Kentish Owl

#Owl be seeing you in all the old familiar places............

[Alan Ferrier @alanferrier]

As an antidote to the poison being thrown at the @RNLI, I give you Bill Bryson.

[John Kirby @csljohnkirby]

What an extraordinarily short-sighted thing to celebrate.

Let us take Yorkshire as an example.

Along that coastline you have RNLI stations at Redcar, Staithes & Runswick, Whitby, Scarborough, Filey, Flamborough, Bridlington and Withernsea.

These are communities with fishing fleets, pleasure craft, beaches, cliffs, harbours and substantial tourism.

So let us imagine that the campaign succeeds and, as this post gleefully predicts, the @RNLI is eventually no longer there.

What happens next?

Do we simply tell the fisherman whose boat has lost power in bad weather that there is no lifeboat?

Do we leave the family cut off by the tide?

The capsized sailor?

The child swept from a beach?

The tourist in difficulty off Scarborough?

Of course we would not.

Somebody would have to replace the service.

Perhaps local councils should provide it, with the cost appearing on council tax bills.

Perhaps every commercial fisherman should pay a £3,000-a-year lifeboat levy.

Perhaps harbour dues should rise substantially.

Perhaps coastal businesses that depend upon tourism should pay.

Or perhaps central government should create a taxpayer-funded national lifeboat service.

Those figures are deliberately hypothetical, but the underlying point is not: there is no magical, cost-free replacement for the RNLI.

Today the RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations and 451 lifeboats and hovercraft, supported by more than 7,900 volunteer lifeboat and shore crew. Less than 1% of its funding comes from government sources.

Think about that for a moment.

People voluntarily give money, thousands of people voluntarily give their time, and in return Britain and Ireland have an extraordinarily sophisticated lifesaving network around their coasts.

And some people apparently think destroying that is a victory because they object to a tiny proportion of its work in the Channel.

By all means stop donating if you no longer support the charity. It is your money.

But perhaps before celebrating the prospect of the RNLI disappearing, ask who you expect to launch when your son is overdue from a fishing trip, your daughter is swept out to sea, or your family needs help on a day at the coast.

Because somebody will still have to pay for that lifeboat.

At present, remarkably, most of us do not have to.

Other people voluntarily do it for us.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

Since its foundation in 1824 the bravery of Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers has saved more than 146,700 lives at sea.
Hundreds of those volunteers have died attempting to save others. They are the best of us.
Any person or organisation questioning their actions or loyalty to this country should be corrected and ostracised.
Anyone can drown, but no one should.
https://t.co/d81tKprNkY

[SophieSpring97 @SophieP25397]

This is where we are today.

[Just me - Thomas @TomSoede]

ReformUK's Real Plan: Remove the Protections, Then Blame the Referees

I am scared.

Reform are not just attacking Labour.

They are doing something much bigger.

First, they are attacking the protections.

That is what they are doing now with foreign money.

They are going after the things they can frame as unpopular, costly, woke, bureaucratic or out of touch.

The Equality Act.
Net zero.
Human rights protections.
Public sector equality duties.
Trade union power.
Workers’ rights.
Environmental rules.
Legal safeguards around asylum and removals.
Employment protections.
Maternity rights.
Anti-discrimination law.
Consumer protections.
Protections for women, children, disabled people, minorities, workers and ordinary citizens.

These are the laws, rights and safeguards they want people to see as the problem.

They call them red tape.
They call them woke nonsense.
They call them expensive.
They call them foreign.
They call them anti-British.
They call them the reason nothing gets done.

And I understand why that can sound attractive to people who are tired, angry and under pressure.

Because Britain is tired.

But this is where the trick begins.

Because these protections are not abstract pieces of legislation.

They are the things ordinary people rely on when power is used against them.

They protect a woman from workplace discrimination.
A disabled person from being pushed aside.
A worker from being exploited.
A child from unsafe air.
A family from polluted water.
A community from corporate damage.
A trade union from being crushed.
A citizen from being treated unlawfully by the state.

So when a politician tells you all these protections are the problem, we should ask a very simple question.

Who benefits when those protections are removed?

Because after the protections come the referees.

That is the next stage of the plan.

Once people accept that the protections are the problem, the next step is to blame the people and institutions who defend them.

Judges.
Lawyers.
Civil servants.
The media.
Human rights institutions.
Democratic safeguards.
Independent regulators.
The courts.
The public bodies that are meant to say:

“No, you cannot just do that because it sounds popular on television.”

That is when the language changes and we are starting to hear it.

The courts are “blocking the people.”
The lawyers are “activists.”
The civil servants are “the blob.”
The media is “corrupt.”
The judges are “out of touch.”
Human rights are “foreign.”
Accountability becomes “woke.”

And any limit on power becomes a betrayal of the people.

That is the danger.

First they tell you the protections are the problem.
Then they tell you the people who defend those protections are the enemy.

And once that happens, politics becomes very simple.

The loudest person wins.
The strongest and richest people decide.
The most vulnerable person loses.

Britain does need reform.
Of course it does.

It needs serious reform.

It needs delivery.
It needs competence.
It needs borders that work, courts that move faster, public services that function, housing people can afford, and government that feels connected to real life.

But it does not need politicians using real public frustration as an excuse to strip away protections and then attack every referee who stands in their way.

That is not freedom.

That is power with fewer limits.

So when they talk about freedom, ask:

Freedom for who?
Freedom for workers?
Freedom for families?
Freedom for disabled people?
Freedom for women?
Freedom for ordinary citizens?

Or freedom for the already powerful to face fewer rules, fewer safeguards and fewer consequences?

That is the question Britain needs to ask before it is too late.

Reform UK would be Brexit times ten.
National self-harm dressed up as taking back control.

Brittain must wake up.

[The Green Party @TheGreenParty]

Want to know who Reform really stand for? Look at who's funding them.

[The Green Party @TheGreenParty]

"Whether you're a baker, a farmer, a plumber or a hairdresser, you have far more in common with each other than with the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses of this world."

@ZackPolanski speaking at the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union - @BFAWUOfficial.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

From bakers to farmers to anyone running a small business - rip-off Britain is squeezing us all.

It's time for a real plan to secure our food resilience: supporting farmers, bringing down costs for small businesses, and giving workers proper rights and decent pay.

[Andrew Western MP @AndrewHWestern]

Musk.

Vance.

Farage.

Lowe.

They know what they are doing. They are far more calculated than it may seem.

This has been a difficult week and they have sought to weaponise it for their own malevolent means despite the express wishes of the Nowak family,

We must call out their hatred and fight for the values we believe in.

Fairness, diversity, tolerance, equality.

They hate it all. And each of them uses their platform to try and undermine these values that we cherish.

The vast majority of people can see what they are trying to do and want it to stop. We need to stand together to ensure that happens.

[Just me - Thomas @TomSoede]

This morning I asked myself, not for the first time, who is Nigel and I made some notes.

And it does add up.

Here is a man who sells himself as the ordinary bloke with a pint, the man of the people, the great outsider standing up against the establishment.

And yet somehow this ordinary bloke always seems to arrive with a camera crew, a donor network, a friendly broadcaster, and now a parliamentary investigation into a £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire.

Very normal.

Very grassroots.

Very “just one of the lads”.

The peoples revolt, apparently, now comes with lighting, branding, fundraising dinners, professional outrage, and a small question about whether millions should have been declared properly.

Everything is a betrayal when Labour does it.

Everything is “nothing to see here” when Nigel does it.

Housing? Blame Labour.
The NHS? Blame Labour.
The economy? Blame Labour.
Boats? Blame Labour.
A £5 million gift? Suddenly everybody must calm down and respect the process.

And then came Tuesday.

A young man died. A family was grieving. A country was trying to understand something horrific.

And Farage stepped forward.

Not with calm.
Not with care.
Not with responsibilty.

But with his announcement of “pure cold rage”.

That phrase matters.

Because anger is human.
Anger can be moral.
Anger can demand answers, justice, accountability and truth.

I understand anger.
A lot of people are angry.
They have every right to ask serious questions.

But rage is different.

Rage does not ask careful questions.
Rage does not wait for investigations.
Rage does not protect grieving families from becoming political props.

Rage looks for a target.

And that is where Farage always seems most comfertable.

Not solving the pain.
Not calming the country.
Not asking how institutions failed and how they can be fixed.

But standing beside the pain with a microphone, turning the temprature up, and calling it leadership.

Warm enough to repost.
Warm enough to donate.
Warm enough to vote.
But never calm enough to ask:

“Hang on, who benefits from keeping us this angry?”

That is the trick.

He does not need Britain to feel hopeful.
He does not even need Britain to feel informed.

He needs Britain permanently one headline away from rage.

Because rage is usefull.

It fills rallies.
It drives clicks.
It turns grief into theatre.
It makes slogans feel like solutions.

And while everyone is shouting, nobody asks the boring questions.

Where is the plan?
Where is the funding?
Where are the costings?
Where is the responsibilty?

Maybe that is who Nigel Farage is.

Not the man of the people.

But the man who knows exactly how to turn peoples pain into his own political stage.

The Reform & Tory Sitcom continues.

Same chaos. Different rosette.

Anger can demand answers.
Rage just sells tickets.

If this speaks to you, please add your comments, repost it, and maybe follow me — not for me, but because politics needs fewer slogans and more people asking proper questions.

#Farage #ReformUK

[Mandeep Sihota @Mandeepsihota]

A male Baltimore Oriole with fresh spring leaves! #birds #birding #birdsinwild #birdphotography #TwitternaturePhotography #Canon #IndiAves #WildlifePhotography

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

The point of these attacks is twofold:

1. Flood people with nonsense until it feels true.

2. Grind people down until they lose hope.

We know the answer to that: fight back - with hope & a plan for change.

There is absolutely no way they win this.

https://t.co/0qbagSvIYp

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

It's time to end Rip off Britain.

For too long we've had people in charge of the decisions that affect our lives in the pockets of the super rich.

The Green Party have two vested interests - protecting communities and our planet.

It's time to tax the super rich.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

Water privatisation has been outright theft.

Whoever is next PM must commit to ending this scandal and take our water back into public ownership.

No more failed regulation.

https://t.co/uOiaJaKQ90

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Hannah Spencer delivers her second speech in parliament, and does so on the Royal Address on behalf of the Green party

"And this is only the second time I have made a speech here, so I hope you will all bear with me if I get any protocols wrong. Um. In my maiden speech, I gave a shout-out to the many professions and communities that haven't been well represented here in Parliament in the past, and I made a promise to help give them a voice."

"And today it feels especially important to keep that promise because there's sadly not enough in the King's Speech that is going to make their lives significantly better. And that is why us Greens have tabled a reasoned amendment for all the people working hard, or to raise a family, or to just get through each day, because everyone deserves a safety net and a chance to get ahead."

"For everyone who wants things to be different, one in three households in Gorton and Denton live in fuel poverty, and the UK has got some of the leakiest homes in Europe. And I know that because I have worked on thousands of them in my last job as a plumber."

"And so if we want to cut energy bills for good, we really do need a properly funded and a properly regulated national home insulation scheme, and to go even bigger on renewable energy. And that is where investment should be going, not into nuclear power."

"And the King's Speech includes some steps in the right direction, but it is nothing like the transformative, progressive programme that this moment demands. It doesn't rise to the climate and nature crisis that is happening now, and that's a crisis that can't be separated from the inequality and cost-of-living crises that are happening too, because it is always the poorest people that suffer the most here in our country and around the world."

"And while certain people will claim that climate action is pushing up bills, we know that that isn't true, and we know that some of the people saying that are being bankrolled by the very companies causing climate destruction and ripping off our constituents."

"And the Representation of the People Bill must go further on cleaning up politics because a greener, more affordable, more secure future is possible if you stand up to those vested interests and if we're prepared to admit that obscene wealth is damaging our country."

"And people out there are so angry at the gap between the super, super rich and all the rest of us getting even bigger, and they want something equally big done about it. They don't want any child to go hungry, and they know that a free hot school meal for every child up to the age of 16 is possible if extreme wealth is taxed fairly."

"They want public transport to be more affordable, and they know that we could start by giving free bus passes to all the under-22s, again, paid for by our tax system being made fairer."

"They want everyone to have a roof over their head, to get a doctor's or a dentist appointment without struggle, and for the NHS to be run for the public good, not to line shareholders' pockets. And they know that change is possible if only this government, a Labour government, would tax extreme wealth fairly."

"Our Green amendment includes new powers to control rents. Greens welcomed the changes in the Renters Reform Act and now plans for more social housing. But far too many people are still struggling to pay their rent and make ends meet. So alongside action to bring down energy and water bills, it is time to get a grip on the cost of renting too."

"And now I was elected to give a voice to a politics that truly represents everyone. This is the first King's Speech I've been in Parliament to hear, and honestly, what I'm hearing isn't gonna give everyone the meaningful change that we and they all know is possible."

"So Greens will have no hesitation to use our individual and collective voices over the coming months to welcome progress when it's made, but crucially, to demand the change that people were promised and the change that people deserve to have."

"Thank you. Hear, hear."

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

We have a toxic combination of low wages and high bills.

We need to make life affordable for everyone.

Make hope normal again & Vote Green. 💚

(& remember to take photo ID to the polling station!)

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

When you see the relentless attacks from other parties on the Greens across the media remember this:

They hate our plan to end Rip Off Britain.

They don't want a wealth tax.

They don't want public ownership & lower bills.

They're trying everything in their power to stop us.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

The Green Party want to end Rip Off Britain.

This Thursday, vote for the party that wants to put wealth and power back into all our communities.

Meltdown headlines from billionaire press this morning alone show what we're up against.

Vote Green.

https://t.co/0qbagSvIYp

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

The system is rigged.

An illegal war hikes bills for stuggling families - meanwhile energy giants rake in profits.

We don't have to live like this any more. Vote Green on May 7th.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

Always a pleasure to spend time with @GreenPartyHan in Manchester. Today launching our three step plan to bring our high streets back to life with:

affordable leases for small biz, bringing empty shop fronts back into use, and giving communities a real say in their local areas.