Cllr for Dereham Withburga ward ,(Labour) Breckland District Council . GMB , Co-op and Unison member. Ex NHS . Former Parl cand, ex Lab Group leader.
Dereham, Norfolk
Joined March 2012
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Harry Clarke retweeted
Exclusive: Reform UK mayor accused of cyberflashing went on taxpayer-funded trip with witness
Comes amid ongoing concerns over a lack of safeguarding to protect evidence, witnesses and the process as a whole
observer.co.uk/news/politics…
Harry Clarke retweeted
TUC's Paul Nowak calls out Conservative MP Luke Evans who criticised welfare payments.
"A third of those who claim universal credit are in work"
"And we are subsidising poor employers, many of whom are not small businesses, they're large businesses who can afford to pay more"
"And we are subsidising them as taxpayers"
My view:
36% of working Universal Crecit claimants worked more than 30 hours a week.
Telling people to work harder is a hollow response when so many are already putting in substantial hours and still qualify for support.
Why should taxpayers have to top up wages at hugely profitable companies that can afford to pay their staff more?
The people stacking shelves, serving customers and keeping these businesses running help create that wealth. They deserve a fairer share of it.
Universal Credit also helps with housing, children and other household needs.
Politicians should challenge those business decisions with the same energy they direct at benefit claimants.
When companies prioritise shareholder returns while the people generating those returns struggle to cover the basics, something is badly wrong with the system.
Harry Clarke retweeted
£24m will not allow non-host counties to change the business models
And they only have 4 days of home men's cricket in the key month of August to sell.
So what the hell do non-hosts do if their funding is cut?
...apart from go part-time
Harry Clarke retweeted
No he is going to spend money helping people into work, it was the norm up until the 80s. I remember my uncle in his 40s with knackered knees after years of working as a sparky retraining for free to be a surveyor.
Let me get this straight… Burnham is going to spend *even* more money on benefits?
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Harry Clarke retweeted
Today X is full of people whinging they dont get paid enough to pay the bills angry at unionised workers who can, because they demand better than just getting by.
Happy Saturday
Harry Clarke retweeted
When Putin seized Crimea, both Europe and America were quite openly making calls, holding meetings, and sending signals to the Ukrainians who were in power at the time that there should be no escalation – let's just keep things friendly and leave things as they are for now. And we lost Crimea. After that, we lost part of Donbas. But the shooting in the east continued. There was no peace.
People think we were always helped. That is not true. Help started coming after the full-scale invasion, but that was after eight years of Russia occupying our territory. That is a long time to figure things out and understand that Putin has no intention of giving anything back to us.
At one point, some Europeans asked me: “Why do you think that if you withdraw from Donbas, he will go further?” And I answered: “Because at the beginning of the war, he wasn't seizing Donbas. He came to the capital. He seized parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Kherson itself, and Kharkiv region.” We have retaken a lot of territory, but he had seized different parts of our country. And now they want us to give them something because they are unable to seize it. We may have a smaller territory, less money, and fewer weapons, but we still have more dignity than many others. We will do everything we can to end this war, but it must end in a way that preserves our dignity.
From an interview with ZDF. (2/3)
Harry Clarke retweeted
Both the Tories and Reform UK urged Britain to support Trump and Netanyahu's war on Iran. Don't forget that.
Harry Clarke retweeted
This rise in interest rates is driven by a big increase in inflation - driven itself by another global fossil fuel crisis. When will we get to grips with this.
We showed the last Chancellor date from the last crisis which showed 1.5% points added to inflation due to ’the link’ between the price of gas and all other electricity. And 1% added to BoE rates.
The relationship is crystal clear now.
We need urgently to reform our energy market - break the link and fix wholesale prices (as we already have with retail prices) - this is the key to permanently lower energy bills.
Read more here:
dalevince.com/reports/wholes…
Harry Clarke retweeted
On his perhaps first solo media outing, the new Reform spokesman for Armed Forces, @AngusReform has already had to defend @Nigel_Farage’s comments about ‘poking the Russian Bear’, in connection with Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. He said that the papers were deliberately mischievous and deliberately misinterpreted what Nigel said.
Well, @AngusReform, incase you only read the papers and didn’t hear what your boss said in his own words, here is the video. Nathan Gill (former Reform leader in Wales), is currently in prison for taking bribes to say this sort of thing.
P.S. I still wonder why Gill was being paid to say something that Nigel was saying for free.
Harry Clarke retweeted
‼️ The @bankofengland is punishing the victims, not the people responsible.
Prices are not rising bc British families are recklessly spending too much.
They are rising because Donald Trump’s war has disrupted global energy supplies, Putin’s war has destabilised Europe, and Brexit has made Britain poorer, weaker and more exposed to every international shock.
The Bank’s own figures show that energy and fuel account for most of the inflation above its target. It admits there is still only limited evidence of a wage-price spiral.
Yet its answer is to punish ordinary people with higher mortgages, falling house prices, collapsing businesses and reduced living standards.
Trump lights the fire.
Putin pours on petrol.
Brexit removes Britain’s fire doors.
Then the Bank of England arrives, not with water, but with a wrecking ball.
It cannot stop the wars or reverse Brexit, so it crushes domestic demand until British people are too poor to pay the higher prices.
This doesn’t fight the cause of inflation, it is accelerating the economic collapse those external shocks have already set in motion.
🆘 ⚠️ The foundations of the British economy are already shaking.
House prices are falling. Mortgage approvals are collapsing. Small businesses are disappearing. Families face falling real incomes and energy bills they cannot control.
The @bankofengland knows all this. Its own report records the weakening housing market, declining mortgage demand and tighter credit for SMEs.
Yet it has arrived with a crane and swung a wrecking ball into the building. Higher rates mean larger mortgages, falling property values, more arrears and repossessions, weaker investment, business failures and greater pressure on renters.
The Bank calls this “restrictive monetary policy”.
In plain English, it is deliberate destruction: making people poorer until they can no longer afford their mortgage!
The inflation is being driven principally by war and imported energy, not a British spending boom.
Calling this a cure is dishonest. It is an aggressive monetary intervention whose destructive consequences are known in advance.
When the foundations are shaking, responsible authorities reinforce the building. They do not attack it with a wrecking ball.
Harry Clarke retweeted
You were a big part of his publicity campaign to portray himself as a godly person. You didn't have to do it all in front of the camera. Yet you did.
Harry Clarke retweeted
🚩 The Bank of England is prescribing arsenic, not penicillin.
Britain is suffering from imported energy inflation caused by war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Higher interest rates cannot produce oil, reopen shipping lanes or reduce wholesale gas prices.
They simply poison the rest of the economy, raising mortgages, crushing investment and driving down living standards.
The @bankofengland cannot cure the disease, so it is weakening the patient.
🆘 This is the wrong cure.
You do not unblock the Strait of Hormuz or produce more oil and gas by making British mortgages, investment and construction more expensive.
This is imported, supply-driven inflation. Higher interest rates suppress domestic demand, punish households and risk recession, without addressing the source of the shock.
The answer is energy resilience: storage, renewables, efficiency, closer integration with Europe’s energy market and targeted protection for households and businesses.
Interest rates cannot manufacture energy. This is not a cure; it is deliberately inflicting more pain elsewhere in the economy.
Harry Clarke retweeted
The Bank of England has raised interest rates to 4%, supposedly to tackle inflation.
There is just one problem with this decision. The Bank knows that much of the inflation we are suffering is being driven by rising oil and energy prices, largely resulting from conflict in the Middle East.
It also knows that raising interest rates cannot reduce those prices.
So why is it doing this?
The answer is that the Bank believes it must suppress demand elsewhere in the economy to compensate for rising energy costs.
In other words, it is deliberately making mortgages more expensive, increasing business borrowing costs, discouraging investment and reducing household spending power.
And all this when people are already struggling with higher energy bills. That is problem number one.
There is, however, another problem. Higher interest rates increase costs for businesses, which can then feed through into higher prices. They can, in that case, add to inflation rather than reduce it.
The Bank is imposing economic pain to address a problem its chosen policy cannot directly solve.
That is not sound economic management. It is the consequence of an economic dogma that refuses to recognise the difference between inflation caused by excessive demand and inflation caused by supply shocks.
When will we learn?
Harry Clarke retweeted
On this day in 1946, King George VI gave Royal Assent to the National Health Services Act. The birth of our NHS.
A bold and historic new principle - healthcare for all, free when you need it. Eight decades later, that principle is as powerful as ever.
To everyone who has worked in our NHS and care services since then: thank you. For being there and caring for all of us when we need you. You are the reason that principle still stands.
Harry Clarke retweeted
It's clear that despite the headlines this summer the enforcement regime is starting to have some sort of impact. The smugglers wouldn't be moving their operation so far up the coast otherwise.
Harry Clarke retweeted
When your mortgage goes up again…
Remember to thank the war-mongering bastards responsible.
Harry Clarke retweeted
Bereaved families fought for the Covid Inquiry. We will not let its recommendations be quietly forgotten.
Writing for Care Rights UK, we explain how our tracker holds ministers to account for the changes needed to prevent future deaths.
Read our blog ⤵️
carerightsuk.org/care-rights…
Harry Clarke retweeted
I’ve worked with some fantastic journalists in my 29 years on the job. My pride at @Gabriel_Pogrund knows no bounds for example. But what @RosamundUrwin had to go through to get the Brand allegations past the lawyers and over the line is of a different order from anything I’ve ever achieved in this job. She is brave, principled, a great reporter, a beautiful writer and a gutsy human being. I am frankly proud to know her let alone call her a friend. The KC who lost his rag earlier should rot in hell
Harry Clarke retweeted
“Le Roy le veult.”
80 years ago today, the National Health Service Act received Royal Assent.
A bold vision from a Labour Government: healthcare for all, free at the point of use.
As a former NHS surgeon, I know how precious that promise is.
Our duty is to protect it for future generations.
Harry Clarke retweeted
Hancock’s “protective ring” was a lie. Our loved ones paid with their lives.
Our member Sioux Vosper and Joseph Healy on the failures exposed by the Covid Inquiry and why social care reform cannot wait.
labourhub.org.uk/2026/11/05/…
