Dave Fitzsimon

Dad of 2, motorsport, MX5 and Widnes Vikings enthusiast. Servant to a Cocker Spaniel. Deal with crashes full time and spare time. Motorsport Marshal.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@joefinney172 @WidnesRL Incredible that. When has that ever happened at any other time?
They are so bent its untrue.

[Annunziata Rees-Mogg @zatzi]

Theresa May was never a Conservative.

Terrible Home Secretary.

Appalling Prime Minister.

The reason I, and many others, left the Conservative Party.

The reason millions voted for the Brexit Party in 2019 and near enough wiped out the Tories.

Which led to Reform UK.

I rejoined the Conservative Party after Ms May got sent packing and it is now - as it should always have been - a party of the nation state, not global elites. The party of small state, low tax and personal freedom with responsibility.

The official Conservative policy is to scrap net zero targets, leave the ECHR and to deport illegal immigrants within a week without the right to claim asylum.

She could have done any of those things. But didn’t.

Theresa May is a hasbeen, and a never-should-have-been Tory.

She should join a party whose values she agrees with. Perhaps Labour, the Lib Dems or the Greens if they’d have her.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A farmer dies in April 2026.

His son inherits the farm. The farm has been in the family since 1847.

The farm consists of: 300 acres of grazing pasture, a farmhouse built in 1892, a barn, a milking parlour, two tractors of varying ages, a Land Rover that runs about 70% of the time, and a herd of 180 Hereford-cross cattle.

On paper, the farm is worth approximately £3.2 million. This is because land near him has been bought recently by a London hedge fund looking for carbon credits, which has dragged the comparable value of every field within forty miles upward to a number nobody local can justify.

In cash, the farm produces a profit of about £28,000 a year in a good year. In a bad year it loses money. The son also works as a fencing contractor three days a week to keep the operation viable.

The inheritance tax bill on a £3.2 million estate, even at the reduced 20% rate, comes to approximately £140,000 after the increased threshold is applied. The son does not have £140,000. The son has never had £140,000. The son has £4,200 in his current account and an overdraft.

The son sells 60 acres to a developer to pay the tax. The developer puts solar panels on the 60 acres. The remaining herd cannot be sustained on the reduced land. The herd is sold. The barn becomes a holiday let.

A different family eats Brazilian beef this Christmas without knowing why the price went up.

The Treasury collects £140,000.

The land never produces British food again.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

Sky News just did an extended piece on the UK being the world's largest importer of jet fuel, with zero production capacity.

They managed not to mention the closure 2 years ago of the Grangemouth oil refinery which produced jet fuel.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@jdgsport This is on the RFL. There was no chance, no matter how much investment, for anyone except London this year. After this they are pulling up the drawbridge. Salary cap will make sure there is no investment.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

After 18 months of “standing up to Putin” the Labour govt quietly issued a licence allowing imports of Russian oil refined in third countries.

Yesterday Labour MPs voted AGAINST UK oil and gas licences.

We are now importing from Russia instead of drilling in the North Sea.

Insane.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@joefinney172 @BornVikings_ I don't think I've seen a Widnes side come back like that in a very very long time. We were well out of that with 16 mins to go.

[Douglas Bulloch @douglasbulloch]

Actually it was the British.

We fought them for two years alone, defeating them in the air and at sea.

Then we supplied Russia with huge amounts of material and intelligence from both North and South, by virtue of keeping the sea lanes open.

Then we invaded Italy and Normandy while Stalin wasted whole armies trying to get to Berlin before us, afterwards to imprison half of Europe under communism, while threatening to invade the rest of Europe for the next 4 decades.

We stopped the Russians doing that too.

America helped.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@joefinney172 Absolute grafter of a player. I'd have him back in a heartbeat.

[David Starkey @DrDStarkeyCBE]

The great tragedy of the human rights industry as represented by the Attorney General Lord Squirmer is the way in which it inverts morality
People who regard themselves as our moral superiors suddenly begin advocating for those who wish us harm, those who defend this country are pursued and harassed, and not only are the participants in this industry handsomely remunerated, but they’re showered with all of the laurels that the establishment can bestow: awards, lecture circuits, lavish dinners, even high political office.

When will we turn things the right way up again?

[Ben Brittain @BenABrittain]

Profound and moving monologue from Trevor Phillips - one of Sky’s greatest assets and the country’s increasingly bravest journalist.

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

The state pension is not a random government favour, it’s the back end of a 35–40 year compulsory “contract” where people are forced to hand over National Insurance on the clear promise of a basic pension at the end.

Politicians and think tanks helped design an unfunded, pay‑as‑you‑go system where today’s workers pay today’s pensioners, then have the gall to call it “unsustainable” as if the public dreamt it up.

If a private firm sold you a retirement product on fixed terms, took your money for four decades, then announced at 66 that you “didn’t really need it” and would henceforth be means‑tested or frozen, they would be in court for mis‑selling and fraud.

The crisis here is not pensioners “leeching off the young”, it’s a political class that built a Ponzi‑style NI system, diverted the proceeds for other spending, and now wants to default on the people who kept their side of the bargain.

You do not blame the victims of a defective product for believing the brochure; you go after the people who wrote it.

[Tony Ward @TonyWard867811]

You think the bloke who worked hard and built a business is the problem.

He is not.

You think the boomer who paid off his mortgage in 1998 is the problem.

He is not.

Nobody holding a pound is your enemy.

Whether you have a tenner in your pocket or a million in your account, you hold the same broken currency.

The pound has lost 69% of its purchasing power since 2000.

That tenner buys less. That million buys less.

The man next door did not print £895 billion during covid.

The man next door did not freeze your tax thresholds.

The man next door did not sell your gilts for a 76% loss and tax you more to cover it.

The men who did are on television telling you to have broader shoulders and extracting your wealth to plug the gaps they created.

We are being divided so we do not unite against the people who actually robbed us.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

The politics of a country in decline. Not a single word about wealth creation, without which none of this nonsense can be financed. It’s deeply pathetic. If people fall for this left-wing populist drivel we’ve ceased to be a serious country.

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

I'll tell you what I don't like, Darren. I can't speak for everyone, but these are my thoughts…

I don't like a tax burden at its highest level since 1948, under your government and the last, producing the weakest growth in a generation. And worsening public services to boot.

I don't like a 46% hike in the minimum wage for under-21s in three years that's helped push UK youth unemployment to 16.1%, above the eurozone average. I want young people paid more, earned through growth, not handed down by decree that squashes the rungs above them and tells a skilled forty-year-old their two decades of graft are worth precisely the same as someone walking through the door on Monday morning.

I don't like industrial electricity prices that are the highest of any IEA country reporting. Full stop. UK steelmakers pay 40% more than their French competitors. You don't build a future of advanced manufacturing on those numbers.

I don't like a planning system that takes longer to consent a pylon than to build one, business rates that punish high-street enterprise, and employment costs that turn every hire into a risk.

I don't like watching world-class British research get commercialised in Boston and Palo Alto because the capital, the talent and the regulatory patience aren't here. They're fleeing.

I don't like long-term borrowing costs at their highest level in over 25 years, eating into every budget for schools, hospitals and defence before a penny is spent.

I don't like the OECD saying that we're going to be the hardest hit economy as a result of a conflict in the Middle East that's got nothing to do with us. All because we've made ourselves weak and vulnerable.

I don't like a government that confuses 'raising money' with 'creating wealth'. Or 'standing against unearned wealth' with taxing to death the people who actually make things happen in this country.

You don't lift children out of poverty by strangling the economy that pays for their schools. You do it by letting Britain grow again. Letting it play to its abundance of strengths.

In this case, I feel the best way is for government to get the hell out of the way.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

You’re the energy secretary. Yet you don’t seem to know that BP’s ‘excess profits’ come from its global oil trading division, which is not subject to UK ‘excess profits’ windfall tax, not from its North Sea activities, which are. Remarkable.

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

When the bloke who runs one of Britain’s biggest retailers looks at Starmer’s Labour and says, “this Government has probably lost the next election”, that’s not punditry – that’s the market talking.

Lord Wolfson isn’t some swivel–eyed Reform activist, he’s the long‑serving chief of Next, sits on the boards, sees the spreadsheets, feels the consumer squeeze in real time, and his verdict is brutal: Labour is strangling the economy with tax raids and clumsy, ideological regulation.

Business isn’t spooked by “change”, it’s spooked by chaos – permanent U‑turns, unpredictable tax grabs, and an Employment Rights Bill he’s literally called a “wrecking ball” for flexible and part‑time work.

If you’ve got the boss of a FTSE retail giant effectively issuing a no‑confidence vote in the government’s competence, you’re not a “Labour government of stability” – you’re an active economic risk premium.

Voters can smell it. Investors can price it.

Wolfson has just said the quiet part out loud: Labour hasn’t only lost the room, it’s already lost the next election – the ballot box is now just a formality.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@joefinney172 @iancheveau I get your point on that Joe, but Coleman can't have known the loan deal was defo on at the point where he openly criticised Abdul before the Donny game, and we'd just released the other half to Salford.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@SkySportsF1 He is spot on.

[Dave Fitzsimon @Dave7051]

@iancheveau Whatever anyone wants to say about his weight / fitness, he's easily been the best half back we've had in years. I don't see how his situation has changed since he signed, so what has he not lived up to that the coaching staff expected from him?