RAYMOND GRANT

[Georgina #ScrapHolyrood 🇬🇧🇮🇱💜🤍💚 @ukgeorgina2]

Petition: Hold a referendum on abolishing the Scottish Parliament & Government

We call on the UK Government to legislate on holding a referendum in Scotland to decide whether the Scottish Parliament & Government should be abolished.

https://t.co/s7XQYaFwhv

[Mercurius @Mercurius_Scot]

No one in @theSNP knew anything. Welcome to @theSNP Cosa Scotia.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@Maureen6Johnson it could be that the increase of donations are a result of them being misappropriated as they were in the past by persons known to all those involved in the cover up.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@CraigWHoy1 Nicolas responsibilities as leader of the SNP and authorised signatory to the parties accounts are that as soon as she knew their was a potential problem with the accounts she should have taken that responsibility seriously and allowed checks and balances to be carried out.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@EvelynMalcolm9 @joannaccherry When did she become aware of the fact that the gifts especially the pendant/necklace was bought with stolen money. Also all the other things. She knew a long time ago and did nothing.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

Starmer told Cabinet not to discuss leadership at the meeting but to come speak to him privately.

He then ran away after Cabinet and no one could go to speak to him.

Wes Streeting spent numerous minutes trying to talk to Starmer but was turned away, according to POLITICO.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@joannaccherry which one is Lorna Slater they are probobly equally talented

[Becky Argyle @ArgyleBecky]

This deserves an Academy Award…..it perfectly describes the SNP. Swinney and the SNP have been taking this country to the cleaners for almost twenty years. Enough is enough…..don’t vote for them, we surely deserve better.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

The Man Nobody Is Talking About. His Name Is Sir Philip Barton.

Buried inside Tuesday's committee testimony, beneath the headlines about constant pressure, bullying and secret job searches, is the detail that may prove the most consequential of this entire affair. It concerns not Olly Robbins, not Morgan McSweeney, not even Keir Starmer. It concerns the man who was there before all of them. The man who said no. The man who then left his post eight months early.

Sir Philip Barton was the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office when Peter Mandelson's appointment was announced in December 2024. He was, in other words, the most senior civil servant in the building at the precise moment the machinery of state was being directed to place a man with documented links to Russia and China into the most sensitive diplomatic posting in the Western alliance.

What Robbins told the committee on Tuesday is this. Barton pushed back. When the Cabinet Office argued that vetting Mandelson was unnecessary, that a peer and Privy Councillor did not require developed vetting, Barton refused to accept it. He insisted that vetting was a requirement. He had to be, in Robbins's own words, very firm in person. He also voiced reservations about the appointment to Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, reservations that were noted and not acted upon. He was worried, Robbins suggested, about exactly the same reputational risks that had been detailed to the Prime Minister before the appointment was announced.

Then Sir Philip Barton left his post. Eight months before his tenure would otherwise have concluded.

The question Richard Foord put to Robbins on Tuesday was the right one. Why did Barton's tenure end early? Robbins said he did not know. He suggested ministers may have felt it was time for a change. That answer is not an answer. It is the absence of one.

Consider what the timeline now shows. A senior civil servant pushes back against the appointment, insists on vetting when the Cabinet Office wants to bypass it, raises reservations with the National Security Adviser, and departs eight months ahead of schedule. His replacement arrives to find the appointment already treated as a fait accompli, the vetting process under constant pressure from Downing Street, and the question of outcome entirely subordinate to the question of speed.

If Barton was removed because he stood in the way of this appointment, then Robbins was not the first civil servant sacrificed to protect it. He was the second. And the question of who else was moved aside, overruled or silenced in the months between December 2024 and the moment the security services finally said no, becomes the most important question this affair has yet produced.

Starmer sacked Robbins for following the rules. The Foreign Affairs Committee will now call Barton to give evidence. What he says will either confirm what the timeline already suggests or provide an alternative explanation that the evidence does not currently support.

There is a pattern here that goes beyond process failure. Process failures are random. They point in different directions. What this affair has produced is a series of events that point consistently in one direction. Officials who comply are retained. Officials who push back depart. The security services are bypassed. The vetting is treated as an administrative inconvenience. And the one question nobody at the top of this government will answer is why this appointment, this man, this post, mattered so much that every obstacle was removed to make it happen.

Barton apparently asked that question. He left eight months early. The country deserves to know why.

[Liza Rosen @LizaRosen0000]

https://t.co/BO513Wlrgp
Absolute panic erupted among Palestinian UN staffers during this brutal takedown by British Colonel Richard Kemp.

He refused to play along with the disgusting false narrative that paints Israel as the evil “Islamophobic aggressor” and Palestinian-Muslim terrorists as poor “victims” of oppression.
This was a rare historic moment at the UN: one honest British colonel stood up and silenced the entire room of hypocrites who cheer Hamas’s baby-killing, rape, and murder of Jews — then scream “genocide” the second Israel defends its people.

The sheer absurdity of UN bureaucrats losing their minds when someone dares to tell the truth about Islamic terror is peak clown world. Colonel Kemp spoke facts they can’t handle.

Share this widely. The world needs more voices like his.

[Agent P @AgentP22]

Can't find it anywhere.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@reisshaldane @ScottishFA @spfl @PoliceScotland that rule does not apply for the KDM TROPHY TIES.

[Steven Ertelt @StevenErtelt]

Do you agree?

[𝒯𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁𝓎 🇬🇧🚜 💚🤍💜 @tractorgirly]

Just posting this into the void ⬇️

NIPPY KNEW!

[Agent P @AgentP22]

John Swinney's year so far (updated).

👇

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

How embedded was Lord Mandelson in Labour?

This from @MaxKendix and the brilliant graphics team at The Times shows the full extent of it

His 40 years in Labour Party politics meant he had an unrivalled contacts book - Starmer, the Cabinet, government aides, Labour MPs, the New Labour firmament

There's a fully interactive version of it here:

https://t.co/ixV2t7zrw9

[Janine 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧🇮🇱 @macjay72]

@joerichlaw The Times have produced an excellent graphic showing the spieder’s webb of Mandleson in the Labour Party.

[Jody McIntyre @jodymcintyre_]

I’ve been contacted by THREE Labour Party whistleblowers, inc. a former frontbencher, + been passed a sensitive Excel spreadsheet by a senior politician in Scotland.

The evidence is clear: Mandelson + McSweeney built a covert network of Labour MPs.

Here’s what they’re hiding:🧵

[David Forrester @dj_forrester]

@LucyHunterB The government is the pursuer! It’s the government’s case! A party can comment on its own case. Which is a civil case and before a professional judge, no jury. “Law and order” has nothing to do with it. This is utterly crazy. I realise you know this but it bears repetition.

[RAYMOND GRANT @VWEOSRAY]

@Annemarieward Am i correct or otherwise not reading this properly? Were the original documents written by Mr Hamilton who was then instructed to redact them so as to portray the decision to exonerate Sturgeon ?