@PoliticsInPubs

We're a group of people from across the political spectrum.
We organise informal meetings for people interested in politics.
We are not an echo chamber.

[@PoliticsInPubs @PiPsOrgUK]

https://t.co/10owz7hwz1

Above is a clip from the @Iromg show where Mike talks to one of our founders about Politics in Pubs: what we do and why we do it. Sign up to our website to know more about us. All welcome to join the discussion at one of our events.

[Kathryn Porter @KathrynPorter26]

This really worries me

A month ago in Wales I suffered a ruptured aneurysm in my abdomen. I lost over 2 units of blood

But the Welsh ambulance service refused to send an ambulance. I was still breathing so apparently didn't need one

I spent 7 hours lying on the ground in a car park. Every time I moved I threw up from the pain. The owners of the car park called 999 6x

One of the people there was a fireman. He couldn't believe that 999 treated each call as a separate incident and couldn't see the details or link to previous calls. He was frustrated because they could see I was seriously ill but you can't see internal bleeding and so there was no way to persuade 999 that it actually was an emergency

Eventually my husband arrived by taxi, journey of more than 3 hours from our home

He gave me my pain meds (the car park people were worried about liability and I was too ill to get them myself). This meant I was able to crawl into the car and he drove me to A&E

He got me into a wheelchair. We waited 75 minutes to see a doctor. I was shivering, heaped with blankets and threw up all over the floor

As soon as a doctor looked at me I was taken straight to resus. The next day I was transfered by blue light ambulance to another hospital, had a blood transfusion and spent 5 days on the high dependency unit

If my husband hadn't been able to come and look after me I have no idea how I would have survived. As it was I nearly didn't

I would not have been able to get myself to hospital nor would I have been able to log into some digital triage system

This scheme seems to assume if you're seriously ill you'll arrive by ambulance and if not you're well enough to navigate a digital portal

My experience suggests that's a dangerous assumption

A week later, back home in England I had another ruptured aneurysm. This time an ambulance came in 2 hours and again I was taken straight to resus

It wasn't the same because I had a recent diagnosis of a ruptured aneurysm so we could tell 999 I was almost certainly bleeding internally. But I was too ill to get myself down the stairs and out to the car. We still needed that ambulance and I still wouldn't have been able to fiddle around with an ipad

Proper triage REQUIRES an actual doctor to look at the patient. It takes a matter of minutes to differentiate between a life threatening emergency and not a life threatening emergency. That's not minutes to get a diagnosis but to know that the person is stable or not stable and if not that needs immediate attention

Seriously ill people can't do it themselves. It doesn't matter how smart or articulate they are normally. Or how tough. Expecting people to manage their own emergency care isn't what a modern health service should do

https://t.co/RMi7L44fUy

[Claire Fox @Fox_Claire]

Do too many young people lack an appetite/resilience for working? Why are so many 16 to 24-year-olds claiming they're too ill to work? Obviously the welfare system is full of perverse incentives - you can be better off on benefits than with a job. But it seems there are deeper problems eating away at generational resilience - eg, the medicalisation of everyday problems, or the fact that many young people have internalised the Lockdown lesson that health trumps jobs, school, economy etc...

[@ChatsWithEm @chatswithem]

Baroness Claire Fox 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Such an sound intelligent woman

Speaking so much plain sense and fact

This is how Briton used to converse

Calmly , eloquently and factually .. and often bluntly

And we functioned very well as a society

[@PoliticsInPubs @PiPsOrgUK]

15th June, 7pm Pimlico, London.
Digital ID: Panacea or dystopia?

Digital ID is back on the agenda. It was announced as a bill in the King Speech.

Come and join the discussion.
All welcome. Free event.
@darwin_friend1

More details: https://t.co/HqGB5hXaii

[Richard Thomson @RichardTomo5]

“Mad” Ed Miliband is allowing Britain’s North Sea resource extraction to decline - while we spend up to £40bn importing oil and gas from Norway.

Think about that.

We’re shutting down our own supply, shipping it in from abroad, and paying more for the privilege.

It drives up costs. It weakens our energy security.

It’s dangerously stupid.

[Claire Fox @Fox_Claire]

The most shocking word of the Southport Inquiry is 'preventable' - Rudakubana was a butcher hiding in plain sight while state authorities looked away. I asked the minister if there will be consequences - will people be sacked? And I was irritated when the minister suggested that it was wrong to bring race into the issue, when in fact it was a bastardised anti-racism that paralysed officials, teachers, social workers and police from confronting the dangerous threats posed by Rudukubana (as well as Calocane in Notts) - because they were black and vulnerable. "Lessons must be learned" reply from the government is unsatisfactory.

[ClarksonsFarm @ClarksonsFarm1]

Repost!👏🏻

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

Renewable electricity does not produce: petrol, diesel, bunker fuel, or jet fuel; it does not produce the feed stock for ammonia used to make fertilisers, or feedstocks for chemicals, pharmaceuticals or plastics; it does not produce bitumen, carbon fibres, armaments or ammunition; it does not produce the industrial heat needed to make cement, glass, aluminium, ceramics or steel.

Claiming we shouldn't mine oil and gas in the UK because we won't be self sufficient is like suggesting we shouldn't produce any food because we won't be able to grow enough and would still need to import some.

Caroline Lucas is NOT right.

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

You cannot eat solar panels.

[Grifty @TheGriftReport]

Wiltshire farmer Ann Maidment, 42, has brilliantly exposed the “ridiculous” government waste licensing system, by registering her prize cow Beau Vine as an official rubbish disposer.

It took just five minutes online and cost £184. The Environment Agency approved it instantly. No ID, no business checks, no criminal record verification, just a tick-box promise of no environmental offences.

Her family cattle farm in north Wiltshire has been repeatedly hit by fly-tippers dumping everything from asbestos to kitchen waste.

Ann’s message is simple: “A system that cannot stop a cow cannot stop a criminal.”

Fly-tipping now costs Britain £1 billion a year, with 1.26 million incidents last year alone, many carried out by licensed “carriers” who then illegally dump on rural land.

Farmers are left with tens of thousands in clean-up bills while the system smooths the path for organised crime.

Government now promises tougher checks… but the cow licence proves it’s been wide open for years.

[ClarksonsFarm @ClarksonsFarm1]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

This area of Norfolk is going to be covered by solar panels and infrastructure that is the equivalent of 43,000 tennis courts. Countryside vandalism.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

Another deeply troubling move from this increasingly authoritarian government.

The Labour Party has removed the whip from Karl Turner — one of the most outspoken critics of plans to restrict our long-standing right to trial by jury.

The Chief Whip didn’t even have the decency to tell him in-person. Instead, the decision was briefed to the press and followed up with an email citing his remarks and conduct. Apparently, speaking forcefully in defence of fundamental liberties is now a problem.

Meanwhile, Lammy presses ahead with his sinister proposal restrict our right to trial by jury — despite having no manifesto mandate. He also continues to ignore the serious warnings from the country’s most senior legal figures.

Whatever your politics, the right to a fair trial by jury is a cornerstone of our system. This Government is a disgrace.

Credit to @KarlTurnerMP for taking a stand.

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

It’s time for the UK government to ensure food security - especially when there is a global supply chain crisis. It’s time to put British farmers first.

[Academy of Ideas @acadofideas]

In the midst of war on Iran, US "spheres of influence" and UK adherence to vague international law over Chagos...

1) Iran, Greenland, Brexit Britain... does sovereignty still matter? 🇮🇷🇬🇧

@HudsCheryl @richardmarcj Joan Kennedy of @PiPsOrgUK @KiszelyPhilip @jacobreynolds & @Fox_Claire

[Academy of Ideas @acadofideas]

AOI Director @Fox_Claire kicks off “Iran, Greenland, Brexit Britain: Does sovereignty still matter?” 🇮🇷🇬🇧

W/ @richardmarcj @HudsCheryl @jacobreynolds @KiszelyPhilip & Joan Kennedy of @PiPsOrgUK

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

They told you to feel shame. Colonisers. Slavers. Oppressors.

Your ancestors couldn’t afford the ferry to France.

But they boycotted sugar. Signed petitions. Walked out of factories. Chose prison over convicting innocent men.

The powerful owned slaves. The people ended slavery. Then they ended it everywhere.

You were taught the shame. Never the pride.

Be proud of us. 🇬🇧

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

Some basics about Chagos for BBC reporters, Sky anchors and others coming new to the debate.
1. The Chagos Islands lie half-way between Africa and Indonesia, and host a key Anglo-American military base on the main island, Diego Garcia
2. France ceded the archipelago to Britain in 1814 separately from Mauritius; the islands were always a distinct territory, though, lacking suitable facilities, their administration was sited in Mauritius
3. To put the issue beyond doubt, Mauritius permanently renounced any claim to the islands in 1965 in return for a cash payment from Britain
4. It eagerly trousered the money, its first post-independence PM, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, explaining that he had been glad to sell any theoretical right to “territory of which very few people knew, which is very far from here, and which we had never visited”
5. Mauritius is indeed 1337 miles from the islands, and began to press its claim again only when it grew closer to China in the early 2000s
6. The barrister it hired was Philippe Sands, a co-founder of Matrix Chambers and a close friend of Keir Starmer’s, who has always been cagey about what conversations they have had about Chagos
7. Far from providing a mandate for the deal, the Labour manifesto explicitly promised the opposite (see graphic)
8. Starmer justifies the surrender by pointing to a non-binding resolution by a UN court, which included a Russian and a Chinese judge, and whose jurisdiction had been expressly denied in disputes between Commonwealth or former Commonwealth states
9. In November, a different UN body issued another non-binding resolution, this one ordering the transfer to be halted, but Labour did not change direction
10. The party may have a guilty conscience, for it was Harold Wilson’s government that removed the 1800-odd inhabitants from the islands after 1968 to make room for the base
11. Chagossians, who now number around 10,000, do not see themselves as Mauritians and overwhelmingly oppose the transfer
12. British and American generals have expressed reservations about the deal, warning that a future Mauritian government might lease adjoining islands to unfriendly powers
13. The base has proved its strategic value many times, lying as it does lies within reach of four of the seven global choke points that funnel maritime traffic: the Bab-el-Mandeb, the Straits of Hormuz, the Malacca Straits and the Cape of Good Hope
14. Mauritius has no navy and admits it cannot protect the territory
15. At the same time, it wants commercial fishing in the matchless marine conservation zone around the islands
16. A Freedom of Information Request shows that the payments to Mauritius will total £34 billion
17. Mauritius says that this money will wipe out its national debt and still allow tax cuts
18. Opponents of the Bill want Chagossians themselves to decide the issue in a referendum
19. If the deal falls, Britain will be under a moral obligation to allow Chagossians to settle the outer atolls (see video in next post)
20. Providing for a permanent settlement will cost (on the government’s figures) one sixth or (on the actual figures) around one fiftieth as much as Labour wants to hand to Mauritius
21. The transfer cannot go ahead without both parliamentary ratification and the formal approval of the US, neither of which has been secured