Silverlight001

#Reform Dad, gardener, skier, optimist, planner, small business owner and tax payer. Today is my favourite day. Buy British 🇬🇧

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@afneil Toyota Landcruiser 💯

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@KayBurley Brain fog Burley

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@Jenny_1884 Chopped fresh tomatoes in a brown sauce marinade with steak or gammon and chips

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@TerraOrBust Cut wasteful public spending, cut the civil service, reduce the quangos, run a professional procurement service in the NHS, merge all Police forces to gain IT efficiencies and reduce bloated management.

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@AncientBritonX @balmer_tim Absolutely. Testing, test more, test all the scenarios, build automated test scripts, maintain.
So many senior people don't understand that they are not running a retailer, a bank, an airline they are actually running complicated IT systems.

[michael harman @ColourBuddy369]

@Jonnywsbell One of the best educational videos you are likely to see concerning the trans cult.
Ever wondered why this cult is pushed still. It's not just because it's a $1 trillion business that makes money for many companies>directors, etc...

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@afneil Maybe they should cancel the British Army ski team annual jolly around the best ski resorts in Europe run every year for hundreds of posh officers.
See it every year. "After Serre Chevalier we're off to Val Disere.... very important for the defence of the realm" !

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@sophielouisecc @MelJStride No he was a slime ball
#ir35 and loan charge suicides on his watch.
He destroyed many small family businesses

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@ClarksonsFarm1 Porsche 911

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@DavidGHFrost Twitter doesn't allow you to express a lisp..so not an appropriate platform for Ms Nandy

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@RupertLowe10 It's stoopid splitting the vote
Grow up Rupert please

[D @_Unknown_D_]

IR35 destroyed the social mobility of a generation, there are many people who would have reached financial independence by now if not for IR35.

The worst part about IR35 is you take on all the risks of self employment whilst receiving none of the benefits of full time employment. It's extremely unfair and should be repealed.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

My monologue from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil @TimesRadio

ROYAL NAVY RIP

While US destroyers duke it out with Iranian navy fast boats over the Strait of Hormuz, we learned yesterday that the Royal Navy’s HMS Iron Duke, a Type 23 frigate, was being withdrawn from active service, despite a recent £100m five-year refit, which suggests that was largely a waste of money. 

More important, it underlines the stark reality that we no longer have a functioning navy. 

That’s right. The country of Rule Britannia, which once had the most powerful navy in the world, capable of protecting an empire which covered a quarter of the globe, no longer has a navy worthy of the name.  

For the factual basis of what I’m about to say, I am indebted to Britsky, who posts important naval data on X and has become the reliable go-to source for information on our disappearing Navy. 

HMS Iron Duke joins another ageing Type 23, HMS Richmond, in retirement. Leaving the Royal Navy with just five frigates to monitor Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic and other Russian activity in the Channel. 

Even that doesn’t reveal the full, desperate picture. Of the five frigates still supposedly available for service, one, HMS Kent, has been almost 750 days in refit and is not available for service. HMS Portland and HMS St Albans have also been laid up for some time. 

Only HMS Somerset is currently deployed and HMS Sutherland could be, pretty quickly. So the Royal Navy can call on the immediate services of only two of the five frigates we have, all dating from the 1990s. 

What about the more powerful Type 45 destroyers? Sad to relate the picture is even bleaker. There are only six. One, HMS Dragon, has been deployed to the East Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, though that took some time. 

Another, HMS Daring, has been in refit for 3,260 days and still not available for duty. HMS Defender has been out of action for over 1,000 days, HMS Diamond for just under 700 days. HMS Dauntless is in maintenance. Other than Dragon, out of our six destroyers, only HMS Duncan could be deployed quickly. 

What about our hugely expensive, powerful Astute class submarines? Better you don’t ask. We have only five — and only one, HMS Anson, is on active service somewhere in the Indian Ocean. 

The other four — Astute, Ambush, Artful and Audacious — have been laid up for a total of 4,000 days. That’s right 4,000 days. HMS Ambush alone has been inactive for 1,400 days. It’s currently laid up on the River Clyde. 

So the currently deployable, conventional Royal Navy, excluding the ancient, creaking subs carrying our nuclear deterrent, amounts to two frigates, two destroyers and one sub. That’s not a navy for a maritime nation. That’s a joke. 

Yes, we have two big aircraft carriers too. They also seem to spend a lot of time in maintenance, which is where they are at the moment. But both could currently be deployed pretty quickly, which is an improvement. But we don’t have the frigates or destroyers to form a carrier fleet. So they can only be used in concert with better equipped allies. 

We might be short of fighting ships. But we’re not short of admirals. We currently have around 30 rear admirals or above, which works out around four per deployable ship. That’s admirals. Not captains. 

None, of course, of this bloated top brass has been held accountable for the near disappearance of our naval power. Nor have any Tory politicians who for 14 years presided over our navy’s degradation. Nor is the current Labour government in any apparent hurry to put matters right.

Our airforce and army are in no great shapes either. But it is the state of our non-navy, an integral, vital part of our island history, which is the real national scandal. 

And, as is so often the case in modern Britain, nobody is held to account. Nobody forced to carry the can. Nobody making it their mission to put it right. And that is the real national disgrace.

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@KEdge23 The Tories are not going anywhere while skimeballs like @MelJStride (anti family business/ #IR35/ loan charge suicides) are in the Conservative party never mind senior positions

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@AmbJapanUK Marvelous

[Nigel Bennett @top1percentile]

@Peston A member of my family runs Whitehall's vetting process for all senior civil servants and senior military officers, each one carried out before an appointment is confirmed.
They say it is inconceivable that Starmer or Lammy did not know that Mandelson had failed his vetting.

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@Saint_Gav Gay men seem to have unhealthy interest in younger vulnerable boys.
🤢

[Barry Byrne @ByrneBarry]

I wish all opposition parties would walk out en masse just before PMQ's.
Nothing would illustrate more just how pathetic Starmer is and they couldn't be accused of dereliction of duty because he will not answer questions anyway.
The whole pantomime is a waste of time.

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@RosieDuffield1 @suzanne_moore The thing I've never understood is why so called "feminists" in the Labour party support Trans rights?

These "men" posing as women are the alpha misogynists and women haters...

[Silverlight001 @Silver_osc]

@DeborahMeaden @FindaddyJ Queen of Wrong
Again....