Raf M

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Great Barrier Reef: Last five years best on record

Why doesn't the media tell you?

https://t.co/siAvj2d0th

You can see all the references in my Twitter thread:
https://t.co/hj58WrVihV

[Croydon Conservatives 🇬🇧 @CroydonTories]

Sadiq Khan’s Draft London Plan proposes 5,600 homes on Croydon’s greenfield land. Mayor @JasonForCroydon and Croydon Conservatives will fight to protect our Green Belt.

Will @LabourSJ and @NDIronsMP stand with Croydon or with Khan?

Watch Cllr @Jeet__Bains explain👇

[Æthelstan @TheHauskarl]

My silly anecdote about the Yookay pointed towards the kind of ubiquitous, grating, low-level "friction" that impedes daily life.

Yet Yookayification is not entirely something that merely happens to us - although much of it is done to us quite wilfully - our response to it is dynamic and amorphous in character.

Western societies and their urban areas are undergoing a process of hardening to withstand the harsh abrasion of a low-trust society where anything that can be stolen or misused must be preventatively modified.

CCTV, AI facial recognition, knife arches, anti-vehicle-ramming flowerbeds — all that is beautiful, and by necessity vulnerable in some way, is adapted against the endlessly creative machinations of bad actors.

The expense and the psychological burden of living in the midst of an invisible prison is incalculable.

Authentic societies are proactively abrasive and hostile to antisocial actors, they do not build a defensive prison to warehouse its ageing base of miserable taxpayers.

Take a look around you, look what the progressive Left has built with the money they confiscated from you: Is it beautiful? Is it inspirational? I don't think it is.

It is a society that revels in pretending, polite lies, avoidance, denial and cowardice. A silent retreat conducted one pricey postcode at a time to access a dwindling number of "good schools."

The law bullies and persecutes the average law-abiding Briton because of Low-Hanging Fruit Syndrome; it is simply easier to police people who were going to obey the law regardless.

Those habitually disinclined towards respecting the law are of no interest to the state because they have no money to confiscate and they cannot be reformed in any case.

And so we live like this, hooked up to a steady supply of Deliveroo-slop, a crisp packet blowing in the wind like tumbleweed, a rusty can of Stella laid unto rest eternal in a hedge.

It could've all been so beautiful.

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Today marks 100 days into my second term.
Lots done. Lots more to do.

We’ve launched Pothole Patrol, announced new playgrounds and outdoor gyms, stepped up zero-tolerance enforcement and driven forward major regeneration.

Croydon’s on the up.

Find out more here: https://t.co/U2ETNhUilr

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

What do my peerage appointments say about today's Conservative Party?

Britain is entering a more dangerous age. China is rapidly expanding its military power and helping to sustain Russia’s war machine, while NATO prepares for dangers it once hoped had passed.

We need to rearm. Yet our economy is stagnant, welfare spending continues to balloon and debt is nearing the size of the entire economy.

At home, foreign criminals who should have been removed, remain in Britain. Meanwhile dangerous people known to mental-health services have been left untreated or undetained until innocent people paid with their lives.

These are the problems I think about every day. They will not be solved by the usual procession of apparatchiks. They require people who understand how to defend a country, create wealth, build institutions and repair public systems.

At the next election, the Conservative Party will put forward a new generation of candidates prepared to confront these problems. Anyone who wants an early indication of the party I am building should look at the people I am appointing to the House of Lords.

General Sir Patrick Sanders is a former Chief of the General Staff who understands what military readiness actually requires.

David Ross built a major business, then applied that experience to building schools and cultural institutions.

Professor Swaran Singh combines academic research, frontline NHS psychiatry and public service, and understands why our mental-health system too often fails both patients and the public.

Peerages cannot solve everything, but Parliament will make fewer foolish decisions if more of its members understand the real world.

To understand why this really matters, read more 👇

[Raf M @RafM56]

@LordAshcroft @NigelBiggar A very good policy decision, I don't want to see spotty faced PPE grads lining up for selection. I would also prefer a lower age limit of 40 imposed before you could be considered.

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

🇬🇧 THEY TOLD YOU A STORY. 🇬🇧

Colonisers. Slavers. Oppressors. And you were supposed to feel ashamed.

Not for what you done... But for WHO YOU ARE. 🇬🇧

So we tested it. Britain wrote everything down, so we opened the books. 📖

Turns out fewer than 1 man in 10 could vote in the year Britain banned the slave trade. No woman could. Your ancestors could hang for stealing a sheep, get shipped across the world for petty theft, or go down a mine at 8 years old. In Manchester, the average age of death in a labouring family was 17.

They weren't running the slave trade. They were underneath it too.

Which is what makes what happened next worth knowing.

In 1772 an enslaved man named James Somerset walked free from an English court, because English law couldn't hold a slave.

In 1791, 300,000 families just stopped buying slave sugar. No march, no riot, just a decision made at 300,000 kitchen tables.

In 1792, 519 petitions carrying 390,000 names hit Parliament, most signed by people who couldn't vote themselves.

In 1807, Britain banned the trade.

Then the slave owners sent Britain a bill for the 800,000 people they still held. 💷 £20 million. About 40% of the entire government budget at the time.

The Treasury says it wasn't paid off until 2015. So if your family paid British tax before then, they helped buy 800,000 people their freedom.

From 1808 the Royal Navy spent 60 years hunting slave ships at sea: 1,600 stopped, 150,000 people freed, and 1,600 British sailors dead, mostly of disease, buried thousands of miles from home. ⚓

In 1816 they ended two centuries of Barbary corsairs enslaving Europeans.

In 1896 a war that lasted 38 minutes ended slavery in Zanzibar. 🇹🇿

Almost every country on Earth outlaws slavery today.

That fight was paid for largely at British expense, by British hands.🇬🇧

So why haven't you heard any of this?

Because within living memory, someone rewrote the story. You got taught the crime. Not the cure.

The powerful exploited the world. They exploited their own people first. It was those people who ended slavery. 🇬🇧

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

History got rewritten once, in living memory, by no one who was ever named or held to account.

We are ordinary people doing what ordinary people have always done. Opening the books. Refusing to look away.

This is how we fight back. Fact by fact. Story by story. Name by name.

We are the home of British heroes. There is a place for you in it.

If you can afford to support what we do: https://t.co/rih7iKwnvf

Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.

I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days.

Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.

However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.

When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.

The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.

Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison?

I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.

The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest.

Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Four years ago, Croydon had been bankrupted, confidence had collapsed and residents felt let down.

Since then, we've stabilised the finances, cut crime, tackled fly-tipping, invested in roads and parks, and started bringing investment back into our town centre.

Croydon is recovering. But there is still lots more to do.

My latest article for @ConHome 👇

https://t.co/YeQDcvng7j

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

This week I set out my plan for the first 100 days of my second term as Executive Mayor of Croydon.

Cleaner streets. Safer neighbourhoods. Visible enforcement. Better roads. Stronger district centres.

Lots done. Lots more to do.

Watch my full speech 👇

https://t.co/FbKaotr5Wr

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

WATCH: Andy Burnham Opposed Landmark Ruling to Protect Single-Sex Spaces https://t.co/Xe19B3DDXp

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Croydon made me who I am.

4 years ago, I was furious seeing our borough run into the ground.

Together, we’ve started turning Croydon around - stabilising the finances, cleaning up our streets, and restoring pride.

Let’s keep going. Lend your vote to Jason Perry and your local Conservative candidates on 7th May.

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Great to have the support of Simon Cripps.

We’ve worked closely with the BID to improve Purley - from tackling flooding to backing local projects and regeneration.

More to do, but strong progress.

Lend your vote to Jason Perry and your local Conservative candidates on 7th May.

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

In a major development, the IPCC has finally admitted its apocalyptic RCP8.5 climate scenarios are "implausible", meaning most media scare stories over the last 15 years are officially junk, says Chris Morrison. https://t.co/XJHxDdKdAY

[Croydon Conservatives 🇬🇧 @CroydonTories]

📷 Cuts to the 466 Bus Service
Raf Makda is raising concerns about the 466 bus route, which has been reduced by 17%.
Together with @JasonForCroydon and Cllr Bird, we are calling on Transport for London to reinstate the full service
#OldCoulsdon #PublicTransport #RestoringPride

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Toni Letts served Croydon as a Labour councillor for 36 years. She has always put our community first.

Her support means a great deal - because this isn’t about party politics. It’s about Croydon.

Lend me your vote on May 7.

https://t.co/ZkCeJqr7yl

[Cllr Jason Cummings @JasonCroydonCon]

https://t.co/1pdeRimGfT Just what IS your stance on this @RowennaDavis ? You had this in your manifesto and then you removed it. You also fail to mention that LABOUR actually chair the pensions committee here in Croydon. Is @SteveReedMP right or are you?

[Austin Williams @Future_Cities]

Can Pay, Won’t Pay
Where did the contemporary belief that stealing is morally acceptable come from?
https://t.co/w0WhDEzvjx

[Jason Perry - Mayor of Croydon @JasonForCroydon]

Good to see the next stage of the Westfield regeneration progressing in Croydon.

The Croydon Project sets out a bold vision for transforming Centrale, Whitgift and Allders and bringing new homes, shops, leisure and public spaces to our town centre.

Croydon is back on track.

Have your say on the plans 👇
https://t.co/zF4oNlIWTT

[Raf M @RafM56]

@CarolineLucas @theCCCuk Costs in the report are based on 'a range of assumptions' I read this as vastly underestimate the costs and vastly overestimating the benefits.