Martin

Be curious, ask questions, study the information and make up your own mind! A “like” isn’t necessarily an endorsement!

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@afneil @CharlotteCGill Just one of the many hypocrites involved in the green lobby!

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Britain is not the same.
The lockdowns in 2020-2021 did not merely pause life; they rewrote its rules. What began as a 3 week ‘flatten the curve’ shield against a virus became a slow, grinding experiment in how much freedom, community and common sense a nation could surrender before something essential broke. And something broke.

Children spent the Covid era incarcerated away from education and friends, robbing them of early learning and social skills.

The elderly were often isolated alone behind closed doors.

The economy did not bounce back; it collapsed. Small shops and pubs that defined high streets vanished, replaced by the cold efficiency of multinational corporation platforms that never close and never employ or circulate money locally.

Debt piled upon debt while the government discovered new appetites for control and new excuses for spending.

The cost of living has continued since the Covid era. This is restricting the ability of millions people live their lives with fulfilment and prosperity.

Young people who should have been building their lives instead watched house prices and rents climb beyond reach, their wages eaten by inflation that the same institutions that locked them down now lecture them to accept as normal.

Most quietly devastating was the loss of something harder to measure: the unthinking assumption that Britain was still a free country in the old, stubborn sense. That an individual could decide for themselves whether to open their business, hug their loved ones, or send their child to school. That the state existed to serve the people, not to rule them or decide freedoms.

The habit of deference to authority, once a quiet British strength, became a dangerous reflex. Dissent was reframed as danger. Questions were treated as something to be cancelled or punished. And when the restrictions finally lifted, the psychological damage remained, like scaffolding left standing long after the building had collapsed because of unnecessary repairs.

Britain survived the Blitz. It endured rationing, deindustrialisation, recessions, and every political crisis of the modern era. But the lockdowns were different. They did not ask for national pride, courage or endurance. They asked for obedience and isolation, and they received both in abundance. The Britain that emerged since the Covid era is more anxious, more divided, more dependent, and less certain of what it still believes.

The question is not whether we can go back. We cannot. The question is whether we will remember what was taken and refuse to let it happen again, or whether we will grow tragically conditioned to a less confident, subdued, more frightened version of ourselves that the lockdowns left behind.

Britain is not the same.
The only choice left is what we decide to become instead - and ideally, reboot our national confidence. But I’m not hopeful of this. The Covid era broke something in Britain. You can feel it still lingering. And ultimately, only we can try and resolve this. We need to rebuild our national confidence and stand up to the governments who continue to try and keep us in forms of restrictive confinement under their control. No one voted for this. And it’s time to do something about it before it’s too late.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@Ed_Miliband @jreynoldsMP @LabourSJ You and your colleagues will never recover from the mess you have created, it will be good riddance and can’t come too soon.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@faisalislam Cracking assessment from the now defunct BBC🤦

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@FansAnatoly @Anatolydaily Respect to the construction workers!

[Denby Pottery @denbypottery]

We need your help to #SaveDenby!
We are sad to share that we may be forced to close and a British institution could be lost.

We need your help:
1. Share this post
2. Sign the government petition
3. Buy Denby
4. Visit us at the Pottery Village

Read more: https://t.co/g17lHz2ETx

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@ArtElectrics Just to add, I was using the BG EV charger solution and replacing them with BS EV rated sockets, all eventually failed the same way. All used with 10A granny charger.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@ArtElectrics Just poor design, I’ve had many fail (not quite as dramatic) but burned and cracked. Posted examples on the BG electrical x, but all ignored. More common than you think. Replaced the socket in mine with 20 yr old MK single, no issues since…says a lot!

[Adam Brooks AKA EssexPR 🇬🇧 @EssexPR]

One million free NHS passes have been given to asylum seekers.
Illegal migrants receive free prescriptions, dental care, eye tests, wigs and travel to appointments.

- FOI to NHS Business Service Authority

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@autocar Wow didn’t think you could design anything that ugly!

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@keswickbootco Wow, don’t we just understand that! Bluebell and Tiggy are jealous 😂

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@JamesMelville Sort of agree, the dark chocolate one is better!

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@MartinSLewis Green but much slower!

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@ClarksonsFarm1 A really good lager, well done whoever created the recipe!

[Merryn Somerset Webb @MerrynSW]

Less than 24 hours after telling us that the nutty new climate targets would not involve telling us how to live our lives.. the how to live your life instructions arrive.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@DPJHodges Maybe he just sees things as they are. When things don’t make sense, maybe something genuinely isn’t right.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@Go_CheshireWest To those of us who have been around awhile and know, this is called “lip service”. You ask this every year and ignore the response.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@elonmusk Will anyone hear the Dragon Capsule fart in space 🤔

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@g__j Both governments appear to deny that this is an issue, while it’s actually one of the largest in the whole renewables industry. When they accept it and address it, we can genuinely move forward on a more sustainable future.

[Martin @Martin_Brookes]

@Chris_Boardman I’m comfortable cycling in local areas, but the key issue for me is there is nowhere in the key areas to secure what is a very expensive asset. Be honest, a lot of bikes these days cost more than a cheap car, including many e-bikes. Theft is rife and police aren’t bothered.