Chris Lewis

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is economic illiteracy of a high order.
After separation Scotland would still use sterling. So it would have to borrow in £s to cover its massive budget deficit and promise lenders it would pay back in £s (or they won’t lend).
But after an unspecified transition it would move to a Scottish currency. But all the borrowing done during the transition would have to be paid back in sterling.
If the Scottish currency plummeted v sterling (likely given the size of the deficit, lack of credit track record etc) that could become an unmanageable burden given the likely poor exchange rate.
Scotland would have to borrow billions in its own currency just to convert to sterling to pay back lenders. Devaluing the Scottish currency further.
What a shambles that would be.
He has no idea what he’s talking about.

[James Clark 📈📉¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @mr_james_c]

BBC: You must pay the TV License or you will get a criminal prosecution!

Me: Seems harsh. But I guess you're providing a high quality public service news coverage right?

BBC: No. We'll use it to pay TikTok-wannabes to make Teen Vogue-style agitprop.

Me: Oh...

[Kareem Rifai 🌐 @KareemRifai]

You need to watch this incredible video to understand just how tired China's neighbors are of its aggressive coercion.

In the middle of a talk at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, China drops a note scolding and attempting to intimidate the Filipino National Defense Secretary over the South China Sea issue.

Instead of acquiescing like Beijing wanted, the secretary read the note out loud, ridiculing and debunking it as he went before saying, "perhaps, basic decency and behavior is what China needs to do."

My summary doesn't do the clip justice — it's an absolute evisceration.

[Baltic Takes @Baltic_Takes]

We found some interesting things in the ruins of that Superior Civilisation™.

That photo on the left is (I think) an RT-64 radio telescope in Russia, although similar to the RT-32 Irbene Radio Telescope in Latvia built to spy on the West.

Actually though, it contained tapes of Western music.

The disillusioned conscripts stationed there were using their Superior Civilisation’s most advanced tech to circumvent the censorship imposed by.. er, that same Superior Civilisation™.

The Soviets then wrecked the place themselves on their way out. They set off explosives inside, cut cables, poured acid into controls, and shred all schematics, manuals, and wiring diagrams.

They left believing that the Latvians could never possibly use it.

Nevertheless, Latvian scientists and engineers managed to fully reverse engineer it, restore it, then gave it an actual useful purpose.

They pointed it at the stars instead to advance humanity’s understanding of the cosmos.

The facility is now at the frontier of civilian science with advanced new telescopes integrated into the world’s largest low-frequency radio telescope network.

It’s currently undergoing its fourth modernisation, led by Ventspils University.

Fortunately, they don’t have to attend those dull parades and they have easier ways to listen to decent music!

Huge thanks to MarxistInfo for highlighting all this.

[Anthony Boutall @anthonyboutall]

It was often said that many people needed to experience Labour in government to see just how bad it is.

With only 9% of the population saying Rachel Reeves is doing a good job as chancellor, I think everyone except the most die-hard Labour supporters now understands. 🥀

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

I’ve been warning Labour ministers for months not to boast about UK being fastest growing economy in G7 because it would come back to haunt them. Now it has.
I’ve argued that under Labour’s watch the UK economy has spent 2025 grinding towards a halt. Now it has.
In Q1 the economy grew by a healthy 0.7% (hence the boast), pumped up by a spend, spend, spend Budget. Such things never last. By Q2 growth was down to 0.3%. I warned worse was to come. It has. In Q3 the initial estimate is growth of just 0.1%.
The economy actually contracted by 0.1% in September.
Just when you think the backdrop to Chancellor Reeves’s 2nd Budget couldn’t get any worse — it does.
But at least we’ll hear no more nonsense about ‘fastest growing economy in G7’.

[Tom Harwood @tomhfh]

Devastating takedown of this government’s economic policy from Sir Howard Davies:

“The way the government have been behaving in recent months is such that if they were *trying* to slow the economy down, I can’t think of anything else they would do”

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

For months Labour told us the North Sea drilling ban was “non-negotiable.”

@Conservatives called for the ban to be lifted. Fellow critics of the ban were dismissed and warnings ignored.

Now, days before their conference, Ed Miliband is scrambling for a U-turn.

Why?

Because reality bites.

➡️ The unions know it. The GMB called the policy “absolute madness.”
➡️ The workers know it. Jobs are vanishing as investment flees.
➡️ Families know it. Less tax revenue to spend on public services, greater dependence on foreign imports.

This is exactly what I warned would happen.

Blocking exploration in the North Sea was never a green strategy, it was economic self-sabotage. You don’t protect the planet by exporting jobs, cutting tax revenues, and relying on regimes abroad for our energy. Right now we are importing oil and gas from abroad whilst banning our own extractions…it’s madness.

So, it is no surprise Labour are now admitting what Conservatives have been saying since this was introduced.

The real question is how much damage has already been done by clinging to ideology over common sense.

[Simon Clarke @SirSimonClarke]

Christ Carla, I wonder how this crisis happened?

[Interbellica @interbellica]

An increasingly common claim today is that Britain is morally indebted to India for having ‘saved’ her in WWII.

However, mild scrutiny reveals India to have been not a saviour, but a resounding liability: 🧵

[Ben Houchen @BenHouchen]

UK’s 30 Year Gilt rate now higher than during the 2008 Global Economic Crash…

But don’t worry, Ed Miliband’s former head of policy -Torsten Bell - is now being put in charge of budget preparations…

I fear things are about to get a lot worse

[Tom Harwood @tomhfh]

Just 16% of Gypsy or Roma children scrape a pass at GCSE.

They top the leaderboard for exclusions, and are massively overrated in crime statistics.

At what point do we ask about the human toll of indulging unintegrated nomadic parallel societies?

[Tom Harwood @tomhfh]

Insane. Jumping spiders were found miles away from Ebbsfleet Station.

But building homes has been forbidden next to the station because…

…that land is bizarrely counted by the Natural England quango as the same packet of land that is home to the spiders they want to protect.

[Yuan Yi Zhu @yuanyi_z]

There is a lot of talk about toppling imperial monuments in London. Meanwhile, this is what is happening in Madras (Chennai) in India.

[Robert Colvile @rcolvile]

Whatever you think of the Tories, Hunt and Sunak really did make inflation their number one priority and refused to do a lot of stuff that would have made life easier for that reason (eg buying off the doctors)

[Guy Dampier @dampierguy]

'You have no right to what you didn't earn' is an exciting position for a Left-winger to take, and I look forward to this being applied to the welfare state.

[ariaclast @ariaclast]

So glad my being forced to use a soggy cardboard straw is having such a positive impact.

[Dr Lawrence Newport @lawrencenewport]

Bizarrely people seem to have forgotten that Parliament is essentially all powerful.

It can make or unmake any law whatsoever. Neither international law, treaty or any previous statute restricts it, if it so chooses.

Our leaders can make radical change. If they CHOOSE it.