Current levels of wage compression rival the Soviet Union at its most compressed, and in many regions of Britain, the minimum wage is as high as 80% of local median earnings. A huge amount of people are basically earning the same pay, whatever they do. https://t.co/3IsnEaisOe
Since my #ITV7 card is doing well, here it is for Royal Ascot Day 2:
14.30 21 Ruiva 11/1 (P)
15.05 4 Limestone 10/3F (W)
15.40 3 Blue Bolt 5/2F (W)
16.20 3 Daryz 2/1
17.00 6 Archivist 6/1F
17.35 8 Radiant Beauty 6/1
18.10 16 Sale Shark 5/1
Just for fun my #ITV7 card for Royal Ascot Day 1:
14.30: 3 Docklands 15/2
15.05: 15 Night In Vegas 10/1
15.40: 2 American Affair 10/1
16.20: 1 Bow Echo EvsF (nap)
17.00: 1 Beylerbeyi 20/1
17:35: 12 Nahraan 6/1F
18.10: 10 Valiancy 9/4F (nb)
Increasingly I grow weary and cannot sleep at night merely because of frustration at the difficulty of freely voicing my opinions as to the present state and future of my country without offending the criminal law or incurring the wrath of my professional regulator.
The government has lost control of its carefully constructed narrative. If citizens can be arrested for comments, memes, or controversial opinions posted online, then free speech does not exist. It is forbidden. Take it a step further and question WHY they must silence the public.
The issue extends far beyond Britain. Across Europe we are witnessing a steady expansion of laws regulating speech, online content, and digital communications. Governments justify these measures as necessary to combat misinformation, extremism, or hate speech. In reality such powers inevitably expand beyond their original purpose.
Mayor Khan on ITV saying that London is being portrayed online as a dystopian, crime-ridden hellhole. For me the worst was six years ago: shot in the head by yobs armed with a 3D-printed pistol while cycling, I gave the Met Police the car numberplate but they did nothing.
"On both sides of the Atlantic, Americans, Irishmen, and Englishmen are waking up to a stark reality: our homelands are beset by a crippling pestilence manifesting as an incompatible populace, imported from the Third World" - Trump administration official https://t.co/uCnfATZXfD
@AtTheRaces@MCYeeehaaa Spot on. I was keen to go to Newmarket on 22 Aug to watch the Somerville Auction Stakes, but would have to pay at least £40 (limited viewing, otherwise £51) to include unwanted live music (Kaiser Chiefs): no 'just racing' option available. I choose my own live music gigs thanks!
On Sunday evening I encountered three young Polish women desecrating the local war memorial by throwing bread and litter all over it; tonight a Polish man cycling an e-bike on the pavement outside my house. Where is the enforcement @MPSCricketGreen?
"...all my apprehensions were bury'd in the thoughts of such a pitch of inhuman, hellish brutality, and the horror of the degeneracy of human nature; which, though I had heard of so often, yet I never had so near a view of before..." - Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Reminder that there's no reason to love a UK with almost the highest alcohol and tobacco taxes in Europe, where all recreational drugs (in particular cannabis) are illegal and prostitution laws are a mess, which is rocket fuel for smuggling, the black economy and organised crime
"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies...when will European capitals do something about that invasion?" Thank God for @PeteHegseth and the US government challenging state censorship in the UK and Europe https://t.co/DXRIlccaVv
@TheGhostSleepi1 I am available to work: have genetic experience on my mother's side of administering India back in the good old days of the Empire, plus several interesting hats.
There's no more accurate a metaphor for the West than slowly bleeding to death by the hand of barbarians while corrupt authorities tie our hands behind our back.
I am in favour of repealing the Equality Act, Racial and Religious Hatred Act, Public Order Act, Crime and Disorder Act, Human Rights Act and all the other similar garbage on the statute book, and reintroducing capital punishment.
"27 migrants from outside the EU aged under 25 are hired for every British youngster...while the young British workforce has grown by less than 1 per cent since 2020, the number of non-EU youth on the UK payroll has increased by 355 per cent in that time." https://t.co/qv3TuRBJjn
I've just read Blair's essay in full. There's a few self-evident bangers in there and it's mostly a warning against backsliding into socialism and the decrepitude of leftism. He offers some direction for a Labour government, prioritising growth, but I get the sense he's not really got anything real to say. He's not really speaking to my concerns; that Britain is turning into a lawless, squalid shit tip with ineffectual government, a decrepit police and justice system, a shredded social contract, chaotic public finances, and a politics riven with sectarianism and corruption - and he doesn't acknowledge that parts of Britain now look like a foreign country entirely - that will never resemble his multicultural nirvana.
Blair's "radical centrism" doesn't speak to any of this this at all. His essay is a plea to maintain the status quo, seemingly oblivious to how rapidly and seriously the country is deteriorating. For this, he has no answers, and wouldn't raise these issues since he'd have to acknowledging his own role in bringing us to this unhappy place. On that basis, much though I enjoy reading sharp thoughtful prose, Mr Blair can still fuck off as far away as the James Webb telescope can see.