Stephen Sweet

🇬🇧📷 I am a Man of Kent, not a Kentish Man. (There is a difference.) Now living in the Midlands. #photographer #progressiverock #nms #elitedangerous

[Andrew Craig @andyroocraig]

HOW BRITAIN QUIETLY WRECKED ITS OWN ECONOMY
Thirty years ago, more than half of the money in British pension funds was invested in British companies. Today, it's more like four percent.

That collapse - and the policies that caused it - has cost this country many trillions of pounds.
Possibly even as much as £20 trillion.

In my latest video I cover the first three of six policy decisions that caused this slow motion car crash:

❇️ ONE: Gordon Brown's first Budget.
In July 1997, Brown abolished the dividend tax credit for pension funds. It raised around £5 billion a year for the Treasury - but was effectively a permanent tax on our pension funds owning British shares.
❇️ TWO: Rules that pushed our pension funds out of shares.
New accounting rules in the early 2000s put pension deficits on company balance sheets at market values every year. The Pensions Act of 2004 then effectively rewarded schemes for "de-risking" out of equities.

This ignores two centuries of evidence that the way you actually de-risk stock market investment is to hold shares for a long time.
So our pension funds sold British shares and bought gilts - eventually via something called LDI, which often involved borrowing to buy yet more gilts. We all remember how that ended in September 2022.

Ironically, those "safe" gilts have turned out to be anything but. Some long-dated gilts have lost more than half their value since 2020.

The result: according to the ONS, pension funds and insurers owned more than 45% of the UK stock market in 1997. By 2022, it was just over 4%.

❇️ THREE: A pension system that ignores Britain.
Auto-enrolment has brought millions into workplace pensions, which is a good thing. But an obsession with keeping costs down means so much of that money goes into the cheapest global passive trackers - where the UK makes up only around 3-4%. Less than Apple.

So every month, millions of British workers' pension contributions flow overwhelmingly into a handful of American mega-caps - and do very little to support the British economy we live and work in.

Pension funds around the world keep around 10% of their money in domestic shares on average. The US and Australia have around five to six times more in their own shares than we do - and much higher GDP per capita and bigger pension pots to show for it.
For a quarter of a century, the biggest pool of savings in the country has been a relentless SELLER of British companies. This is our money!

In my next video, I cover the other three decisions and highlight so many of the world-beating British companies we've lost along the way.

Full video in the comments below. Please do share with anyone you think might care - particularly anyone with a pension.

Very best,

Andy.

https://t.co/PDgZYPnZDX

[Yorkie 'B' 🏴‍☠️ RN VD and Scar..🇬🇧 @RenownVet21]

Fuck your reparations, you cnuts owe us! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[J Stewart @triffic_stuff_]

Andrew Neil just delivered a BRUTAL reality check to Andy Burnham after that highly praised conference speech.

The praise has been wildly over the top. Some commentators parked their critical thinking because it suited their biases. Thankfully, as usual, Andrew Neil is not one of them.

On the latest @TheNeilReport, he pointed out what Burnham left out of all those lavish plans. The glaring omission: tax rises are coming.

As Neil put it: “It’s quite the socialist manifesto.”

Higher taxes are inevitable.

“In place of markets, privatisation, competition, Mr Burnham wants more state ownership, more state control, much bigger government and higher taxes. Of course he didn’t say higher taxes. Well, he wouldn’t, would he? But if you’re going to have bigger government and more state control and ownership, then there will have to be higher taxes. One follows the other.”

Prepare yourselves. He’s coming for your money to fund his socialist utopia.

Neil also noted that all the big-ticket items were for later. Next parliament. Next manifesto. Almost nothing for the here and now.

Nothing serious on defence or foreign policy. “He glossed over. Barely gave it the time of day.”

Nothing on the imminent “tough” winter or the fuel crisis.

Rising inflation. Rising interest rates. Rising youth unemployment. Rising costs of government borrowing. Nothing.

He finished with this warning: “Mr Burnham deserves his day in the sun. He should enjoy it, because it’s all about to get much darker, much more difficult. Reality is about to strike this winter. His 10-year plan is likely to be unravelling before spring has sprung.”

Puts a slightly different spin on things, doesn’t it 😂

[Jen k 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Jenny_1884]

So scrapping the triple lock would save £600M by 29/30

Didn’t this government just give Angola over £600M for their airport?

So this government puts Angola before their own pensioners.

The kind caring Labour Party. NOT.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@davepl1968 @nivedtwt I think it's great. It needs to run as a screen saver. 😁

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@audio I can understand (but don't agree with) the policy of importing working age migrants to increase GDP etc. , but this will only work if the people who arrive are productive in society. I.e the "doctors, engineers and scientists" we hear about. The small boat peole are not that.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@cosmograf @ItsJamesHall Thanks, I'll look into that. I was wondering if https://t.co/FTA6xdgC5w were worth a look too.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@cosmograf @ItsJamesHall I've always felt a bit unsure about buying a secondhand phone (battery life etc.) Do you have any recommendations?

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@cosmograf @ItsJamesHall I agree entirely. I got a Pixel 4 when the Pixel 6 came out and got a Pixel 6 when the Pixel 8 came out, which I am using today and it still does everything I need. So what next? A Pixel 10 perhaps.... Who knows?

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Not to be seen on the BBC, as it's contrary to their hidden agenda

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@andrewc44104127 The Thumb Heads.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@benonwine Saviours.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@Neccccy A history lesson.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@Grace_4America Yes, the consumption of bacon should be compulsory. It's part of British culture and, in a multicultural society, everyone should enjoy it to increase diversity.

[The British Patriot @TheBritLad]

🚨BREAKING: new figures show that 528 arrests were made at 'Unite the Kingdom' march in London (May 2026)

- 268 for drugs
- 85 for weapons
- 74 for violent crime
- 59 for police assaults
- 33 for sexual offences
- 9 for robbery

The Met also seized 11 firearms and 40 knives.

**JUST KIDDING***

this was Notting Hill Carnival last year.

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@BasilTheGreat Partaaay!

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Multiculturalism could work, but not if one of the cultures plans to dominate all the others

And if it is also actively hostile to the parent culture

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

I'd like to suggest that promoting child marriage, stoning, halal animal torture, wife beating, sharia courts, and other behaviour contrary to British values, should now be referred to as Anglophobia

[Reform UK Cornwall @ReformCornwall]

Truro Knife Attack: Free Speech Shut Down in Plain Sight

The Facts:
• A multi-person knife attack hits Truro, Cornwall in broad daylight
• Police immediately warn the public: stop talking online
• Local news shuts the comments
• Discussion banned. Questions treated as a threat.

Free speech is not under attack, it is being strangled in plain sight.

A 'large bladed weapon' was swung in the middle of Truro yesterday. The police told the public to stop sharing “speculative” information online because it might prejudice the investigation. At the same time Cornwall Live simply switched the comments off.

This is how free speech dies in Britain.

Not with a dramatic ban or a midnight raid, but with calm, reasonable-sounding instructions: don’t discuss it, don’t speculate, don’t let ordinary people talk about violence on their own high street.

Every restriction is sold as temporary, necessary, protective. Twenty years of these “necessary” steps have left us here: a serious public-order incident and the first institutional response is to close the conversation.

Repeated use of that power, combined with media comment lockdowns, steadily trains the public that certain topics (especially those involving different cultures and public safety) are too dangerous to discuss openly.

If the authorities refuse to be transparent, they leave us no choice but to speculate amongst ourselves.

The public’s right to talk about what is happening in their own town must not be treated as the greater danger. When the official reaction to a 'large bladed weapon' attack is to silence the streets rather than confront the problem, free speech is no longer fading in the background. It is being extinguished in plain sight. We should be very, very worried.

We will not be silenced, please SHARE.

#FreeSpeech #PoliceState #Truro #Cornwall #Democracy #ReformUK

[Stephen Sweet @StephenASweet]

@Mike_Batt I've noticed that many US towns and cities sound so romantic in songs, but sadly very few British ones. (I Left My Heart In Bognor Regis)