Grant Rafferty

Work in Politics and like to write🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇿🇦🇦🇪

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

I've still been writing but the pace is getting to me. A slightly more personal article about obsession today.

https://t.co/MNY72kupPO

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

The next war won't be won by armies, navies or air forces alone.

It'll be won by the country whose 19 year olds can code, whose factories can build drones in weeks not years, and whose grid stays on when someone tries to switch it off.

Industry. Society. Economy. That's the fight now.

We're not ready. And we're not being honest about what getting ready will cost.

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@_adamcherry_ @arisroussinos I would bet a large amount of money that it goes to 2029. Would be complete suicide to call an election sooner than that.

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@joehudsonsmall @DeptfordWife1 @ElliotKeck To be fair the R&R programme is for the Palace of Westminster. There is a planned visitor centre but there would be no changes to PCH seeing as the building isn't even 30 years old... As well the costs for R&R are just so astronomical that scaling it back is probably prudent.

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@ElliotKeck Well staffing cuts to the police and increased demands on security checks don't entirely mix for a fact experience. There should really be somewhere for a proper queue outside PCH much like Cromwell green, but rather unlikely.

[Tom Whipple @whippletom]

I tried the government's new AI "Jobcentre in your pocket" chatbot. Could it write me a CV? It could.

It also suggested that I should consider employment law and whether I've been discriminated against.

Key detail: I'm a parrot.

[Tom Jones @93vintagejones]

We have judges setting wages, the highest tax burden since WW2, the highest level of public spending since the 1970s, wage compression, a newly nationalised train service and a national free breakfast programme for school kids.

Whatever we have, it isn't Thatcherism.

[(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges]

This is Kemi Badenoch at her best. Hits precisely the right tone here.

[Madeline Grant @Madz_Grant]

"I've been stabbed"
"I don't think you have, mate"

Words that should live in infamy

[𝐬 🇬🇧⸆⸉ @redelitist]

Yeah it's not close, because London is simply far, far superior

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@EJ_McGuinness I wonder where it is, because that's not his parliamentary office

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@alexmcan @Fremond_ Yes but having to turn them down - even when the minimum is still rather loud - is rather annoying after a while…

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@_night_brain__ Not out of the realm of possibility considering how the rest of the project has gone...

[Dec @deccers_32]

Interesting to see an MP basically deride and sneer at productive young people for having the gall to ask for something in their own interest from the Government for once, instead of just shutting up and being good little sources of tax revenue.

[HLTV.org @HLTVorg]

Falcons soar past FURIA into the semis 🪽

[Sneedle @SRamirez68083]

The median voter thinks the NHS has a 34% profit margin

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@FordsonNTractor @bnzchr @ursine_meeting @AbsoluteMeasure Crazy, if you ever gave money to your parish church you are funding this organisation because someone thought this was the best use of the proceeds from your donation.

[Grant Rafferty @GrantRafferty]

@HywelV2 @benrileysmith @JuliaHB1 6 different PM's (although same people) in the 1920's, maybe it's not that abnormal after all

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

In the midst of all the news today, and with Parliament prorogued, many people may not have noticed that this was the final time the hereditary peers sat in Parliament before being forced out by Labour.

I want to pay an extra special tribute to them.

Combined they had 1784 years of parliamentary experience, wisdom and service to this country. That is not something easily replaced, and it should not be casually discarded.

Most were Conservatives. All were public servants.

They have brought to public life judgment shaped over decades, deep expertise, institutional memory, and a sense of duty that has strengthened Parliament and, very often, improved legislation in ways the public will never fully see.

Their record speaks for itself. They have served in war and peace, in government and opposition, in defence, diplomacy, farming, business, science and public service. They have not merely occupied seats in the Lords, they have contributed to the life of the nation.

That is why what has happened matters. Hereditary peers are a living part of Britain’s constitutional inheritance that Labour is casually tearing up.

Labour has rubbed away another part of our heritage, not to strengthen Parliament but to replace it with political appointees, four of whom it has already had to suspend the whip from because they were so inappropriate. That contrast says rather a lot.

At a time when public trust in politics is fragile, I think it is worth saying plainly that experience, seriousness and tradition still matter. Service still matters. Duty still matters.

So today, as an era closes, I want to put on record my profound gratitude and admiration for our hereditary peers. Britain has been better governed because of them. The Conservative Party has been stronger because of them. And Parliament will be poorer without them.

Their contribution will long outlast the petty politics that has brought this moment about.