Paul Scully

Former MP & Minister for London, Small Business & Technology. Back to the real world of work

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Ajaskhan1234 Please do keep on writing and pushing Ajas. Some of us are listening!

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

https://t.co/lUn3d2BnJV Nine years ago I was in a refugee camp witnessing the horror of genocide against a Muslim population. In the UK some wrung theirhands and people 'cancelled' Aung San Suu Kyi (still in prison), but Israel & Jews weren't involved so people quickly moved on.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

Her new boss believes in a rebranded Carlsberg, white Bichon-Poos and the Cherry Tree pub vision of Britain, so we're just arguing about brands and breeds really.

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

SHOCKING: Labour Minister thinks beer, black labs and pubs are a 'very far-Right nostalgic vision of Britain’ that ‘we don’t want to have’

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

A government minister stockpiling concealer? The jokes write themselves.

[Jason Groves @JasonGroves1]

Angela Rayner tells @TimesRadio what she’d stockpile for national emergencies: ‘Mascara, concealer, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, some baked beans and a tin of custard - I like custard’

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

The country needs more people with a direct, tangible stake in who's in charge and what they're up to, not fewer. All sounds lovely but it'll just lead to a bigger disconnect .

[BBC Politics @BBCPolitics]

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey announces his party's plan to raise tax-free personal allowance to £15,000, "taking two million more people out of paying tax altogether, and giving most taxpayers a £680 tax cut"

Follow live: https://t.co/PZCZ8aPs5f

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

Labour go straight for the "How will you pay for it" line. You don't. We're losing money since those shoppers aren't coming here in the first place so no VAT is being paid anyway. If we're serious about growing the economy, not the government, this is the sort of policy we need

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

A good move for London. A bit of clarity of thought coming out of opposition unlike the time I got a bollocking from the Chief Whip for calling for this on LBC whilst Minister for London. https://t.co/NLVO8cXhCr

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

On @TimesRadio we discussed the banning of photos at the Bayeux Tapestry because of delays. Here's my banned photo taken in Israel a few years ago if you were listening earlier.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

Not the first time Labour have done this (although democracy survived that). Gordon Brown added a second spending limit (the long campaign) specifically to limit donations from @LordAshcroft . Noone knew what the limit was until the election has been called. Daft legislation

[Zia Yusuf @ZiaYusufUK]

The House of Lords will now debate whether democracy as we know it survives in Britain.

Burnham is crossing the rubicon with this proposed retroactive legislation to seize Reform's donations that were perfectly lawful when received.

Changing the law, after the fact, to try and bankrupt his main political opponent will be a fatal blow to the rule of law as we know it.

A fatal blow to the legitimacy of Parliament.

There will be no coming back.

All future governments will have no choice but to operate under this new paradigm.

These are the stakes.

Whatever your politics, speak up now or see the entire system we grew up in evaporate before our eyes.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore Nailing jelly to the wall and Woody are two slightly oblique references. Not sure the relevance to our discussion

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

Question is would a man convicted in the US and pardoned by Trump or a Thai based businessman be acceptable to the Independent Honours Commission if offered an honour, so best get ahead of the curve? But I'm sure they're doing it for the warm glow.

[Reform UK @reformparty_uk]

Our donors want nothing and will never be given a peerage, knighthood or a government contract.

It appears, @KemiBadenoch, your donors want and get more.

Here’s just a few key stats:

Mohammed Mansour: Donated £5m
Received: Knighthood

Michael Hintze: Donated £4.5m
Received: Life peerage

Dominic Johnson: Donated 338,391
Received: Life peerage

Peter Cruddas: Donated £3m+
Received: Life peerage

Michael Spencer: Donated £6m
Received: Life peerage

David Meller: Donated £60,000
Received: Contracts worth £164m across several awards after referral via Gove's office.

Surescreen Diagnostics: Donated £20,000
Received: £503m contract for lateral flow test

David Brownlow: Donated £3m+
Received: Life peerage

Rami Ranger: Donated £1.5m
Received: Life peerage

Stuart Marks: Donated £200,000
Received: CBE for ‘political and public service’

Lubov Chernukhin: Donated £2.3m
Received: Tennis game with Boris Johnson, access to ministers

Andrew Fraser: Donated £2.5m
Received: Life peerage

James Lupton: Donated £3m
Received: Life peerage

Michael Farmer: Donated £7m
Received: Life peerage

Howard Leigh: Donated £200,000
Received: Life peerage

John Nash: Donated £300,000
Received: Life peerage

George Magan: Donated £1.5m
Received: Life peerage

Stanley Fink: Donated £3.5m
Received: Life peerage

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore All 5 major parties are scrambling around trying to find a purpose that is 1. One that resonates and 2. Deliverable. They're all struggling to tick both of those boxes. Major donors are as much part of the bubble as the politicians themselves

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore I didn't say he 'bought' anything. I implied that every large donor has a greater interest than mere political philanthropy. Reform's only fully drafted policy to date to my knowledge is on crypto but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore But actually my original tweet was in response to the reform message that they wouldn't give them peerages and my point that they probably won't get one if offered.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore You're asking me to take a convicted criminal's intentions at face value and think it's because of party loyalty? The donations aren't illegal but the response from Reform is petty and counter productive

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore The tribal approach that I originally responded to and you're persisting with just perpetuates a blinkered approach to government.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore Mine is an opinion motivated by nothing since I don't have a dog in the fight apart from who governs the country and how.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

Interesting approach. Superficially attractive but it'll result in nearly one third of adults in the UK having no stake/interest in direct taxation which makes up around 2/3 of all tax. That's a likely slow burn of further disengagement of people from the government.

[Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick]

Did Kemi tell you to write that?

The Tories promised to abolish inheritance tax before, but levied 84 billion pounds from grieving families.

They’re set to promise it again in a desperate attempt to stop an early election in which they’d be wiped out in most of the country.

Nobody other than you trusts a word they say anymore.

Reform knows that inheritance tax is a terrible tax and we want to get rid of it.

We’ve already promised to abolish the awful family farms tax in full.

But in government you have to prioritise and my first priority is to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 in my first budget.

That’s a tax cut for 40 million people, not just the wealthiest 5%.

It would make work pay again and stop the state pension being taxed.

As and when we make more savings - and we’ve already identified more than any other party - we will work to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £20,000.

Why? Because we are the party for working people and people who’ve worked hard their entire life.

And unlike your masters in the Tory party, if I don’t deliver this in my first budget, I will resign.

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@lewis_goodall @ThornStinger 1. The money in the estate has already been taxed 2. IHT doesn't do much for the significant widening of inequality as the sizable examples of this are handled through family trusts etc. IHT captures mid sized estates

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore But you don't because that doesn't relate to the rest of this thread

[Paul Scully @scullyp]

@Rangersnomore I know. Too few politicians have certainty based on evidence, instead blowing in the social media wind. Too many politicians believe their own hype, without any critical thinking. It'll never catch on.