have lived with it for decades. It has failed me. It has failed the people of this country. It has been designed to do so. There is no intention amongst those who now sit in our Cabinet to change this in any way. And yet, the possibility to do so does exist.
There is no need for this country to have a fiscal rule of the type noted.
There is nothing to stop it having a rule for government that states that everyone who wants to have a job should be able to have one, and that it is the job of the government to ensure that this is possible.
There is nothing that says we cannot run government so that every young person in the UK gets the type of education that they need, rather than that which is deemed necessary for them to partake in in a neoliberal economy which is intent upon minimising employment, and then offering the maximum number of bullshit jobs, as David Graeber would have put it, to those left desperate enough to take them.
There is nothing that says this government could not commit itself to eradicating poverty with all its devastating social consequences.
There is nothing that says that this government cannot commit to the defence that is necessary against climate change, and the lack of resilience that we have with regard to critical supplies of goods and services that are essential for the maintenance of life in this country, and against the abuse of so many people by neoliberal and far-right politics that treats them as expendable or alien, and so available to be abused.
There is nothing that says we cannot manage the economy to achieve these goals, and do so in a way that is designed to manage inflation, because we know that is technically possible. What is more, we know that it is possible without the use of penal interest rates.
There is nothing that says we cannot build a sustainable future for our children, grandchildren and those who will come beyond them.
There is nothing that says any of these things is impossible, and simultaneously.
They are not, however, happening, and that is by political choice. Because John Healey and Andy Burnham are deliberately choosing not to do these things, and because they do not even possess the curiosity to wonder whether alternatives to those that the Treasury imposes upon them might be available, they are, like all their predecessors since 1979, guilty of the deliberate destruction of well-being in this country by making it their priority to achieve this outcome.
If anyone asks me why I cannot support a Labour government in this country, that is why.
All that baffles me is that anyone would still support this Labour Party, or why any trade union would wish to financially donate to it, or why anyone would imagine it will deliver anything of consequence for people in this country. It is time for people of courage to walk away from Labour. They have had their chance. They have blown it. We need a real alternative in this country now. They will never be it again.
Cynic65 retweeted
10 bloody years ..& still the same lies, denials & deliberate misinformation from Brexiters ...
But it is & has always been simple.
The UK chose to make it much harder to trade into & access the EU.
Without (not in its gift to) making it any *equally* compensating easier to trade into & access any other country, anywhere in the world.
It *levelled down* trade & access.
The UK now has an extra 31 regulatory borders & 28 extra customs borders to trade across .
These harder borders (we wanted) are funnily enough *harder* to trade & move across. These borders are the hardest of (NTBs) *barriers to trade*, growth & mutual prosperity.
It should be no surprise to anybody that this would cause economic contraction ..more so as more Brexit gets done, if it is ever fully done. (The UK still dares not fully reciprocate the TCA border, nor try to enforce UKCA, for fear of too much "self harm" thus asymetrically advantaging EU over UK manufacturers & food suppliers)
We can of course (Brexit "freedom") unilaterally drop our pants (tariffs, border controls & market standards) to *more imports* (*the other's exports*) including more illicit & dangerous to public health, imported trade (we do), but this also cripples & crucifies UK domestic suppliers & UK *exports* even further. Thus fewer UK consumers (redundant workers) to enjoy this Brexit "benefit".....
International trade is full of (WCO & WTO membership) rules & complexities. It's such a pity that so many still do not appreciate what an incredible, exceptional job the UK (Arthur Cockfield) once did; or, in the case of the conflicted malevolent Brexiters, want to trash.
Cynic65 retweeted
Within hours of five men being arrested near RAF Fairford, three of Reform's most prominent figures had pointed the public towards small boats. None of them offered a single fact about the suspects, because there are none in the public domain.
Police have said nothing about their nationality or how they came to be in the UK.
Reports say investigators are examining a possible Iran link, but that is a line of inquiry, with nothing yet confirmed about these five men.
Nigel Farage went first, reminding followers that he has spent months warning about Iranian agents arriving on small boats, and demanding "the truth" about the suspects' identities. That warning began in April with a single unnamed source in the Iranian diaspora. In July the Telegraph did report that Iran was exploiting Channel crossings, but the same reporting quoted sources saying the greater threat came from radicalised Iranians already living in Britain, from people who entered legally, and from established proxy networks. In suspected Iran-linked cases in the UK this year, those arrested have included British nationals.
Whatever the truth about Fairford turns out to be, a months-old claim is not evidence about five men arrested on Sunday morning.
Robert Jenrick followed, suggesting "we may now be seeing the consequences" of Home Office complacency, in a post now approaching 200,000 views. His grievance deserves context.
As reported by the Telegraph, the "threat" he describes was a letter from the then Permanent Secretary cautioning him against further disclosure of classified material from his time as a minister.
His original claim about terror suspects crossing the Channel concerned the year before he became immigration minister, under a Conservative government.
He then held that job himself, under Rishi Sunak, from October 2022 to December 2023. Small boat crossings reached a record of nearly 46,000 in 2022, on his party's watch, and Jenrick has admitted that "the last Government unquestionably did not do enough to fix this."
He joined Reform in January, hours after Kemi Badenoch sacked him from the shadow cabinet. Changing parties does not change his record in office.
Richard Tice then demanded that the government reveal the suspects' "identities, arrival times and provenance and residence status."
Neither the government nor the police routinely release that information about people who have been arrested but not charged.
Once someone is arrested, criminal proceedings are active, and putting those details into circulation risks prejudicing any trial. It is a demand no responsible government would meet at this stage. That may be the point: an unanswerable question lets the insinuation stand.
After Southport, we saw what happens when false claims about a suspect's background spread faster than the facts: mosques and asylum hotels were attacked.
Senior politicians, one of them a former immigration minister with access to sensitive security information, should know better than to point the public at a group of people before the police have.
Cynic65 retweeted
You all and your endless pettifogging ffs. Do you think past cabinets would tolerate your strategic narrow mindedness.
You of all people.
Andrew, forget for a moment the endless Brexit accountancy — customs forms, regulations, GDP fractions and whether one trade agreement adds 0.1% here or subtracts 0.2% there.
There is a much larger question: where does British power come from?
Churchill understood it perfectly. Britain was powerful because it stood at the junction of what he called the “three majestic circles”: the Commonwealth, the English-speaking world and United Europe.
That was not sentimental Europeanism. It was hard-headed British geopolitics.
For three centuries British strategy was based on one central principle: never allow the European continent to be organised without Britain having a decisive voice in its organisation. Marlborough understood it. Pitt understood it. Castlereagh understood it. Palmerston understood it. Churchill understood it.
The object was never to escape Europe. It was to shape Europe.
That is why Churchill could simultaneously be the supreme Atlanticist, an imperialist and the man who declared at Zurich: “Let Europe arise!”
Brexit can be argued economically until the last customs declaration is filed. But geopolitically the question is much more profound.
Sovereignty is the legal freedom to act.
Power is the ability to make others act with you.
Britain historically maximised the second, not merely the first.
The great British foreign-policy tradition was never “splendid isolation”. It was ensuring that Britain sat at every important table — Washington, the Commonwealth and Europe — and could play one circle through the others.
Leaving a table may increase your freedom from its rules.
It does not automatically increase your power over what is decided there.
Churchill’s Britain wanted both sovereignty and leverage.
That is the argument Brexit has never satisfactorily answered.
This is so bonkers I can hardly believe you made it.
A large part of the 2.5m were unproductive — students, dependents etc. So they had little impact on GDP.
But their numbers are included in GDP/capita calculations, so quite the impact on GDP/capita.
I’m amazed you don’t understand this.
No wonder the three Theresa May years were three of the most miserable, shambolic, rudderless in our country’s modern history.
Cynic65 retweeted
Russia is bombarding the U.K. information space with lies and misinformation. And Nigel wants it to carry on because it helps him. Like it helped them ten years again during the referendum. About time government took it seriously. Farage and his AfD pals in Germany have done enough for Russia already. His close pal Nathan Gill is paying a high price, wallowing in jail. Time for the rest of us to call it out.