Russell Howles

[Andy Fitchet @AndyFitchet]

Here is the reality:
- UK regains position of 5th largest economy in the world
- Govt borrowing lowest since 2019
- Growth higher than expected
- Finance sector fastest turnaround since 1996
- NHS waiting lists down nearly half a mil.
- Min Wage now £26k

Labour are a good govt.

[Shehab Khan @ShehabKhan]

I left uni around 10 years ago with a debt of £45,000.

After 10 years of continual payments adding up to thousands and thousands of pounds my debt is...£45,500.

My peers with rich parents who could afford the fees upfront won't be paying 9% of their salary for 30 years.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

LET'S GO!!!!!

https://t.co/Q27Jy5fuX7

[Howard Beckett @BeckettUnite]

Zack Polanski acceptance speech:

‘People are exhausted’
‘Working longer hrs for less pay’
‘Charlatans like Farage given space by Labour’
‘We will nationalise water’
‘For Keir Starmer- we are here to replace you!’

Outstanding
Passionate
Inspiring!

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

.@ZackPolanski: "The problem is not the small boats, the problem is the private jets.. lets make sure the people in this country that have massive wealth are redistributing a tiny bit.. 1% on assets of £10m or more or 2% on assets of £1bn or more. That would raise about £25bn"

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

You can't get a council house because no one is building them.

Your wages are terrible because the billionaires profits have to be record.

As above for the rents.

And house prices are sky high because of all the landlords.

None of it is to do with immigrants.

[Greater Cambridge Partnership @GreaterCambs]

🚧 Construction of the #Meldreth link on the #MelbournGreenway is complete.

🚴 The new path improves connectivity and accessibility between Meldreth railway station and #Melbourn.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

It’s really not that complicated: bring water into public ownership, now.

[Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. @ParikPatelCFA]

Okaaaayyyyyy let me juuuuuuuust shaaaaaaaaare my screeeeeeen...
okaycanyouseeit?

[Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy]

God bless this woman. She knows what community is all about. ❤

[Andy Murray @andy_murray]

Never even liked tennis anyway.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The government has announced the following pay rises for public sector workers

- 6% for Armed Forces

- 5.5% for NHS workers and teachers

- 5% for prison officers

- 4.75% for police officers

It will cost £9.4bn - 2/3 funded by government and the rest from savings

[Jake 🌹🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @ToryWipeout]

Labour acheivements since July 5th:

Won an election
Cancelled Rwanda
Banning bee killing pesticides
Tighter rules on water companies Parliament working on Fridays
Set housing targets
Lifted the ban on onshore wind
Ended the doctor's strikes
Met with world leaders

[Gary Neville @GNev2]

They partied , they bet on elections , they crashed the economy, they broke every public service, they destroyed integrity and honesty in public office , they paid their mates billions , they put their friends in the House of Lords, they gave their cronies knighthoods, they went into the jungle , they lied again and again, they were convicted by police, they went on holiday when they shouldn’t and they have the cheek to question Keir Starmer’s work ethic. I would never take anything for granted but I hope they are annihilated on Thursday. The worst people and government we have ever had!

P.S good afternoon all 😊❤️

[Buitengebieden @buitengebieden]

Man’s best friend.. 😊

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The Green Party 2024 manifesto in full

Immigration:
- End immigration detention unless a public safety danger

- Allow asylum seekers to work during application process

- End the hostile environment

- Remove minimum income requirements for spouse visas

- Provide safe routes for those fleeing persecution

- Replace the Home Office with a new Department of Migration

- Abolish 'no recourse to public funds' condition

Nuclear weapons and NATO:
- Dismantle nuclear weapons, cancel Trident, remove foreign nukes

- UK to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)

- Increase focus on global peacebuilding

- Commit to 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons

Climate aid:
- Increase international aid to 1% of GNI by 2033

- Increase climate finance for Global South to 1.5% of GNI by 2033

- Contribute to a new Loss and Damage Fund

Social support:
- Increase Universal Credit and legacy benefits by £40 a week

- Abolish the two-child benefit cap

- End the ‘bedroom tax’

- Introduce universal basic income

- Restore disability benefits, immediate 5% uplift

- Reform eligibility tests like PIP

- Free transport for 16-18 year old pupils with special needs

Housing:
- Spread small developments across local areas

- Ensure new developments include local service investments

- All new homes to meet Passivhaus or equivalent standards

- Include solar panels and heat pumps in new homes
£29bn over five years for home insulation to EPC B standard

- £4bn over five years for other building insulation

- £9bn over five years for low-carbon heating systems

- Provide 150,000 new social homes annually

- Implement rent controls and end no-fault evictions

- Tenants' right to demand energy efficiency improvements

- Private tenancy boards for dispute resolution

Democracy/human rights:
- Replace first past the post with proportional voting

- Replace House of Lords with elected chamber

- Votes for 16-year-olds

- End violence against women and girls

- Scrap laws eroding protest and free expression rights

- Support self-identification for trans and non-binary people

- Scrap Prevent, tackle hate crime and restore trust in police

- Invest £2.5bn in renewing the court system

Energy:
- 70% of UK electricity from wind by 2030

- Deliver 80GW offshore, 53GW onshore wind, and 100GW solar by 2035

- Invest in energy storage and efficient distribution

- Community ownership of energy sources

- Cancel recent fossil fuel licenses, stop new projects

- Remove oil and gas subsidies

- Introduce carbon tax on fossil fuels

Economy:
- Invest £40bn annually in green economy
Introduce carbon tax

- Public ownership of railways, water, and major energy companies

- Invest £12.4bn in skills and training for green economy

- Encourage community ownership in energy projects
Implement Wealth Tax on high-value assets

- Reform Capital Gains Tax

- Align tax rates on investment and employment income

- Remove Upper Earnings Limit for National Insurance

- Set up regional mutual banks

- Provide £2bn annually for business decarbonisation grants

- Encourage community ownership in zero-carbon transition

International:
- End occupation of Palestinian land

- Uphold self-determination and international law

- Support Ukraine against Russian invasion

- Re-join the EU when politically feasible

- Bilateral ceasefire

- End arms sales to Israel

- Secure release of hostages

- Ensure equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians

- Reinstate funding for UNRWA, support South Africa’s ICJ submission

Education:
- Abolish university tuition fees

- Increase school funding by £8bn, with £2bn for teacher pay

- End high-stakes testing in all schools

- Abolish OFSTED

Work:
- Repeal anti-union laws, introduce Charter of Workers’ Rights

- Implement 10:1 pay ratio

- Raise minimum wage to £15/hour

- Equal employment rights from day one

- Move to a four-day work week

Health:
-New NHS dentists’ contrac taiting lists annually

- Guarantee access to NHS dentist

- Guarantee rapid GP access

- Boost NHS staff pay, restore junior doctors’ pay

- Increase primary medical care funding by £1.5bn by 2030

- Restore public health budgets with £1.5bn annual increase

- Fund smoking cessation, drug treatment, and sexual health services

- National Commission to reform UK drug laws

-New NHS dentists’ contract

- Invest £3bn annually in NHS dentistry by 2030

- Fund community hubs for free dental nursing

- Support mental health rights

- Increase mental health care funding

- Access to evidence-based mental health therapies within 28 days

- Trained counsellor in every school and sixth-form college

- Tailored mental health services for diverse communities

- Support for neurodivergent children in schools

- Legalise assisted dying

- Aim for no more HIV transmissions by 2030

Caring:
- Introduce free personal care

- Increase pay rates and career structure for carers

- Add £3bn for high-quality children's social care

Arts, sports and culture:
- Invest £5bn in community sports, arts, and culture

- Keep local facilities open

- Remove VAT on cultural activities

- Limit media ownership to 20%

- Implement 2012 Leveson Report reforms

Animals:
- Create Commission on Animal Protection

- Ban all blood sports

- Protect marine life in UK waters

- End badger culling

- End factory farming, enforce maximum stocking densities

- Ban close confinement and unnecessary mutilation of farm animals

Transport:
- Increase subsidies for rail and bus travel to £10bn

- Free bus travel for under-18s

- Invest £19bn in foot/cycle paths and electrification

- Public ownership of railways

- Increase local control and funding for bus services

- Aim for 50% of trips in towns/cities to be walked or cycled by 2030

- Introduce frequent-flyer levy

- Ban short domestic flights

- Halt airport expansion

Nature:
- Introduce Rights of Nature Act

- End sewage discharge by taking water companies public

- Expand access to green spaces with Right to Roam Act

- Protect 30% of land and seas by 2030

- Ban bee-killing pesticides

- Enact Clean Air Act for the right to clean air

Agriculture/farming:
- Triple financial support for green farming transition
Improve biodiversity and soil health

- Reduce pesticide use

- Provide free school meals daily to all children

- Offer free breakfast clubs in primary schools

- Include food growing, preparing, and cooking in curriculum

- Reduce food waste

"We are prepared to borrow to invest."

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The entire Lib Dem manifesto

Main pledges:

- Give everyone a new right to see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if it’s urgent, with the extra doctors needed to "make it happen" and by introducing a universal 24/7 GP booking system

- Strengthen democratic rights and participation by scrapping the Conservatives’ voter ID scheme and giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote

- Introduce proportional representation for electing MPs, and local councillors in England, and cap donations to political parties

- Reform the House of Lords with a "proper" democratic mandate

- Hold big companies to account by giving them a duty to protect the environment, including banning water companies from dumping raw sewage into rivers, lakes and coastal areas

- Immediately fix the "broken" relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement that removes as many barriers to trade as possible

- Invest in renewable power and home insulation to drive a strong economic recovery, bring down energy bills and create clean, secure, well-paid new jobs

- Reversing Conservative tax cuts for the big banks, restoring Bank Surcharge and Bank Levy revenues to 2016 levels in real terms

- Increasing the Digital Services Tax on social media firms and other tech giants from 2% to 6%

- Fairly reforming capital gains tax to close loopholes "exploited" by the super wealthy

- Establish national and local citizens’ assemblies to give people real involvement in the decisions needed to tackle climate change

- Restore the requirement that every new car and small van sold from 2030 is zeroemission, investing in active travel and public transport, and electrify Britain’s railways

- Meeting the UK’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030

- Establish mental health hubs for young people in every community and introducing regular mental health check-ups at key points in people’s lives when they are most vulnerable to mental ill-health

- Introducing a 4% tax on the share buyback schemes of FTSE-100 listed companies, to "incentivise" productive investment, job creation and economic growth

- Fix the "broken" Statutory Sick Pay system by:

• Making it available to the more than one million workers earning less than £123 a week, most of whom are women

• Aligning the rate with the National Minimum Wage

• Making payments available from the first day of missing work rather than the fourth

• Supporting small employers with Statutory Sick Pay costs, consulting with them on the "best way" to do this

- Introduce free personal care based on the model introduced by the Liberal Democrats in government in Scotland in 2002, so that provision is based on need, not ability to pay

- Create a social care workforce plan, establish a Royal College of Care Workers to improve recognition and career progression, and introduce a higher Carer’s Minimum Wage

- Establish a cross-party commission to forge a long-term agreement on sustainable funding for social care

- Develop a digital strategy to enable care users to live tech-enabled lives

- Minister for Tackling Loneliness

Education:

- Put a dedicated mental health professional in every school

- ⁠Increase funding per pupil above the rate of inflation and end crumbling schools and repair backlog

- ⁠Introduce tutoring guarantee for every disadvantaged pupil

- ⁠Invest in high quality EY education, 3-5 extra hours for disadvantaged students and tripling of EYPP to £1000 a year

- ⁠Create new lifelong skills grant giving all adults 5K to spend on education and training, aim to increase to 10K in the future

Families, Children and Young People:

- Extend free school meals to all children in poverty, with an ambition to extend them to all primary school children when the public finances allow

- Appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People

- Give parents genuine flexibility and choice in the crucial early months by doubling Statutory Maternity and Shared Parental Pay to £350 a week and introducing an extra use-it-or-lose-it month for fathers and partners, paid at 90% of earnings

- Make all parental pay and leave day-one rights, and extend them to self-employed parents

- Expand opportunities for young people to study, teach and volunteer abroad by returning to the Erasmus Plus programme as an associated country

Teaching Recruitment Crisis:

- always taught by a subject specialist

- ⁠reform School teachers review body to make it properly independent of govt

- ⁠funding teacher training properly

- ⁠introduce a clear and high quality plan of professional development for teachers

- ⁠standing commission cross party to broaden curriculum

- ⁠improve vocational education quality

- ⁠strengthen careers advice

- ⁠expand provision of extra curricular, new free entitlement for disadvantaged children

Pensions and Safety Net:

- Tackle child poverty by removing the two-child limit and the benefit cap

- Set a target of ending deep poverty within a decade, and establish an independent commission to recommend further annual increases in Universal Credit to ensure that support covers life’s essentials, such as food and bills

- Support pensioners by protecting the triple lock so that pensions always rise in line with inflation, wages or 2.5% – whichever is highest

- Ensure that women born in the 1950s are finally treated fairly and properly compensated

- Scrapping the bedroom tax

- Ending the young parent "penalty" for under-25s by restoring the full rate of Universal Credit for all parents regardless of age

Crime and Policing:

- Restoring proper community policing, where officers are visible, trusted and focused on preventing and solving crimes – especially rape and other violent crime

- Creating a new statutory guarantee that all burglaries will be attended by the police and properly investigated

- Investing in the criminal justice system to tackle the backlog of court cases and ensure swift justice

- Breaking the cycle of reoffending by improving rehabilitation in prisons and on release, and strengthening the supervision of offenders in the community.

- Ensuring survivors of violence against women and girls are properly supported in the criminal justice process, including through mandatory training for police and prosecutors in understanding the impact of trauma on survivors

Natural Environment:

- End the sewage scandal by transforming water companies into public benefit companies, banning bonuses for water bosses until discharges and leaks end, and replacing Ofwat with a tough new regulator with new powers to prevent sewage dumps

- Set meaningful and binding targets to stop the decline of our natural environment and ‘double nature’ by 2050: doubling the size of the Protected Area Network, doubling the area of most important wildlife habitats, doubling the abundance of species and doubling woodland cover by 2050

- Plant at least 60 million trees a year, helping to restore woodland habitats, increase the use of sustainable wood in construction, and reach net zero

- Pass a Clean Air Act, based on World Health Organization guidelines, enforced by a new Air Quality Agency

- Strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection and provide more funding to the Environment Agency and Natural England to help protect our environment and enforce environmental laws

Food and Farming

- Introduce a holistic and comprehensive National Food Strategy to ensure food security, tackle rising food prices, end food poverty and improve health and nutrition

- Accelerate the rollout of the new Environmental Land Management schemes, properly funding it with an extra £1 billion a year to support profitable, sustainable and nature-friendly farming

- Maintain high health, environmental and animal welfare standards in food production and guarantee that all future trade deals will meet them too, ensuring that Britain’s farmers and food manufacturers are not put at an unfair disadvantage

- Give Britain’s farmers the ability to trade with our European neighbours with minimal need for checks by negotiating comprehensive veterinary and plant health agreements

- Support farmers properly in restoring woodland, peatland and waterways, creating new natural flood protections and managing land to encourage species recovery and carbon storage, while producing food for the table

Housing:

- Increasing building of new homes to 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns

- Delivering a fair deal for renters by immediately banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default, and creating a national register of licensed landlords

- Giving local authorities, including National Park Authorities, the powers to end Right to Buy in their areas

- Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament and immediately scrapping the archaic Vagrancy Act

- Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents to a nominal fee, so that everyone has control over their property

Communities and Local Government

- Tackle the funding crisis facing local authorities, including by providing multi-year settlements, boosting the supply of social housing, and forging a long-term, cross-party agreement on social care

- Give communities more control over the number of second homes and short-term lets in their areas. • Ensure local authorities have the powers and resources they need to tackle the climate and nature emergencies

- Ensure that gigabit broadband is available to every home and business, including in rural and remote communities, and support local bespoke solutions so that no property is left out

- End the top-down reorganisation of councils and the imposition of elected mayors on communities who do not want them

- Work with communities to tackle the alarming rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia

Transport:

- Make it cheaper and easier for drivers to switch to electric vehicles by rapidly rolling out far more charging points, reintroducing the plug-in car grant, and restoring the requirement that every new car and small van sold from 2030 is zero-emission

- Freeze rail fares and simplify ticketing on public transport to ensure regular users are paying fair and affordable prices

- Significantly extend the electrification of Britain’s rail network, improve stations, greatly improve disabled access, reopen smaller stations and deliver Northern Powerhouse rail

- Boost bus services by giving local authorities more powers to franchise services and simplifying funding, so that bus routes can be restored or new routes added where there is local need, especially in rural areas

- Transform how people travel by creating new cycling and walking networks with a new nationwide active travel strategy

- Give more of the roads budget to local councils to maintain existing roads, pavements and cycleways, including repairing potholes

- Invest in research and development to make the UK the world leader in zero-carbon flight, and take steps to reduce demand for flying

Culture, Media and Sport:

- Protect the BBC, S4C, BBC Alba and Channel 4 as independent, publicly owned, public service broadcasters

- Promote creative skills, address the barriers to finance faced by small businesses, and support modern and flexible patent, copyright and licensing rules

- Negotiate free and simple short-term travel arrangements for UK artists to perform in the EU, and European artists to perform in the UK

- Boost participation in sports and physical activity by investing in leisure centres, swimming pools and other grassroots facilities and supporting community sports clubs

Immigration and Asylum:

- End the Conservatives’ "Hostile Environment" and invest instead in officers, training and technology to tackle smuggling, trafficking and modern slavery

- Transfer policy-making over work visas and overseas students out of the Home Office and into other departments

- Scrap the Conservatives’ Illegal Migration Act and their Rwanda scheme, uphold the Refugee Convention, and provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees, helping to prevent dangerous Channel crossings

- Tackle the asylum backlog by establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision-making, introducing a service standard of three months for all but the most complex asylum claims to be processed, and speeding up returns of those without a right to stay

- Lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months, enabling them to support themselves, integrate in their communities and contribute to the economy

- Work closely with Europol and the French authorities to stop the smuggling and trafficking gangs behind dangerous Channel crossings.

Rights and Equality:

- Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it

- Develop and implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy to address deep inequalities, including in education, health, criminal justice and the economy

- Make misogyny a hate crime and give police and prosecutors the resources and training they need to prevent and prosecute all hate crimes while supporting survivors

- Give everyone a new right to flexible working and every disabled person the right to work from home if they want to, unless there are significant business reasons why it is not possible

- Respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including trans and non-binary people

- Ban all forms of conversion therapies and practices

- Scrap the Conservatives’ draconian anti-protest laws, restoring preexisting protections for both peaceful assembly and public safety, and immediately halt the use of live facial recognition surveillance by the police and private companies

Political Reform:

- Ensure no politician can take you for granted, by introducing proportional representation by the Single Transferable Vote for electing MPs, and local councillors in England

- Strengthen democratic rights and participation by scrapping the Conservatives’ voter ID scheme and giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote

- Hold Government Ministers to account for "corruption and sleaze" by enshrining the Ministerial Code in legislation

- Reform the House of Lords with a proper democratic mandate

- Transfer greater powers away from Westminster and Whitehall, introduce a written constitution for a federal United Kingdom with strong voices for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and oppose a second Scottish independence referendum and independence

- Take big money out of politics by capping donations to political parties

Defence:

- Reversing the Conservative Government’s cut to the Army, with a longerterm ambition of increasing regular troop numbers back to over 100,000

- Maintaining the UK’s support for NATO, and accordingly increasing defence spending in every year of the Parliament, with an ambition to spend at least 2.5% of GDP on defence

- Securing a fair deal for service personnel and veterans

- Maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent with four submarines providing continuous at-sea deterrence, while pursuing multilateral global disarmament

- Controlling arms exports to countries with poor human rights records

International:

- Work to counter the global rise in authoritarianism by championing the liberal, rules-based international order and supporting international institutions such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth, NATO and the International Criminal Court

- Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement which removes as many barriers to trade as possible

- Stand with the people of Ukraine and provide them with the support that they need in the face of Putin’s illegal invasion. • Restore the UK’s reputation as an international development superpower, by returning spending to 0.7% of national income and re-establishing an independent international development department

- Advocate for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict to resolve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, get the hostages out, and provide the space to reach a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians

[Teddie Levenfiche @tedlevenfiche]

50km down with @hardestgeezer.

Heat was like nothing I’ve ever felt.
Saw more goats than people.
Felt amazing to completed my longest run yet.

Make no mistake… This man Russ Cook is an animal.

[Russell Howles @RussellHowles]

@hardestgeezer You got this!

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@hardestgeezer This kind of interaction is what makes 𝕏 special