JC1235713

[JC1235713 @JC1235713]

@PolitlcsUK 🤦‍♂️

[Paddy Power @paddypower]

"Get rid of VAR. Get rid of all these bad decisions. I hate it"

Wayne Rooney - the gift that keeps on giving tonight.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

ANDREW NEIL: Never has a PM come to power with such lack of legitimacy https://t.co/chqIm0d4zl

[Madeline Grant @Madz_Grant]

Andy Brent

[Robin Faustino-Stirling @Glazertwalker]

Starmer, in power for a tad over 2 years, has appointed 17.5% of all the members of the house of lords - a total of 135 peers.

[Paddy Power @paddypower]

Sources confirm there will still be a bank holiday in England to celebrate the Djed Spence tackle.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

‘An extra £270bn’ for defence ‘across this parliament’ implies an increase of £270bn. Which is a lie. The £270bn comes from adding up defence spending for every year of this parliament under existing plans. It’s not an increase. Just an accumulation. Nobody counts defence spending in this manner. Even Gordon Brown wasn’t as misleading when it came to stats as this.

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

THE FIVE TESTS

For weeks I've argued that this party, and this country, needs a proper debate about where we go next. Not a reshuffle. Not a few degrees of course correction. The big, difficult, honest choices we've spent thirty years avoiding.

A few people have asked me what that debate should actually be about. Fair enough. I spent 24 years in the Marines and two in government, and I resigned because I couldn't win the argument I believed in from the inside. So let me make it here, plainly.

This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.

1️⃣ ⁠The Frontline Test
Do we give the people on the frontline the kit they need to do the job, and stand by them when the job is done?

I joined the Marines at 18. I've buried friends. So I do take this one personally.

I sat in government and watched us write a defence plan for a world that no longer exists, discussed in rooms I was kept out of. A 100k drone is now sinking warships that cost a billion. That is the reality of the wars being fought right now.

Passing this means 3% of GDP as the floor, not the ceiling. Buying for the next war, not the last. And fixing the Legacy Act so blokes in their seventies aren't back in the dock for what they were cleared of decades ago.

2️⃣ The Next-Generation Test
Are we handing the next generation a better deal than the one we inherited, or a worse one?

I'm a lad from a tough part of Aberdeen. My mum raised five of us through some bleak years. The only reason I got out was because I was given an opportunity. That cannot be said for young people today.

Nearly a million young people, around one in eight, are now outside work, education or training. That isn't their failure. It's ours.

Fixing this means a NEETs and youth unemployment target with a date, the youth guarantee delivered not just announced. Restoring the link between work and a decent life for the under 30s, on housing, wages and opportunity. Skills and apprenticeship numbers that beat the last government, not just match it.

Talent is everywhere in this country. Opportunity isn't. Fix that and you fix half of everything else...

3️⃣ ⁠The Trillion-Pound Test
Is the plan to add a trillion pounds to what Britain earns, or to manage the decline more politely?

Here's the lesson I learned from Ukraine and in government, and it never changes. We invent things. Other countries build them. Other countries decide. We're brilliant at the first mile and absent for the next ninety nine.

So set a target and be judged on it. A trillion pounds added to our GDP within a decade. Yes, it's ambitious. We should be ambitious!

Getting there means backing the high tech inventors just as much as the high street traders. Your local coffee shop shouldn't be paying more tax per cappuccino than Starbucks does. So why on earth do they?

It means an industrial strategy worth the name. Things to make and things to sell, in Barrow, in Derby, in every region. Our industrial base is national security, so we should fund it like it.

And it means building the chips and the compute here, not inventing the breakthrough and watching someone else scale it. Data is the new gunpowder.

4️⃣ The 10% Test
Can we make the country work 10% better, instead of only ever asking for 10% more?

I saw this from the inside. We patch the symptom this year, but the bill grows next year, and we end up paying for failure at the most expensive end of every system.

A 10% improvement in outcomes across a handful of our biggest problems, ill health, reoffending, wasted potential, would free up somewhere between £40 and £60 billion a year. We're already paying those costs. We just pay them too late, when they're at their worst.

Passing this means investing early instead of paying far more later, and having the honesty to admit that not every pound we spend today delivers an immediate return.

5️⃣ ⁠The Lights-On Test
Does our energy policy keep the lights on, the bills down and factories open, or do we keep chasing a target and hope the rest sorts itself out?

For years we've treated net zero as the only goal, and everything else, your bill, our industry, whether the grid even stays up, as a problem for later. That’s the wrong way around.

Make energy security the goal. Power that people, businesses, and industry can afford, and a grid that stays on when someone tries to switch it off. Do that and net zero follows. Chase the target on its own, and you end up with neither.

Passing this means a serious baseload, nuclear and the North Sea, built in time to matter. Strong countries have cheap, secure energy. Weak countries don't.

None of this is complicated. It's the oldest deal there is. You serve the country, the country stands by you. In uniform, in a hospital, in a classroom, on a building site. Right now that deal is broken, and everyone keeping our country going can feel it.

That broken deal is the real reason for the frustration out there. It's why trust has drained out of politics. And it's why our party that won a landslide is, halfway through the term, already arguing about who leads it.

But changing the person at the top fixes nothing if we don't fix the deal underneath. Swap one leader for another and leave the deal broken, and we'll be right back here in eighteen months, asking the same question all over again.

So I'm not interested in who gets what job. I'm interested in whether we've got the courage to pass these tests.

We've been promised a debate. This is my opening offer to it. And if that debate ever becomes a contest, it should be fought on this ground, not on personalities.

I know where I stand.

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

#GeneralElectionNow

[WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3]

Moscow Russia Day 1576 of the war in Ukraine.

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

"OK, what the f**k do we do now. Healey's blown up our "Strong on the World Stage" strategy. Burnham's coming for us this weekend. How the hell do we reverse this?".

"Er...I know!!!!! Let's announce we're gong to massacre a load of ponies on Dartmoor!!!!".

"That's it!!!!"

[Rt. Hon Ben Wallace @BenWallace70]

@AlistairCarns @JuliaHB1 Al was one of my very best commanders when i was in post. The MOD needs him. This Government needs his knowledge and leadership. If no.10 wont listen to him and Healey we really are screwed.

[Rt. Hon Ben Wallace @BenWallace70]

John Healey shadowed me for over 4 years. While i didn’t agree with everything he did i know he tried his best and had the interests of the Armed Forces at his heart. i know he loved the job and it will have not been easy to resign. His loyalty to his Party and PM was not reciprocated by them when it mattered and i think he was left with no choice. i wish him the very best. His resignation was one of principle.

[Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306]

My pinned tweet explains the background to Healey resignation.
We got real numbers in 2020 for first time in ~20 years.
Since then everything reverted to fake.
Thanks to Trolley & Wally, they let HMT and MoD shovel cash into things they KNEW were broken, like AJAX, and scuppered funding the future (e.g drones, robotics, AI, cloud).
The nuclear weapons supply chain is a multi-billion multi-decade fiasco and reinforces fake budgets.
MoD & CO used UKR war to prop up the lies and disasters, not to fix them. Trolley, Sunak and Starmer all went along with: classify, punt, spin fake budgets.
All these chickens are coming home to roost.
The DIP is a disaster because it combines: a/ continuing to fund old things which shd be scrapped but senior people's careers rest on lying about, b/ failure to fund the future, c/ more dodgy accounts, d/ classified nuke shitshow, which forces lies/cannibalisation of conventional, and e/ continued failure to change procurement and long term budgets despite covid and UKR.
Ive said this 100 times for years.
Also relevant to resignation --
In 2020, I got the PM & CHX to agree to take the next gen fighter AWAY from HMT and MoD. (FOI the doc screenshotted below!)
They were using a bogus 'above STRAP 3 study' to claim that AI would be irrelevant to future fighters in 2045. This 'top secret' study was written *before* DeepMind was created!!
We agreed to take away the next gen fighter/drones from MoD/HMT and put them into a new civilian project with huge commercial development of drones/robotics/AI, with procurement and budgets done totally outside normal system (like vaccines, ARPA etc).
After I left this was u-turned along with shredding all the true budget numbers.
The MoD and HMT proceeded with the usual procurement with BaE.
This has now blown up *as it was obvious it would SIX YEARS ago'.
HMT is refusing to fund it because the MoD is a corrupt shambles.
And MoD is knackered by the HMT's insane budget processes and insane procurement.
HMT and MoD have reasonable complaints about each other. 'Everyone's right and everyone's unhappy'.
The only way out is the Vote Leave plan and No10 smashing heads together with the full authority of the PM, as in the secret process of 2020. It cannot be left to 'normal processes'. Senior people must be forced to tell the truth 'or you're fired'. We did this. It works!
The MPs refuse to engage. The MPs on defence committee say they cannot ask officials re the 2020 process because 'they'll just refuse to answer'.
But our enemies know everything everything I say is true!
It is impossible for dud Starmer to solve these problems.
It is good timing that Burnham will soon take over and could draw a line under decades of Tory failure and set out a new path...
But there will be HUGE pressure from the old system, in HMT and MoD, to patch everythign up with more lies, spin, fake accounts, and massive classification...
Maybe some MPs could finally pay attention to these issues and resolve to stop constant lies, please!
Our security, prosperity and critical technologies are at stake and the old parties and old Whitehall are pathological!
NB. In 2020 we also bought LEO satellites. SW1 laughed. Starlink has been critical in UKR. Whitehall sold off the satellites!
NB. In March 2022 when the UKR disaster started I wrote: 'Prediction: 1) lessons from UKR will overwhelmingly support the arguments of those who in 2020 argued for radical MoD changes (including taking money from old tank projects that everybody privately admitted were a multi-billion pound disaster) and 2) the correct criticism of the review and connected documents will be seen as a) they did not go nearly far enough, b) the collapse of No10 follow through on defence reform in 2021 was — like the collapse of 2020 plans for planning reform, tax cuts, deregulation, Project Speed, intense focus on R&D and skills etc — a disaster for the country (and a political disaster for the Tory Party).'
NB. Special Forces who have observed the drone wars in UKR have told the senior MoD repeatedly that the mega expensive things they want to plough cash into in the DIP will get VAPOURISED in a real war by cheap drones! The SF are told to shut up and not give HMT a chance to cut the budgets!
I know it's psychologically extremely hard for SW1 but Vote Leave worked with the deep state on this in 2020 and we were right on all the big things.
The disastrous old processes have now blown up with unprecedented resignation over these exact issues.
6 years have been wasted. Tens of billions have been wasted. Lives lost. Talent resigned.. Opportunities to lead squandered...
All over Whitehall are officials involved in 2020 who know what I say is true, the MPs and hacks should finally get the details into the public...

Maybe SW1 could update its mental models?!

Ps. if you're a hack still getting Ciaran 'AI is fake, PRC infiltration is overrated' Martin to comment on tech, you're as dud as Starmer

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

We owe those who serve the UK the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it's done. We are failing on both.

I’ve spent my whole time in government making that case. Number 10 will not listen, so I am resigning as Minister for the Armed Forces.

Letter to the PM below.🫡🫡🫡⬇️⬇️

[JC1235713 @JC1235713]

@TimesRadio @afneil @KateEMcCann Is this outfit real?

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

The Mandy Files — 2. May 2025
Another zinger from Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden to Mandelson:
‘Every meeting I have is “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. They’re asking the wrong questions.’
Wow! Just wow!!

[Rishi Sunak @RishiSunak]

Unemployment is now 5% and only half of under-25s are in paid employment.

Every Labour leadership contender should have a coherent answer to how we can reverse these trends and avoid creating a lost generation of young people.

Today's @thetimes column👇
https://t.co/Bnli5IcVry