Coastal wanderer

See name

[#Anonymous @TheStripesGirl]

Who else can't wait?

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@EricIdle You're a woolly back then!

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@usludurkizim 30

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@ChristiansSTDT Locke(d) in syndrome

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@ChristiansSTDT You find fossils on top of the Alps. Why? Because the rocks that form them were once under the sea. Give me strength.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@nw_nicholas Our USA "firends" have not treated us well, so I'm not minded to move mid Atlantic thank you very much. Now they're encouraging the Argentinians to take back the Falklands. And they offered us a shitty trade deal. With friends like that...

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@JohnFielder1 Whilst north sea oil kept up the pretence of a successful nation.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@Edwina_Currie What have we now after 14 years of Tory austerity

Billions going to water company's shareholders
Sewage in our rivers
Unaffordable energy
Sky high rents and house prices
Train operators underperforming
Massive red tape dealing with Europe
A sense of despair
We will remember

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@Lord_Sugar Most of all it was only asvisory. Boris made sure we got the hardest possible Brexit, for which he was handsomely rewarded.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@SheriBentsen Trump's shitty pool

[Liz Webster @LizWebsterSBF]

👏 Finally, we have a PM telling the truth about why Britain is stuck in a trap, a trap that had been closing around us for decades, but which finally snapped shut with Brexit.

The extraction of public wealth has hollowed out our essential services. It was enabled by an over centralised, winner takes all political system that hands enormous power to governments elected by a minority and allows wealthy donors and vested interests far too much influence over policy.

In 1960s, the Beeching cuts dismantled thousands of miles of railway. They were implemented under transport minister Ernest Marples, who had longstanding links to the roadbuilder Marples Ridgway. Britain promoted motorways and cars by destroying much of the alternative. Other European countries expanded roads while retaining far stronger rail networks.

In 1964, Tesco founder Jack Cohen successfully lobbied for the abolition of Resale Price Maintenance. It helped supermarkets consolidate power at the expense of independent retailers, farmers and smaller suppliers. Much of Europe imposed stronger restraints on monopoly and protected domestic production.

Thatcher’s assault on industry was the most brutal stage. Rapid deindustrialisation devastated communities, while Britain’s North Sea oil and gas windfall helped the government absorb the resulting unemployment instead of building national wealth for the future, as Norway 🇳🇴 did.

Then came the great privatisation: water, energy, transport and other strategic infrastructure treated as assets to be sold and exploited rather than services essential to national resilience.

We can now see where that politics ends: sewage in our rivers, vulnerable water supplies, failing infrastructure, regional inequality and private extraction underwritten by the public.

Brexit was the culmination. It removed Britain from the European structures that had constrained some of this behaviour, weakened our economy and left an already centralised state even more exposed to vested interests.

So @andyburnham is right to connect our European future with electoral reform.

To begin releasing Britain from the trap, we must repair our relationship with Europe and replace FPTP.

Those are not separate reforms. They are the two keys needed to unlock the country. 👏

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@SamCKx Not if the rw press can help it.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@TheAnfieldWrap Ban them. Dissolve the club.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@AdamJSchwarz The mail and express are the worst of this country. Sadly, for many people, this is their only source of information.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@williamnhutton Burnham gets it. He wants Britain to be run for the benefit of decent Britons rather than asset management companies, who have bled us dry. Much needs changing and it will be interesting to see how far he can go.

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@jcorrigangolf Rather that than getting dementia or Alzheimer's.

[JimmyTheGiant @jimthegiant]

Danny Tommo, the man who organised yesterdays blackshirts rally, openly telling us a foreign American think tank wired him £30k for his very first street protest.

Foreign money is propping up the British far right

[TV Football 1968-92 @1968Tv]

If your team has had a bad result today, we feel your pain!
#RippingYarns

[Coastal wanderer @SimonAldred5]

@funkybananaskin Are they wearing burkhas?

[David Aaronovitch @DAaronovitch]

A mistake is when accidentally drive the wrong way down a one way street. Not when you conspire knowingly to break electoral law. That's called something else, Tim. Not for the first time I note how morally elastic some of you public proselytisers are.