Nick Stafforddrew

[Nick Stafforddrew @Nickstaffdrew]

@JeremyClarkson go out and vote and choose her to represent them.

[Nick Stafforddrew @Nickstaffdrew]

@JeremyClarkson her constituants wanted her to represent them. We even paid the settlement that enabled her to buy a house because those who make decisions about our lives should be well paid. Tax payers have funded every aspect of her entire life because they saw something her that made them...

[Socialist Opera Singer @OperaSocialist]

Now here's a petition I could get behind @Nigel_Farage

#Farage

[Carol Vorderman @carolvorders]

BREAKING
Final poll before election

@YouGov

Labour: 431
Con: 102 (Range 72-129)
Lib Dem: 72 (Range 57-87)

RANGES
An overlap of low Tory 72 to high @libdems at 87

The LIB DEMS can form the opposition if you VOTE TACTICALLY

Believe it

https://t.co/3Rt9iA6euK

[Carol Vorderman @carolvorders]

NEW POLL - LIB DEMS COULD BECOME OPPOSITION
@Survation huge poll just out

Tories 64 seats
LibDems 61 seats

Get your tactical vote with us
https://t.co/3Rt9iA6Mki
Nearly 4 MILLION views so far

Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 484
CON 64
LD 61
SNP 10
RFM 7
PC 3
GRN 3

[Survation. @Survation]

NEW MRP: Labour 99% Certain To Win More Seats Than in 1997

Labour on Course to Win 484 seats.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are in a close race to form the official opposition.

Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 484
CON 64
LD 61
SNP 10
RFM 7
PC 3
GRN 3

34,558 interviews conducted online and on the telephone

https://t.co/KJmLymP0lh

[John Sweeney @johnsweeneyroar]

Confessions of a rookie politician

Hobbling up the driveway, I start on my patter, Liberal Democrat leaflet in hand, when the man barks at me, a ferocity to his voice: “Go! Go!” I’ve just written a book about Alexei Navalny who got murdered in the gulag for standing up for democracy in Russia so I take this badly.
Back in the day when I was only a journalist this fellow would have got a lick with the rough edge of my tongue.
But that was then and now I am trying to become the LibDem MP for Sutton Coldfield, against the odds, so I stop, say: “OK, then,” and limp back to the pavement. (I’m using a crutch because I fell on black ice in Kyiv last December while delivering crutches with my pal Major James Hewitt. Oh: the irony!)

Being a politician is next-level harder than being a hack. The scrutiny is full glare, the fury of people who don’t like your ideas jarring, the rewards uncertain. Also: have you ever slipped a leaflet through a letter box while listening to the Hound of the Baskervilles slaver his chops a few inches from your fingers?

And yet it is fascinating and addictive and I feel sad when my two fellow canvassers, thirty and forty years younger than me, said they had had enough for the day.

People listen when I say that the Tories have been in power for too long and Labour, in control of bankrupt Birmingham City Council, have shown themselves poor guardians of other people’s money, that there is a third way for the people of Sutton Coldfield.

When one lady says she will vote for me and stick a poster in her window, I blow her a kiss and call her “sweetie” which is almost certainly a transgression of election rule 34, 3b. But still: it is cool.

I’m standing because Navalny couldn’t. Because my friends in Ukraine are fighting and dying for the idea of democratic freedom. Because I am a proper Paddy Ashdown Liberal and I believe in individual liberty, free speech and poking crocodiles in the eye with a stick. Because for far too long our ruling class has let the monster in the Kremlin get away with murder after murder after murder. Because rich people and rich organisations don’t pay their fair share of tax and our infrastructure in schools and hospitals and rivers is going to hell in a handcart. Because I want to fight for the ordinary, extraordinary people of Sutton Coldfield.

The sitting Tory member is squatting on a majority of 19,272. Andrew Mitchell was nicknamed “Thrasher” at Rugby, says Private Eye, a charge he denies in his funny and entertaining book, ­Beyond A Fringe. Mitchell is aka “Mr Plebgate”, a One Nation Tory who fell out with the Downing Street cops in a rather spectacular way. Out of the headlines he has used three tax avoidance schemes. Tax avoidance is not a crime.

Killing people is. Mitchell has been a champion of Rwanda from the early 2000s. But his “hero” strongman Paul Kagame is a fascist whose opponents die or vanish. The father of Diane Rwigara was killed in “a car crash”. When she ran against Kagame in a presidential election and said she feared her father had been murdered, nude pictures of her appeared, then she and her mother were locked up for a year. A dozen of her party supporters have disappeared. Mitchell white-washed murder after murder. While on the backbenches, he chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Rwanda and received north of £120,000 from SouthBridge, a bank close to the Rwandan regime. That looks like 120,000 conflicts of interest to me.

The centre of Sutton Coldfield is dying, the shopping mall full of empty shops; on the edge of town is a massive new Amazon warehouse built on a green field site. I use Amazon but want an internet sales tax of 2% and the money raised should go back to our communities. And we must not asphalt our green and pleasant land.

Mitchell’s biggest problem is that in my day people worked hard, bought their own home and had kids. Today’s young people have no such luck and on the doorstep I have met dozens of people who are furious for the Tories for pushing home ownership out of reach or, thanks to Trussonomics, hiking mortgage rates. These people are smiling at me.

The other day Ben, one of our local Lib Dems met Mitchell who was trying to get into a taxi Ben had booked. Ben pointed out Mitchell’s mistake. Mitchell replied: “I’ll let you have the taxi if you vote for me.” Ben replied that he was voting for Mr Sweeney. “A vote for the Liberals is a vote for Labour.” Mitchell seemed a little rattled.

From the left, there is Rob Pocock, a charming Labour schmoozer of a certain age. Labour controlled Brum City Council went bankrupt to the tune of a £1 billion last year, services got slashed and council tax is going up 21% in two years. Will ten thousand disaffected Tory voters vote for Pocock, a Labour councillor who voted to close libraries but signed a petition to keep them open?
We shall see.

I have a slim chance of upsetting the apple cart but, time and again, people on the doors say that I am the only candidate who has make it up their driveway. And I have, for now, only one functioning leg.

But also the other thing. In Sutton Coldfield, the poshest bit of Brum and a lovely oxymoron, I am exercising my right to stand for the politics I believe in and despite the ferocious man and the Hounds of the Baskervilles and all the other nonsense, our democracy is a thing of beauty.

[Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 @Haggis_UK]

Philip hits the nail on the head.

"You're having your kitchen refitted... the bloke's a little fella & his trousers are too short.. "

#LBC

[Julie Street 🇺🇦 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 @Juliest101]

If you live in Clacton and support the Greens, the Lib Dems or even the Tories then for the love of God hold your noses and vote Labour.
There is no place in our decent country for the likes of Farage .... no place.

[Matthew Stadlen @MatthewStadlen]

If you’re a Lib Dem or Green voter in Clacton and vote tactically, you could keep Nigel Farage out of Parliament.

[Carol Vorderman @carolvorders]

Now is the time

8 million have not registered to vote

You have until 11.59pm tomorrow Tuesday June 18th 2024

[Sir Godfrey Lawson 🇬🇧 @godfrey_lawson]

The Tory party have received unfair criticism this last few weeks. In the interests of balance,I’ve posted some charts below which show performance in various key areas such as life expectancy, the NHS, trade, immigration and the economy

🧵

#GeneralElection2024

[HelenClaire @dunkershelen]

@peterjukes @campbellclaret Apparently it would have opened the door to under 25s using the identical Oyster cards (which are accepted for over 60s). Let that sink in 😡

[Peter Jukes @peterjukes]

A Veteran Blocked from Using Army ID to Vote was Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer’s Sergeant Major in Afghanistan – Byline Times https://t.co/Zu4LpCoreV

[Carol Vorderman @carolvorders]

Not a soul in #bbcqt audience agrees with Michael Gove ⏬️

Join us and sign up now for tactical voting at https://t.co/3Rt9iA6euK and let's get rid of the most Tory MPs in history.

It's what this govt deserves

[Mark Todd @MarkTodd_pol]

Impact of Tory Hard Brexit on UK economy (update)

Centre for Economic Reform - 5.5% drop
Goldman Sachs - 5% drop

5% drop in GDP = £139 bn a yr or £695 bn over 5 yrs

At 40% tax take that’s £278bn of lost taxes over a Parliament that could have been spent on public services

[@CitizynKayne @CitizynKayne]

Things are bad when the New York Times is destroying Tories.

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

Young people…

If you don’t take an interest and vote for your future

This lot will.