It’s worth remembering that while racist thugs were setting homes on fire last night in Belfast, ordinary citizens were running into those same burning homes to help those affected. There are good people looking out for their neighbours.
You created them. Every single one of those NEETs is a product of your former party's choices. The ones you made while you were in Cabinet.
Adult education and apprenticeship spending: 25% lower in 2024-25 than when your former party took office (IFS, Nuffield Foundation).
Publicly funded adult further education courses: fell from 5.4 million in 2004 to 1.7 million by the time you left office. A 70% reduction, the majority of it on your watch (IFS, January 2026).
College funding per student: 11% lower in real terms than 2010. Sixth-form funding per student: 23% lower (IFS, January 2025).
Adults taking qualifications at GCSE level and below: down 50%. At A-level equivalent: down 33% (IFS, Nuffield Foundation).
Intermediate apprenticeship starts, the entry-level route for young people without degrees: collapsed from 200,000 in 2010 to fewer than 50,000 by 2020. Your government did that (IFS).
Youth services: cut by 70% since 2010 (Mind, Big Mental Health Report 2025) .
You had 14 years to invest in British young people. You cut adult education by 25%. You cut FE courses by 70%. You cut college funding. You cut sixth-form funding. You cut apprenticeships for the people who needed them most. You cut youth services. Then you left office and started tweeting bollocks about NEETs as though they materialised from thin air.
The £5,000 Reeves is offering is a reimbursement of the Immigration Skills Charge, a levy your own government introduced in 2017 to fund domestic skills training. You created the charge. You collected the money. And you still cut the training budget by 25%.
And these visas are for high-skilled workers: doctors, engineers, specialists in fields where your 14 years of cuts left a workforce gap so deep that British employers cannot fill it domestically. They are not competing with NEETs. They are filling holes your government drilled.
You were Home Secretary. You were Attorney General. You sat in Cabinet while all of this happened. You do not get to set the house on fire and then complain about the smoke.
Sources:
Adult education and apprenticeship spending 25% below 2010 levels: Institute for Fiscal Studies / Nuffield Foundation, October 2022 (https://t.co/ptZIX5c4b8)
Adult FE courses fell from 5.4 million to 1.7 million (70% reduction): Institute for Fiscal Studies, January 2026 (https://t.co/ViEuIX7qIj)
College funding per student 11% lower, sixth-form funding 23% lower: Institute for Fiscal Studies, Annual Report on Education Spending in England, January 2025, cited in House of Commons Library (https://t.co/c6qLKyCyjA)
Adults taking Level 2 qualifications down 50%, Level 3 down 33%: Institute for Fiscal Studies / Nuffield Foundation (https://t.co/1veNy8CJcY)
Intermediate apprenticeship starts collapsed from 200,000 to fewer than 50,000: Institute for Fiscal Studies / Nuffield Foundation, same source as above
Youth services cut by 70% since 2010: Mind, Big Mental Health Report 2025 (https://t.co/zTQbfpIdQq)
Immigration Skills Charge Regulations 2017: (https://t.co/IcciQZPTer)
Skills policy and apprenticeship data: House of Commons Library (https://t.co/trQjEw6FEZ)
Immigration Skills Charge parliamentary debate: Hansard, 21 March 2017 (https://t.co/yD8OvAthBl)
Three minutes of essential viewing from Years and Years by Russell T Davies.
Vivienne Rook, a populist figure who emulates Farage, normalising the use of “camps” to deal with a *British* population stricken by unrest and social collapse.
This is the Reform/ Restore blueprint.
Like others, not convinced this American has a good grasp on 1970s Ireland or knows the meaning of 'categorically'.
43 women and girls were murdered on this island in 1976, an example of 'categorically true'.
I'll go through their names, if anybody wants to remember them. /1
@ayojoestar@LordBeeBrain For me I just try my hardest. If I fail, instead of beating myself up about it, I try again.
I try to build only 1 habit at a time. I find it more achievable and less overwhelming.
It can take many many many (repeat ad nauseum) tries.
@idropFbombs@ayojoestar I thought that... until I hit menopause and my dopamine dropped even lower.
You're privileged to not understand. I genuinely hope you don't learn the hard way.
Twenty years ago, racist extreme views were mostly only pushed by fringe groups like the EDL or Britain First.
Now those extremists sit in parliament and incite violence on the streets of their constituencies.
The far right has gone mainstream by design, not by accident.
Politicians who fanned these flames should hang their heads in shame.
Time and again we've seen this story play out. Single incidents used to fuel a far right narrative - and communities across the nation paying the price.
@Nichola18553554@OunkaOnX It doesn't have the right to exist on stolen land.
It doesn't have the right commit genocide.
It doesn't have the right to attack sovereign countries.
And yet it does.
Richard Burgon just exposed the most glaring double standard in British policy
"Imagine if this weekend in London there was a Russian real estate event selling Ukrainian land. The government would ban it immediately.
Instead, we have an Israeli real estate event openly advertising the illegal sale of land in occupied Palestinian territories. The government recognizes Palestine. Why isn't this banned?"
@Nigel_Farage Quite something from a bloke who voted to water down union rights and opposed day-one sick pay, parental leave, bereavement leave and protections from exploitative zero-hours contracts.
Like a fox campaigning for better henhouse security.
Me apareció en recuerdos la foto que fue LA FOTO del pride de 2024: un señor portugués abrazando una bandera LGBT.
El señor estaba parado en la puerta de su casa viendo pasar la marcha en Porto, sosteniendo una bandera portuguesa lo cual inicialmente asustó a varios porque agitar la bandera nacional en ese contexto puede ser señal de protesta nacionalista anti-LGBT. La gente en la marcha se detuvo, preocupada por lo que podría pasar. Pero resulta que el señor estaba agitando la bandera portuguesa porque no tenía una bandera arcoíris y quería participar de alguna forma.
Una chica llamada Lily se acercó. El hombre intercambió su bandera portuguesa por la bandera que Lily traía sobre los hombros. Lo que ven en la foto es el momento exacto en que él la recibe y la abraza.
Alguien se sintió visto y parte de algo más grande ese día. Eso es el orgullo: dejar de ser invisibles. 🏳️🌈❤️✨