Matt W

North-Westerner and winging-it father washed up in SE18. Generally spend my time tweeting politics, local grumblings and bitching about trains. Enjoy.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

3. The line about "tax breaks" boils my blood. Government choosing not to tax something is not a tax break. By that logic anyone buying school shoes gets a tax break. But this is how they think, everyone's money is theirs & we should be grateful for every penny they don't take.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

This says so much about the modern labour party:

1. The policy affects middle class parents on moderate incomes. Not sure declaring them "pearl clutching Tories" is your best line

2. Taking your child out of the state system reduces demand on services. A good thing no?

[Anna Turley MP @annaturley]

Note to all the pearl-clutching Tories out in force today…

You don’t HAVE to send your kids to private school. We have universal education provision in this country.

If you *choose* to do so, the rest of us shouldn’t pay for you to have a tax break for the privilege.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Remind us again how callously stopping Latin programme funding mid-year was extending opportunity? Everything Phillipson does at education is focussed on savaging what she bluntly considers privilege. It is ugly, spiteful and cruel and worst of all utterly ineffectual.

[Douglas Alexander @D_G_Alexander]

Kemi Badenoch’s attack on Bridget Phillipson at PMQs today said a lot more about her than Bridget.

Like Bridget I’m proudly state schooled: we’re the most state-schooled Cabinet in the post-war era.

We’re not motivated by spite but by tackling poverty & extending opportunity.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Today like so much of his premiership explains why he's failed so spectacularly. Everything he does everything that motivates him is personal. I used to think he was just a technocrat but increasingly feel like he's just a total egomaniac.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Keir Starmer hosted drinks for his aides and staff in the No 10 garden tonight

He gave a speech, as did his wife Vic, who thanked them for "being there" for her husband when others weren't

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

What in god's name are these people talking about? "A landslide against the odds"? Anyone in a red rosette bar Corbyn would have returned that landslide. This revisionist history that 2024 was some mass movement and not just a decisive rejection of the Tories is just bizarre.

[Steve Reed @SteveReedMP]

Keir Starmer brought Labour back from the brink, won a landslide majority against all the odds, and is changing Britain for the better.

Thank you Keir, we are proud of you.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Some weird revisionist history here tonight insisting Starmer is the victim of a hostile media. Media are hostile to any PM, that's their job, but it wasn't the media who came up with the Ming Vase strategy which precluded any kind of core narrative, nor Reeves' suicidal budget.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Another equally weird take, do these people seriously think people flocked to the ballot box in 2024 inspired by Starmer? 2024 was a rejection of the Tories nothing more, Starmer was an empty boring vessel to get elected & now is being cast aside for being hopeless at the job.

[Kevin Craig @KevinCraigUK]

As we clearly approach a new era, @Keir_Starmer will go down as a history-making @UKLabour Prime Minister who when push came to shove - put his country first.

Only five Labour leaders have won a General Election. An election-winning leader is a rare commodity in the Labour movement. Every one of us attached to the party should have huge gratitude to him and his family for making us electable once again after 14 years in the wilderness.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Seeing this a lot about his sense of "duty" & it's really weird. No politician plays the game out of a sense of duty, stop talking rubbish. The queen had duty, public servants maybe feel duty, politicians who think it's their "duty" to be PM are generally narcissists like Starmer

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

"Stay tuned for Jordan vs Algeria" proper props to the commentator for getting that one out with a straight face!

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Simple fact is these people across the board are 100% culpable for what they're so annoyed about. To a man they gleefully encouraged this behaviour when it came to their opponents with absolutely no comprehension what genie they were uncorking. Well guys here it is, enjoy!

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Interesting of course that according to the apparatchiks the "British public" seem mysteriously only to be sick of this when it's their side fighting like rats in a sack. The bizarre level of self-delusion from these people I find genuinely baffling.

[Hold The Line @LabHoldtheline]

A statment from us.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Even the most committed Starmerist (is there such a thing) would need to concede that him carrying on is only making the likelihood of a Farage government greater. The man has zero political instinct and has no ability to use power other than via increasingly blunt legislating.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

I mean I know the Starmer loyalists are an odd lot but declaring that we just casually continue this sclerotic, ineffective and above all spiteful government with no coherent mission is "in the nations interest" is just barking.

[Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 @DeborahMeaden]

Or Andy Burnham puts the Nations interest ahead of his personal ambition and stands down, urging his supporters to stand behind a PM who is only halfway through achieving all the things we voted him in for..

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

May never had the support of her party or the skills to lead. Truss was just a sociopath and Boris and Starmer had the exact same problem - wanting to be PM because they'd seen someone else do it and thought they could too rather than having any burning philosophy to guide them.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

The political hill on which I will die - Sunak would have been a very good PM if he hadn't been left such an impossible legacy by his predecessors. In a field strewn with short term PMs he's the one that didn't deserve to be cut short.

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

My sleepless nights as PM — and what Andy Burnham should know | ✍️ @RishiSunak

A prime minister never has more power than on the first day in No 10. The new MP for Makerfield must decide quickly what he intends to do.

🔗 Tap the link in the thread below to read more

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Reminded of the great Ainsley Hayes in The West Wing "the same legislation that protects you protects me"

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Find myself disagreeing with much of what Fraser says these days but on this he's spot on. The Equality Act has many huge flaws but to call it "anti-white" is barking, it quite literally enshrines protections against discrimination on the basis of race.

[Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson]

The Equality Act was 2010. Farage has been a full-time pundit and politician for 16 years: only now does he describe it as “anti-white”.

So Reform is evolving: now deploying language of racial politics. A gamble, seeing UK has hitherto rejected this rhetoric.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Suggest this is a massive misreading, as with ID cards the theory is popular, the practice which effectively involves allowing the government to track your personal browsing history will be incredibly unpopular.

[Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot]

You’re going to see a lot in your X timeline about how the social media ban is unworkable and illiberal - and it will be one the most obvious examples of how social media skews debate.

But it will be one of the most popular things the government is doing

https://t.co/fFfsUnyCwN

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

I'd humbly suggest few people regardless of their child status have an issue with protecting children. What many, myself included, are concerned with is how you square these proposals with civil liberties. Every option I've seen requires massive state intrusion in everyones life.

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

Indeed. Unless you work with children under 16 or have children under 16, you really have no idea.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

We've all seen the horrific bodycam footage, we've all heard the call handler say "that's what I needed to hear", to hear the PM unequivocally deny what is blatantly obvious to anyone that the victim was treated as he was solely because of his race is genuinely an insult.

[Matt W @Clavdivs1]

Not going to for one second defend Farage but how on earth can Starmer in this week of all weeks say "There is no evidence of two tier policing" the fella just does not understand how he is stoking up anger just as much as Froggy Farage by pretending there is no case to answer.