david prior

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Well who wudda thunk it?! The Starmer-Reeves defence spending plan assumes £10 billion in defence ‘efficiencies’/savings — and leaves Andy Burnham to find a further £5 billion for defence in the next Budget for the figures to add up. Starmer-Reeves — shysters til the very end.

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

🚨 I've listened to Andy Burnham's 10 year speech, where he looks Britain's new saviour in Zelenski uniform, bragging about what a success Greater Manchester is with my mouth open.

You would be forgiven for thinking Greater Manchester was close to perfect, an example to everyone of how his fantastic policies have worked.

Does he seriously think most of Greater Manchester is a success? or that he contributed to a shiny business sector, 2 world class football teams and the largest Uni in the country? because outside that...

▪️Nearly 1 in 4 GM neighbourhoods are in the most deprived 10% nationally.

▪️Half of GM’s local authority areas are among England’s 30 most deprived.

▪️Manchester city is ranked 4th most deprived English local authorities.

▪️In 2024, 16.2% of jobs in Greater Manchester workplaces paid below the real Living Wage = 193,000 low-paid jobs.

▪️Temporary accommodation is around 5,915 households, with 8,600 children in temporary accommodation.

▪️Around 12,700 long-term empty homes were identified across the city-region.

▪️4 of the 10 highest recorded crime local authorities in England are in Greater Manchester

▪️Educational achievements are below national average

▪️Manchester city area above national unemployment levels

▪️1 in 8 working age people get PIP, above the national average

▪️The GM area has a lower household disposable income than the national average

▪️34% increase in rough sleeping

▪️Violent crime and sexual offences are above the national average.

▪️grooming gangs? or is we still ignoring these?

▪️Drug-related death rates in Greater Manchester are significantly above the national average

Oh and now lets talk about debt. Bravo Andy... to achieve some of the highest deprivation in the country under his leadership, GMCA now has about £1.4 BILLION of gross debt and an underlying borrowing need of roughly £2.5 BILLION.

So his speech on "Hopes and dreams" is actually more like 'No hope and nightmares', his leafy suburbs and shiny city buildings can't really hide the truth.

You're welcome.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

‘An extra £270bn’ for defence ‘across this parliament’ implies an increase of £270bn. Which is a lie. The £270bn comes from adding up defence spending for every year of this parliament under existing plans. It’s not an increase. Just an accumulation. Nobody counts defence spending in this manner. Even Gordon Brown wasn’t as misleading when it came to stats as this.

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

White people are terrified of being seen as racist.

If white guilt permeates the online world and our schools, then our adults will feel guilty too.

This helps neither whites nor ethnics.

My ARC speech:

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

I sense that political obituarists are preparing to run with the line that @Keir_Starmer was a decent fellow, but ill-suited to politics. Honest but naïve.
Well, have a look at this and then try to tell me he was honest. The signs were there from the start.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

Agenda 2030 Or The Defence Of The Realm. Starmer Has Made His Choice. John Healey Has Resigned Over It.

This morning Britain woke up without a Defence Secretary. By lunchtime it knew why.

The numbers tell the story precisely. The Ministry of Defence faces a £28 billion funding shortfall over four years. Healey wanted £18 billion. He was offered £13.5 billion of which defence chiefs regarded only £10 billion as real money. The remaining £3.5 billion was, in the words of the Telegraph, invented through magical accounting tricks. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Richard Knighton, took the unusual step of writing directly to Starmer to warn that the money was not enough. The head of the British armed forces writing directly to the Prime Minister is not a routine communication. It is a signal of desperation.

Starmer told NATO last week that it is our intelligence assessment that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030. Those are his words. His government's assessment. Shared with our allies. Four years away. And his Treasury offered the man responsible for defending against that threat an accounting trick and a two page summary instead of a funded plan. Why. Because the money was needed elsewhere.

In 2015 every United Nations member state including Britain signed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Its 17 goals and 169 targets commit signatory nations to facilitating migration, eliminating inequality, achieving net zero and embedding inclusive institutions. No British parliament voted on it. No British public was consulted. It was adopted at a UN summit and has been implemented ever since through regulatory frameworks, public sector guidance and institutional capture rather than democratic mandate. It is not a conspiracy. It is a publicly available document on the UN website. And its priorities, net zero, welfare, migration, DEI, are precisely the budgets this government has protected while offering the defence of the realm an accounting trick.

Ed Miliband refused to cut his net zero budget to fund defence. The Labour Party refused to cut welfare spending that would have freed up billions. The £10 billion in asylum accommodation contracts continues. The DEI infrastructure embedded across British policing, the NHS, the civil service and the education system continues to be funded. Every one of these is a commitment that takes precedence over the defence of the realm in this government's spending decisions.

The hierarchy of priorities is now visible. A government that has spent two years embedding progressive transformation across British institutions, protecting the net zero agenda from cuts and managing mass migration has discovered that it cannot simultaneously do all of that and defend the country. When the moment of decision arrived the progressive agenda was protected and the armed forces were handed a two page summary and told to make do.

Lord Robertson, the former Labour Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General, warned in April that Britain was underprepared, underinsured and under attack. He said there was a corrosive complacency in Britain's political leadership. The army has been reduced to its smallest size in 200 years. Seven warships have been axed. The Defence Investment Plan was due last autumn, delayed through winter, missed its spring deadline and has now produced the resignation of the Defence Secretary on the day it was finally meant to be published.

Healey's letter says without a plan that meets the moment he is being forced to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our forces, increase the risk to personnel on operations and could make the country less safe. He had no other option but to resign.

In the most dangerous security environment since the Cold War a Labour government has chosen the globalist agenda over the defence of the realm. That choice has now cost it its Defence Secretary. The question is what it will cost the country.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is an outrageous, disgraceful smear on John Healey — and an outright lie. There are a ton of ways to finance more for defence — starting with net zero — without taking a penny from schools or hospitals. Reeves should be ashamed of herself for allowing this nonsense. Suggests she’s really desperate.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Just a pity you haven’t increased defence spending to cover the cost of this necessary 14% pay rise. You’re taking it from other parts of the defence budget, further hollowing out our military, which started under the Tories.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Wow. A billion of taxpayers money. Most of which will be frittered away and never seen again. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, US AI companies plan to invest £750 billion this year.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

The nauseating hypocrisy of E Miliband is jaw-dropping. He and his kind across the political class — Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, SNP — promoted the very energy policies that lumbered Britain with the highest industrial energy costs in the world, making industries like steel uneconomic. They tolerated no dissent from their net zero nonsense even as deindustrialisation gathered pace. And now Miliband has the audacity to pose as the saviour of British steelworkers! In truth, the British political class has shamefully failed them, none more so than net zero zealot Miliband.

[Giles Udy @GilesUdy]

" Several tanks are hit as the landing craft doors go down ... Tanks are brewing up right and left."

A few years ago I made my own pilgrimage to the #DDay beaches and to the British cemetery inland from Sword beach where the bodies of those who died that day and the days following now lie.

One grave made an impression that I will never forget. It was a double grave stone with four names, all from the Royal Armoured Corps:

Lt JLA Allen
Cpl JWR James
Trooper WG McShand
Trooper RA Thomas

Initially it was a mystery. Why one double grave stone for all four men?

So I researched the accounts of that day - 6th June 1944 , D-Day. And it didn't take long before the mystery was revealed. I'd half suspected it. 🧵

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Worth watching. Proper, measured, thoughtful response.

[Kate Hoey @CatharineHoey]

What a brilliant put down of @sainsburys Makes you wonder who in the company they pay to come up with these pathetic plans. Do they think it makes them see ‘on message’ !!!!

[Old Gassy @OldGassy1984]

Nicola Sturgeon finds herself struggling to log in to a website...

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Let’s nail this state lie once and for all. The government is NOT increasing defence spending by £270 billion during this parliament. It is a ludicrous claim.
Yet one Keir Starmer made to Parliament’s Liaison Committee in March: Labour, he said, will “spend £270 billion MORE (my emphasis) than we would otherwise have done on defence” in this Parliament.
Starmer has always been weak on facts and figures but even by his standards this is a massive porkie.
This is the truth: £270 billion is the total cumulative projected defence spending for the four financial years from 2025/26 up to and including 2028/29 lumped together.
It is NOT even the cumulative increase in defence spending during these years.
Nobody (except perhaps Gordon Brown) speaks about public spending in this way, unless the intention is massively to mislead.
By 28/29 defence spending is projected to be £13 billion a year more than at the start of the period. So not exactly £270 billion. But I guess if you’re going to lie you might as well make it a whopper.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

But you’ve been in power for almost two years now, during which youth unemployment and 16-24s not in education, employment or training has steadily risen. Indeed, unusually for this century, UK youth jobless rate now higher than EU/EZ average. So your ‘determination’ doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Here are two other UK power records:
1. Highest industrial energy costs in the world.
2. Second highest domestic energy costs in the world.
As E Miliband says, we’re setting an example for the rest of the world. Indeed we are. Which is why nobody is following us.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Boom👇💥

[Jim Ferguson @JimFergusonUK]

🚨 THIS IS WHY MILLIONS OF BRITONS STILL DEFEND BREXIT

Colin Brazier and Outpost Studios have produced one of the most honest reflections on Brexit I’ve heard in years.

No slogans.

No party spin.

No rewriting history.

Just a frank reminder that for millions of Britons, Brexit was never simply about trade deals or economics.

It was about sovereignty.

Democracy.

Identity.

And the belief that decisions affecting Britain should be made by people elected in Britain.

Whether you supported Leave or Remain, this segment captures something many commentators still fail to understand:

Behind Brexit were real concerns, real convictions and ordinary people who believed their voices had been ignored for decades.

Credit to Colin Brazier and Outpost Studios for producing thoughtful commentary at a time when nuanced discussion is increasingly rare.

Worth watching.
@ColinBrazierTV @OutpostStudios

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Nice to hear from you, Andy. Thanks for the by election. We live for such things.
I’m in no doubt life is tough for lots of folk in Makerfield. But it’s hardly a poster child for urban squalor/deprivation.
Thatcher left power in 1990. She was followed by seven years of unThatcher Major and 13 years of Labour government, of which you were a part. So it’s quite a stretch to blame her for any continuing woes. Unless we blame Labour for failing to put anything right.
On the other hand the houses you were walking past were bought by the tenants under Thatcher’s right to buy scheme, which has given them some pride in place and some wealth they once could only have dreamt of accumulating.
I assume your pledge to ‘renationalise housing’ does not include taking these homes back into public ownership ... even if that would constitute a proper, radical reversal of the Thatcherism you’re (some what bizarrely) campaigning against.