Simon Jolly

[Shane Corr ☘️ @Default69202648]

An Irishman we can all be proud of☘️

[Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM]

@LeeAndersonMP_ You don’t need to argue with me, Lee.

You need to listen to Gemma, the person who runs The Hamlet, and then decide whether as a Party you are prepared to do the decent thing.

[Sam @SamCKx]

For those who don't know how this works, Reform are supported by the owner of X. All their accounts are centrally run and 1000s of bots are programmed to like their posts as soon as they go out. This is a form of election fraud no one is talking about yet. Rob's account is run from the US. Good local Makerfield boy.

It's all such a grift.

[Emma 💛💙🇩🇰🇬🇧🇪🇺 @MonkEmma]

Today we have a double debunk:

1. A debunk of the idea that 67 dog breeds are being banned in Britain

2. A debunk of what the usual suspects are saying online (because they are so tediously predictable!🙄)

🧵1/21

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is genuinely extraordinary: https://t.co/bCioDPpxC4

Speaking is General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

He says that the UK "should not, in any way, shape or form be involved with the Americans because they are being led by a couple of gung-ho nutters like Trump and Hegseth without a proper strategy and without serious thought about what the end state for this war is."

He goes on: "Yet again we have an American president who has gone to war, a war of choice, a war of hubris frankly, without ANY [the emphasis is his] clear idea of how the war ends and without any clear strategy." He predicts that "this thing is going to go south very, very quickly."

He highlights in particular just how foolish it was to kill Ayatollah Khamenei: "The idea of assassinating the Ayatollah Khamenei who was not just Iran's head of state but he was the religious symbol for Shiites worldwide. Assassinating him during the month of Ramadan is about as subtle as murdering the Pope on the steps of St Peter's in Holy Week. It will inflame the Shiite world and what you're doing by doing that is probably pushing large numbers of Iranians who might have been reconcilable, who might have thought about rising up, back into the fold of the irreconcilable."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I don't know if people understand just how insanely egregious this is.

First of all, 1) not only are NATO spending targets NOT legally binding (nothing in any NATO-related legal text mandates a specific GDP-based threshold for defense spending), but on top of this 2) Spain requested AND RECEIVED an exemption from the 5% target at the 2025 Hague Summit - NATO changed the declaration's language specifically to allow Spain to sign while publicly declaring it would not comply (https://t.co/q3VE2Je3TS)

This means that, legally speaking and according to NATO's own rules, Spain is doubly within its rights: there is no binding obligation to begin with, and Spain was excused from even this non-binding obligation.

That's the first point: Germany's chancellor just endorsed - from the Oval Office - the U.S. punishing a fellow EU nation for refusing to comply with an obligation that doesn't exist in law, under a political pledge Spain was excused from at a NATO summit.

The second point is that this 5% target has nothing to do with "defense", quite the contrary in fact: it is pretty explicitly an imperial tribute to the U.S. that will actually **weaken** European defense.

That was Spain's main argument for refusing to comply: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that "committing to 5% would not make us any safer" because it "would only reinforce our dependence" on the U.S. (https://t.co/QUMDyfvWDP)

That's the insane thing about EU defense spending: in recent years, the more it has spent on defense, the more that spending has flowed to American contractors as opposed to European ones, making the EU defense industry weaker (https://t.co/XHGLW71tX0). Increasing spending to 5% doesn't strengthen European defense: it accelerates exactly this transfer.

All the more insane given the well-documented production backlogs in the U.S. defense industry and its inability to produce at scale: US defense analysts - including from Trump-adjacent think tanks like AEI (https://t.co/c3DobMYpru) - openly acknowledge that European customers would be deprioritized behind U.S. ones in any real conflict.

AND, critically, a defense industry from a country that's increasingly hostile to Europe - explicitly so in its National Security Strategy - and whose weaponry has "kill switches" that allows for remote disabling.

I mean, the sheer madness of it: anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that DOUBLING your defense spending to enrich a foreign arms industry that has kill switches on your weapons, can't meet its own military's needs, and increasingly treats you as an adversary, is not even remotely a defense strategy - it's suicide.

That's why having Merz - in the oval office, sitting next to Trump - endorse economic coercion against the one EU country that's still sane enough to see through this madness is so egregious, and frankly straight-up traitorous.

For those who know Asterix and Obelix, Spain is the "one small village still holding out against the invaders" and Merz is Cassius Ceramix, the self-described "gallo-roman" Gaul village chief who's the incarnation of all sycophants after his tribe were conquered by the Romans.

I'm with Asterix, and all Europeans should be too.

[Ally Fogg @AllyFogg]

Never once in my 59 years on God's Earth have I seen anyone wish anyone a happy Ash Wednesday. They've all gone utterly fucking bonkers.

[Martin Davies 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 🇪🇺 🇨🇦 @martindvz]

From Private Eye

[John LeFevre @JohnLeFevre]

In case you're wondering if King Charles is equipped for this moment of crisis, here's a reminder that he:

- travels with this favorite childhood teddy bear
- takes his own toilet seat and custom velvet toilet paper everywhere he goes
- sends his own bed and mattress to be assembled ahead of all trips
- has his shoe laces ironed
- makes his butler "squeeze exactly 2.5 centimeters of toothpaste" onto his toothbrush for him
- throws “temper tantrums” if his pajamas “aren’t perfectly pressed”

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@JChimirie66677 @JTLonsdale

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@Aethelweald The video ends with a clip of a Scottish actor, you incel balloon.

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@LordWalney Why is your first response always to 'stamp' on things, you great balloon.

[Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno]

When I am 70 these pictures will be regarded as the height of evil in our century. I imagine myself in debates with people expressing their horror that I will remember as having enthusiastically supported as it happened

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@LordWalney Solidarity with Palestine Action. I would add that you're an embarrassment and a sex pest, but what would be the point?

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@LordWalney Only one winner, Johnny? I think you'll probably be ok as well. Just as long as you can keep your snout buried in that tasty lobbying trough.

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@LordWalney @theSNP Is there a bigger indictment of the state of this country that a clown like you sits in a legislative body? So many questions.

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@CharlotteCGill

[Ja Zmaj @jazmaj1]

Greetings from Europe...

[Simon Jolly @Jollius]

@Lillyin_London You weird little ghoul.

[The Onion @TheOnion]

Election Touchscreen Map Takes Deeper Look Inside Key Swing Voter | Onion News Network

ONN political analyst Jason Copeland breaks down the latest presidential polling trends going on inside Pennsylvania resident Nick Camden.