Agnes Nuttall

Mother, wife, daughter, morality, fairness, co-operation, kindness, love, peace, union rights and AFC

[ITV Football @itvfootball]

🗣️ "He meant the whole world to a lot of people, especially myself."

Ian Wright pays respect to his former strike partner, Kevin Campbell, after his tragic passing today 🙏

#Euro2024

[Millionaires for Humanity @Mills4Humanity]

Over 120 representatives from diverse movements and organizations in Latin America gathered to discuss tax justice strategies, marking a significant step towards fairer taxation.
🔗 Read more here: https://t.co/akN2N5UTuz
#TaxJustice #FairTaxation #LatinAmerica

[nick abbot @NIAbbot]

Nutshelled

[Jess Phillips @jessphillips]

Been same here, threats of intimidation and harrassment in this campaign mean that planned events are nearly impossible to go to. People forget that for instance in my case there have been 3 people imprisoned for harassing me including in the past threats to kill my children

[Darren Lewis @Darren_Lewis5]

Just because I work in the media it doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge the concern about Bukayo Saka being used as the face of England’s defeat and poor performance - despite other players performing worse - across a number of platforms last night.
If anything it is even more my job. Especially when he was a) a substitute and b) one of the players targeted after England failed at the last Euros. It is a reminder that we need to think about EVERYTHING put into the public domain. And I will continue to speak openly - in public and in private - about it.
The days of Black and Brown fans remaining silent on issues such as this are thankfully behind us.
If supporters (of all races) felt his, Rashford and Sancho's pain in 2021, we need to show we have learned from it this time around.

[Paula Hammond @writer_paula]

@clairebubblepop And anyone who thinks it won’t impact them because they can afford to go private need to talk to some Americans. Even with the best cover, GPS surgeries are closing, hospitals are understaffed, and lifesaving drugs are unavailable because profit rules all.

[Moejohno🐟💙💙💙🇮🇪🇪🇺TakebackBritain @moejohno]

@clairebubblepop Read it all Claire 😢 Privatisation chooses who it treats, Only Money Talks with the Private Sector.
The very thought of becoming ill is frightening. 74yrs left to wait 15hr after a stroke for treatment, sent home alone to wait your fate is terrifying. #StopNHSPrivatisation

[Claire 💙 @clairebubblepop]

Ok any politician who wants privatisation of our NHS must have shares in private healthcare companies.

So this is my friend’s Mum, I do have permission to share.

Ok so this lady is 74, she already has a lot of health issues but that shouldn’t matter, well at least it didn’t use too. So anyway she’s felt extremely ill one evening. Her face was drooping, speech was slurred. Anyway not sure how she got to hospital but once in A&E she had to wait 15hrs to be a seen. She has a scan and yes it was a mini stroke. Now we all know with a stroke you have to act fast. That didn’t happen obviously. Once she eventually had a scan and the results were given she was told to go home. Why you may ask, well coz she has pre existing conditions so she has “less” value. Now she’s back home and has been told she may experience an even bigger stroke. All she can do is wait.. imagine the fear of waiting?

Oh & obviously she couldn’t drive or go by bus so she needed an ambulance taxi. Well they scrapped them in favour of paying a private company for private taxis. That’s insane, the increase in cost for the NHS would be ridiculous.

So slowly, sneakily, the NHS is being privatised and the elderly, anyone with pre existing conditions, are now treated as lesser. All coz they don’t have capacity anymore. It’s the knock on effect of paying private companies instead of just paying a fair wage.

So again anyone who thinks privatisation is a good idea is only thinking how it will benefit them. #SaveOurNHS

[The London Economic @LondonEconomic]

What has the ECHR ever done for us? Quite a lot, actually.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

How do we make sure we destroy the Tories?

Get people to vote.

Get young people to vote.

Get your friends and family to vote.

For the sake of us all, Register to vote.

https://t.co/XNKXFpdapH

[sarah murphy @13sarahmurphy]

@AdamBienkov @mrjamesob Sunak is such a grubby, desperate little cheat. Everything he does and says in this election campaign will need to be fact-checked. He’s literally out of the starting blocks gaslighting his arse off.

[Chris Bryant @RhonddaBryant]

In the words of RuPaul, isn’t it time for this appalling government to Sashay Away!

[Chris Packham @ChrisGPackham]

Stand up for nature! Join a family-friendly protest march to the University of Kent, to urge them not to continue plans for a massive housing development in the Blean.
Bring your family and friends - there will be music, bubbles, stickers and songs, plus a speaker from Kent Wildlife Trust.
Start: 2pm in Dane John Gardens, Canterbury
End: 4pm at the Registry, Darwin Road, Uni of Kent

Make your voice heard - join the march!
#savetheblean #restorenaturenow 
@kentwildlifetrust @rspbkent @rspb_canterbury_ @woodlandtrust @uokbioblitz @unikentlive @@kentunion
@kuofficers @sac_swg @ukcconservation @savetheblean

[Agnes Nuttall @AgnesNuttall]

@EofELabour Guaranteed my vote James

[Agnes Nuttall @AgnesNuttall]

@labourlewis PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Chris this needs an urgent question in parliament tomorrow. The taxpayer is being robbed this SHOULD NOT BE LEGAL !!!!

[Hanif Kureishi @Hanifkureishi]

THE TRADING GAME,

A review by Carlo Kureishi and Hanif Kureishi

The first time I came across Gary Stevenson was on a politics podcast two years ago. This cockney-voiced, artful dodger-like, ex-city trader’s scalding analysis of the present economic situation was bracing.

Thirty-six-year-old Stevenson is a from a white, working-class background in Essex. A math prodigy, he became one of Citibank’s most profitable traders, betting against economic recovery after the financial crisis in 2008. What set Stevenson apart - and allowed him to become fabulously successful, earning the bank and himself millions of pounds - was his upbringing: he could see the material effect of what he and his colleagues were doing to the ordinary people he grew up with.

Raised in the shadow of Canary Wharf, looking up at those glass towers as they were being built, his entry into the trading world was unusual. Stevenson secured an internship after winning a trading-themed card game at the LSE - where he was a student - designed to recruit new traders from various universities.

When you join a bank at this level, there is no guidance, you are assigned no discernible job, you have to wing it; pull up a chair next to a more experienced trader and examine them, sparking up conversation, which they may, or may not, reciprocate. In the first few weeks, arriving at the offices at 6am, Stevenson used a filing cabinet as a desk, trying to work out where he fitted in, soliciting favour by fetching lunch for everyone on the trading floor.

The other characters that populate the office are an eccentric bunch of competitive posh boys, drunks, cokeheads and misfits with dead souls. What is striking about all these vividly drawn personalities is how little culture and self-consciousness they have, turning themselves into ciphers in order to earn vast amounts of money for the bank and themselves, which they will be unable to spend either productively or wisely.

Stevenson was taken out to interminable lavish lunches in dark city restaurants with vulgar older men. They would drink, and speak in acronyms, an entirely new language to the too-slowly maturing Stevenson. But he was a kid who learned quickly, with an impressive sharpness about him, while other parts were undeveloped; his inability to orientate himself in this world would eventually lead to collapse.

Stevenson acquires what is called his own ‘book’, a currency he oversees. His trading strategy involved counterintuitive bets, such as during the Greek government-debt crisis, where he predicted that the recovery would falter due to wealth inequality affecting consumer demand. Stevenson says that to be a successful trader, it isn’t enough to be right, you have to be right while everyone is else is wrong.

One of the seminal moments in the book is when the young Stevenson receives his first considerable bonus, £395k. It is unbelievable and inexplicable. He is embarrassed and ashamed for his father, who would work long hours and get up at the crack of dawn for a negligible wage as a train driver. Reluctantly, Stevenson tells his friends and girlfriend about the money, and feels an intense alienation; he has been plucked from his old life and plunged into a monitory whirlpool he can’t understand. Where does he belong? Who is he? Is this what he wanted?

These traders make money largely from exploiting discrepancies in the value of currencies. Hundreds of millions, billions in fact, are drawn to the bank not by companies providing services to the public - brick and mortar businesses creating value - but by financial institutions playing private games with one another; betting, hedging, shorting and longing in a repetitive and endless competition. Gary masters these games quickly, but can’t deal with the reality of the world he was so keen to enter.

What is striking and moving about him is that when he does finally earn money, he doesn’t know what to buy, he doesn’t know how to live, his family background hasn’t prepared him for the shopping opportunities his income now affords him. Who wouldn’t, with his money, be down Harrods with their mates?

He buys himself a sprawling river-facing apartment, blacks out the windows, and sleeps on a battered old sofa, the only piece of furniture he owns. He lacks taste and class and knows it; where does refinement come from? You can’t buy that.

After six years working in the London offices, Gary becomes disillusioned, emaciated, depressed and difficult to work with, sitting at his desk with his headphones on and hood up. He wanted to leave, but he had become fixated on receiving a deferred bonus of millions, which was dependant on him remaining at the bank for three more years.

To remove Stevenson from the firing line, Citibank relocate him to Tokyo. He is installed in a plush high-rise apartment overlooking the Imperial Palace, in Marunouchi. The Tokyo office, compared to the London office, is conservative and not bullish. He is watched over by an older Japanese trader, while having little work to do, passing the days at his desk learning Japanese. Naturally, he becomes even estranged and bewildered.

This is a gripping and beautiful part of the narrative, as he becomes more estranged and bewildered at work, he finds himself falling in love with the city, its food, views and people. Sometimes he cycles and runs all night, eating ramen and sashimi in far away, all-night restaurants.

Both Stevenson’s parents were Mormons, and this is a Christian tale of sin, abandonment and redemption. Greed and merciless ambition give way to a terrible emptiness, and then a defiance, against Citibank, and then later on, the global monetary system, which is devoted to creating and expanding existing inequality.

Since leaving Citibank, Stevenson has created a popular Youtube channel, where he has exposed the truth about the quantitative easing (money printing) introduced during the pandemic. Money was created by central banks across the world – in this country, around £17k of new money per person – and handed over mostly to the rich, pushing up house prices and allowing them to acquire even more assets, which they can pass on to their future generations.

When I first heard Stevenson’s voice and his story, I wondered when he would write his book, and when the film will be made of it: I imagined a young Gary Oldman or Tim Roth playing the part. And so, at last, Stevenson has written his book, and it sounds as if he did write it himself, since it is made of his idiosyncrasies, bluntness and caustic turns of phrase. The Trading Game is proof that with a good story (and an adept editor) almost anyone can write book.

This is a very British tale, lacking the glamour of Wall Street and the Wolf of Wallstreet. Stevenson is more like a character in a Mike Leigh film than Leonardo DiCaprio.

Stevenson has forgiven himself. He is rich but generous with his knowledge and his desire to expose what he has witnessed and profited from.

@TheTradingGame

[Agnes Nuttall @AgnesNuttall]

@garyseconomics Great mentions by @mrjamesob @LBC this morning again! I genuinely believe that 'The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson' is the most important book you will read this year.

[Peter Kay (🦋@theonlypeterkay.bsky.social) @theonlypeterkay]

Oh👀

[Agnes Nuttall @AgnesNuttall]

https://t.co/hQGxXBnUec