Alex Saul

Likes Stella Artois, shooting, sailing, cooking, kitesurfing, fishing, music and walking the dogs but not always in that order X

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@LeilaniDowding @waychee1 Tossers

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@RedRosesRugby @Womens6Nations Well done. Great campaign. A brilliant Team!

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@GLB_88 @SueJ1973 PL 4 PM

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@PeteLiggins @anon_opin We did - and slices of toast. And it worked #CinderellasRockafellas #Ritzy #Ikon&Diva

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@BSAT_Properties @ClaireSaul1980 - you might be part Japanese or at the very least feel at home there!! X

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

There is a region in southeastern Spain called Almería. If you pull it up on satellite imagery, you will assume the screen has glitched. A vast, blinding white scab where a landscape used to be.

It's not a glitch. It's 64,000 acres of plastic greenhouses. So much plastic sheeting that it is, genuinely, visible from space. The entire region has been wrapped in industrial farming film to grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce for European supermarkets in January.

The plastic has created its own microclimate. The reflective surface is so vast it has measurably lowered local temperatures by bouncing sunlight back into the atmosphere. Scientists have a name for it. The Albedo effect of Almería. The only place on earth where human activity has cooled the local climate, and they did it by accident, while building the world's largest open-air plastic factory.

The plastic itself is single-use agricultural film. It sits in UV light for three to five years, degrades into microplastics, blows into the Mediterranean, and ends up in the ocean and the soil. Every year, 45,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated just from replacing degraded greenhouse covering. Every year. Just the covering.

Inside, workers from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa labour in 45°C heat for €30 a day. No contracts. No rights. Spraying crops with pesticides at concentrations that would be illegal on outdoor fields. Ventilation: minimal. Chemical exposure: constant. The aubergine looks lovely.

The groundwater underneath Almería is so contaminated with agricultural runoff that it has been declared unusable. The region now imports water from elsewhere in Spain while sitting on top of a poisoned aquifer it created. The land that was meant to feed Europe more efficiently has become a place that needs water flown in to keep the show running.

And this is what supplies your fresh vegetables in January. Grown in plastic factories. By exploited workers. Using groundwater they have already destroyed. Wrapped in more plastic. Shipped across Europe. Refrigerated the whole way. So a person in Manchester can have a tomato in February that tastes of nothing.

But sure. Cattle grazing on Scottish hills are the environmental problem.

Pull the satellite up. Have a look. Then tell me which system is the one that needs explaining.

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@MichelleDewbs You will survive, you will have fun and you will remember it. All the ingredients of a great British getaway. It’s a wonderful thing

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@VoicesofWW2 @timdavies_uk My grandfather did the same. I have his Caterpillar Club pin, certificate and letter from the chute manufacturer.

[Alan Smith @AlanJLSmith]

Have you watched The Manosphere with Louis Theroux on Netflix?

As the Dad of a 17 year old son, I think @jimmycarr is spot on.

What do you think?

[The Sting @TheStingisBack]

Rita Moreno is one of just three people to win an Emmy for The Muppets, the other two: Bernadette Peters and Peter Sellers. The comedy timing during her performance of "Fever" while Animal attempts to railroad her is incredible. It was also done in one take
"Dat my kinda woman!"

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@Brink_Thinker Its such a lovely clip

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

My TV recommendations if you are an environment fan watch Dirty Business. If you are a sports fan watch the Scotland v France game. Both are superb #6Nations #SurfersAgainstSewage

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@YardleyShooting We can only cross our fingers. More to come re Epstein and sadly, more to emerge re rape gangs so we could see a total clear out leading to a GE

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@robprogressive Total scam including the companies insurers use to do the work and the cost of courtesy cars etc. All designed to rack up charges. Someone reversed into us - exact same story as you and corresponding rise in all our premiums

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@ShepherdWales The alternatives are worse. Be careful what you wish for

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year - the self-assessment deadline.

That magical moment when many of Britain’s tax-paying men and women sit down trying to work out how much more of their hard-earned money the obese state is going to steal from them - and it is theft.

What’s the damage? A LOT.

For a moment, let’s ask ourselves for what…

To fund indolent Somalian families who refuse to work, living off benefits? To pay for this endless line of public sector bureaucrats who give nothing, but take so much? To provide laundry services to Eritrean conmen who have broken into our country so they can have their taxpayer-funded tracksuits washed twice a week? To send Pakistan £133 million in foreign aid whilst our own towns crumble away? To allow millions of healthy Brits to laze around all day, enjoying daytime television whilst the rest of us actually contribute?

What a crap deal. I am fed up of it. I am fed up of all of it.

Who picks up the bill?

Business owners, farmers, contractors, sole traders, publicans, plumbers, entrepreneurs, electricians, long-standing family businesses and so many more.

People who work and work and work to create real value. I see the effort, it is relentless and nobody in Government gives a toss about them. I really mean that. They don’t. They’re just another source of income to fund all this outrageous waste. Not forgetting the accountant fees we all have to pay to comply with the never-ending conveyor belt of laws and regulations…

These men and women are all now looking at their tax bills and thinking what the HELL is the point? Honestly? Why bother?

NOTHING WORKS. The roads are a mess, a chaotic NHS is failing and every organ of the state is utterly incompetent.

The entire Westminster establishment simply does not understand the brutal reality of what is needed. And it must be brutal.

There is ONE route out of this mess. Slash tax - income, corporation, dividends. Cut VAT. Everything. Brutalise the size of the state. Less Government, less regulation, less tax. Get it the hell out of our lives. And PLEASE stop pissing our tax away on all this nonsense. I want Government to do a small list of things, but do them very well.

Let these entrepreneurs and grafters do what they do best. Work, build success, generate opportunities and create wealth. Then actually, they’ll end up paying more tax. This is NOT complicated.

MPs are CLUELESS. I would honestly rather a flock of pigeons made these decisions, at least then there’s a random chance they might get one or two calls right.

The lack of business understanding from these clowns is PAINFUL.

Please know that there is at least one MP fighting for you all.

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@fenlandflo Mine didn’t - I still haven’t warmed up!

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@bolderston_mark Peachy

[Alex Saul @AlexKSaul]

@CiggyNuts @robprogressive Ha ha - yup!