HOW BRITAIN REWARDS PEOPLE WHO TRY TO SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY: FIRE THEM
Mike Kiely spent 22 years inside BT (@BTGroup). He knew how the telecoms industry operated. So when the government hired him as a consultant to oversee the £2.5 billion rural broadband rollout, he knew exactly what he was looking at.
BT had won all 26 government contracts. All of them.
Kiely did the maths. Installing a street cabinet in Northern Ireland cost around £13,000. On the mainland, BT was charging the government between £61,000 and £80,000 per cabinet. Public money covered roughly 77% of every single one.
He suspected BT was simply inventing tasks and inflating charges to absorb as much public funding as possible without doing more work.
So he shared his analysis with local councils. The people whose job it was to negotiate these contracts and spend public money responsibly.
Then his document leaked to a broadband blog.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport trawled his internal emails, found what they needed, and sacked him. The man who tried to protect public money.
Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge), chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told the Guardian (@guardian) she was getting increasingly concerned at the way whistleblowers were being bullied. She pointed out that hiding behind commercial confidentiality was denying the public the right to know how their money was being spent.
Her committee later confirmed what Kiely had warned all along. Taxpayers had been ripped off. £1.2 billion had gone to BT shareholders.
Kiely was eventually vindicated when a community in Oxfordshire paid £28,000 per cabinet. Exactly in line with what his numbers predicted was fair.
He lost his job for telling the truth. BT kept every contract.
This is what accountability looks like in Britain. The consultant who raises the alarm gets sacked. The company he raised the alarm about gets the cheque.
Support whistleblowers. They are the only audit most public spending ever gets.
SOURCES
@BBCNews@TheRegister@guardian@margarethodge
This is the largest sporting event on the planet, despite what some Americans may believe, and the decision to prevent Africa's leading referee from participating in the World Cup sends an extraordinarily damaging message about the United States and the direction in which it is heading.
I am genuinely astonished that FIFA has not lodged a formal protest with the United States Government and sought intervention to ensure that this referee, who is held in the highest regard within the international refereeing community, is granted a visa to undertake one of the most important roles in world football. For any referee, appointment to a World Cup is among the greatest honours the sport can bestow.
A person's country of birth should never be the sole reason for preventing them from entering a country to carry out a specific professional duty at a specific international event. Particularly when the President of the United States publicly assured the world that participants would be welcomed.
If nationality alone has been the determining factor, then this is a serious stain upon both the tournament and the host nation. It raises profound questions about fairness, equality of treatment and whether political considerations are now taking precedence over sporting merit.
The World Cup is supposed to bring nations together. Decisions such as this achieve precisely the opposite.
@allthingskiddy Harrison Male who won the Golden Glove in the NL was released by York City. I haven’t seen any mention that he has signed for another club.
By the time he was announced as Reform UK's candidate against Andy Burnham in the #Makerfield by-election, Robert Kenyon's previous Reform UK X account had been mysteriously suspended. We found the archive. 419 tweets. Here's what they reveal. 🧵 1/12 https://t.co/iQxjul1TBs
Nigel Farage banned from local pub by landlord after Farage walked away from scene of car crash without helping or asking if child in car was ok.
‘He’s a terrible, terrible human being,’ says father-of-one Patrick Tranter'.
https://t.co/RQcWMPJL3E
Nigel Farage really is a one trick pony. His divisive and inflammatory comments about immigration is all he has.
Is it any wonder we won’t want you to know that net migration has fallen by 82% since its peak under the conservatives and small boat crossings are down by approximately 40% so far in 2026 compared to the same period in 2025.
LETS MAKE SURE THE PUBLIC KNOW THE REAL FACTS
The Guardian: “Net migration down by three-quarters, the biggest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years, knife crime cut by 10%, the economy growing the fastest in the G7, rising wages, energy bills and petrol prices held down, the biggest sustained rise in defence spending since the cold war, a massive expansion of free childcare …
If Keir Starmer did tub-thumping lists of Labour’s achievements in the style of Gordon Brown, he would not actually have a shortage of things to talk about.”
During the two years of Labour government, following fourteen years of Tory mismanagement, there have actually been significant improvements in Britain. Why does the Tory media not report them?
@StuartWatkiss@khfcofficial Stuart sad to see you go. I think your influence when you came in is plain for all to see. Thank you. Best wishes for the future.
So I went on a deep dive last night into the archives of the suspended X account of Reform UK’s Makersfield election candidate, Robert Kenyon.
This is what I found… https://t.co/GQKIgavjCK
During one operation, Ukrainian forces quickly captured a column of Russian armored vehicles. But instead of simply blowing up the tanks and IFVs, Ukrainian crews did something the Russians never expected.
They climbed into the captured Russian tanks, switched on the Russian radios, and calmly drove deep into enemy territory pretending to be Russian forces.
The Russian convoy had been moving in tight formation. Ukrainian soldiers rapidly neutralized the crews, seized the vehicles, and within minutes were driving along the very road the occupiers had just used. They spoke Russian over the radio, used Russian call signs, and even copied the style of Russian communications. At checkpoints, Russian troops simply waved them through, believing they were friendly units returning from a mission.
The Ukrainians then drove straight onto the grounds of a Russian brigade headquarters.
Once the tanks were inside the base, Ukrainian crews suddenly turned their turrets and opened fire. Headquarters buildings, ammunition depots, and vehicle parks instantly descended into chaos. Russian troops ran between tents in panic, shouting and firing in every direction — but it was already too late. They had allowed a “Trojan horse” directly into their own base.
The entire operation lasted only minutes. Ukrainian forces captured the headquarters, took Russian officers prisoner, destroyed key military targets, and withdrew without losses.