callonetta 🇬🇧🇺🇦

He/him. Slava Ukraini!

[Slazac 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼🌐 @TrueSlazac]

You're not supposed to admit that

[ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret]

I’m sure Farage Lowe and Yaxley Lennon are all over this, knowing how much they care about the issue of protecting women and girls.

[Deborah Haynes @haynesdeborah]

No delusion here.
I’ve no doubt Tony Radakin was raising concerns internally. But they clearly weren’t heeded. So why didn’t he then try to raise them more publicly while still in office and when his word carried so much more weight - especially given what was at stake? It seems strange to attack Healey and the review team a year on without mentioning the limitations of his own actions at that time.
Also all military chiefs over the decades surely carry some responsibility for the hollowed out state of our defence. It’s too easy only to blame the politicians for the mess we collectively (as this is a problem for the whole nation not just UK defence) are in.

[Ruben Gallego @RubenGallego]

Makes me feel like this whole FIFA World Peace Prize was a scam.

[Rev. Benjamin Cremer @Brcremer]

Then Jesus said unto the sick, “you better have insurance.”

Then Jesus said unto the stranger, “are you here legally?”

Then Jesus said unto the hungry, “my taxes better not be paying for these loaves and fishes.”

Then Jesus said unto the poor, “this is your own fault.”

[Project Liberal @ProjectLiberal]

This is what Sharia law actually looks like btw.

[Rep. Jim McGovern @RepMcGovern]

“We do a Watergate twice a day” is a crazy way to confess your own corruption…

[Jason Pugh 🇨🇦 🏳️‍🌈 @TheJasonPugh]

WATCH: Prime Minister @MarkJCarney on Alberta separation.

“We are literally at 10 years anniversary of BREXIT, and I saw, first hand, what gets sold in these referenda. That everything is going to be easy. That you can keep your passport. You can keep the currency. You can stay in the country and leave it at the same time.”

[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.

[Beaver 🦁 @beaverd]

"you're absolutely right! I shouldn't have launched those nukes -- that's on me."

[Jake Weston @JakeRWeston]

There's something of a medieval coronation about this. The king who held the south has lost the support of his courtiers and the usurper will ride into London heralded as a saviour by the city.

I suggest northern France for Keir Starmer to recruit mercenaries and prime his heir who's sure to return with Macron's backing.

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

You're literally a professional politician mate 🤡

[Sam @SamCKx]

The replies to this post have put absolutely beyond doubt that the hatred for Keir Starmer is 99% based on misinformation. Just read through them, people spouting the same misinformation they have been repeatedly fed over the last year or so, disproven countless times, but still believed and amplified by so many. This is how easy it is to brainwash millions of people if you have the resources. This is how societies are destroyed.

[Deborah Haynes @haynesdeborah]

Eh... Vladimir Putin's special envoy claims he helped to topple Keir Starmer.

Total nonsense - but this is a reminder that the Russian regime exploits division and discontent inside liberal democracies to weaken us from within

[Nicholas Drummond @nicholadrummond]

Britain has had 6 prime ministers in the last 7 years. This flim-flam approach to leadership shows a lack of cohesion and tolerance within all UK political parties. It undermines our democratic processes and makes us look unserious if not weak as a country. That said if former defence secretary @JohnHealey_MP now becomes chancellor, this would be very good for UK defence.

[Jack Dart @JackWDart]

If people genuinely believe Burnham won’t receive the exact same media onslaught, they’ve not been paying attention.

Starmer is not, objectively, bad. This idea that he is somehow the worst PM in British history is frankly laughable.

Liz truss lasted 49 days, crashed the pound and was laughed out of Downing Street.

Since Labour took office, Keir Starmer’s government has:

• Scrapped the two-child benefit limit, lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and putting money back into some of the hardest-pressed households in the country.

• Expanded free school meals, cutting costs for families and making sure more children get a proper meal during the school day.

• Expanded funded childcare, reducing one of the biggest monthly costs facing working parents and making it easier for people to stay in work.

• Raised the National Living Wage, increasing pay for millions of low-paid workers.

• Strengthened workers’ rights, giving people greater protection against insecure work and bad employers.

• Introduced statutory sick pay from the first day of illness, so workers are less likely to choose between their health and their wages.

• Ended no-fault evictions, giving renters more security in their homes.

• Brought rail operators back into public ownership, taking key services out of failed private hands and giving the public a stronger stake in how they are run.

• Cut NHS waiting lists from their post-pandemic peak, meaning more patients are being seen sooner.

• Raised the state pension through the triple lock, protecting pensioners’ incomes against rising costs.

• Scrapped the old non-dom tax regime, making some of the wealthiest people in the country pay more fairly.

• Added VAT to private school fees, raising money from those most able to contribute.

• Removed business rates relief from private schools, ending an unjustified tax break.

• Increased neighbourhood policing, putting more officers and PCSOs back into communities.

• Helped bring knife crime down, meaning fewer families face the devastation of serious violence.

• Recorded the lowest homicide rate since the 1970s, a material improvement in public safety.

• Created Great British Energy, giving Britain a publicly owned clean energy company.

• Created the National Wealth Fund, backing investment in industry, infrastructure and clean energy.

• Passed planning reforms aimed at getting homes and major projects built faster.

• Improved relations with the EU, reducing diplomatic hostility and rebuilding practical cooperation.

• Agreed a UK-EU security partnership, strengthening cooperation on defence and European security.

• Signed a long-term partnership with Ukraine, reinforcing Britain’s support against Putin’s invasion.

• Secured new trade agreements, opening up markets for British businesses.

• Helped restore seriousness to government after years of scandal, chaos and decline.

People do not have to like Starmer. They do not have to vote Labour. But pretending this is the record of the worst Prime Minister in British history is absurd.

[John Cassidy @JohnCassidy]

Trump claims Starmer has "failed very badly" on immigration. But migration surged under the previous Conservative government and has fallen sharply under Starmer. Here's the National Institute of Economic and Social Research:

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

@WhiteHouse

[Timothy Ash @tashecon]

Whoever got him to sign it at Versailles. Genius. The final humiliation.

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

He’s right. Oh wait