Retired Tax Partner at RSM Chester/Liverpool. Past President of LSCA (@ICAEWLiverpool). Play golf, parkrunner, cyclist, vegan diet, EV owner, #WxmAFC S/T
England water industry was privatized for £7.6bn in 1989. Since then
They have extracted £88.4bn in dividends.
Dumped tons of sewage in rivers.
Lost 1 trillion litres of water a year though leaks.
Built no new reservoirs
But now claim to be worth £144bn.
https://t.co/JypgEcmIWW
I’ve held back from commenting on the revelations about Nigel Farage’s past racism. Not because the story shocked me. For many in this country, it merely confirms what we’ve suspected for years. But some will be hearing these allegations for the first time, and it’s to you that I want to speak.
Most of us have said or done things when we were young that we look back on with regret. That’s part of growing up. We make mistakes, we cringe at our former selves, we learn, we change. Some of those early attitudes fall away. Others become the foundations of who we later become.
What’s now emerging about Nigel Farage isn’t a single stupid comment or one heated moment. Former classmates are describing a pattern of behaviour. Not just a bully. A racist bully of the ugliest kind.
That doesn’t automatically mean he holds every one of those views today. But look at his politics. Look at his rhetoric. Look at the company he keeps and the division he trades in. It paints a picture of a man whose worldview didn’t appear to grow out of those foundations, but grew from them.
So what does that mean now?
If you already oppose Farage, this only hardens your resolve. If you adore him, nothing I say will shift you. But there’s a group of people I do want to reach: those considering voting Reform.
I’m not going to patronise you. I understand why many are thinking about it. If you’ve watched your pay stall, your bills rise, your community decline, and your politicians shrug for years, you might well think: what have I got to lose? Why not give the system a kick? Why not try something different?
And you may feel the country has taken a wrong turn. That we’ve lost something precious and need to put it right.
Those instincts aren’t wicked. They aren’t racist. They come from frustration, disappointment, and a desire for dignity and control in your own life.
But here’s the truth that cannot be dodged. Most people in this country are good, decent, fair-minded. They don’t want to see hate imported into the heart of their politics. They don’t want their children growing up in a country defined by fear and division.
So ask yourself this, quietly and honestly: is Nigel Farage a changed man? Has he shown any sign that he regrets the person he was? Or has he built a career by sharpening those same instincts into a political weapon?
Because if he hasn’t changed, then every vote for Farage isn’t a protest. It’s permission. It hands real power to a man whose teenage cruelty seems less like a phase and more like a blueprint.
This country is far from perfect, but it is worth fighting for. And once a politics of hatred takes root at the top, a country doesn’t easily come back from it.
You know this in your gut. We all do.
Nigel Farage is not fit to lead this country. A vote for him, or for those who still cheer the views he held as a teenager, would stain the country we love with something we may never fully wash away.
And to the Reform diehards who will now pile into the comments with abuse: crack on. You’ll only prove the point.
‘Don’t poke the Russian bear’ @Nigel_Farage’s Moscow-appeasing speech in the European Parliament.
Share this wide.
This is the man that appeared multiple times on Russia Today (and was paid, and was offered a show).
This is the man that said the world leader he most admired was Putin.
This is the man who wants to tear up human rights legislation just like Putin.
This is the man who blamed the West for Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
And he was ‘shocked’ that his own Leader in Wales, Nathan Gill admitted 8 charges of treasonous Russian Bribes.
#ReformRussianBribes
The Reform UK party's former leader in Wales - Nathan Gill - has pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery relating to pro-Russia statements he made in the European Parliament, as well as newspaper opinion pieces.
More of this from 🇬🇧 politicians please. Why does it take an 🇺🇸 politician to do this? Though doubtless most of our media will focus with “Nigel Farage spoke out against the blah blah in DC today … and now we ask another talking head about the rise and rise of Reform …
NB The Farage who says he fears a “genuine threat to public order” is the same Farage who is doing all he can to whip up exactly that. He’s already wrecked our economy with Brexit - allowing him to do the same with the human rights which protect *all* of us would be unforgivable
🚨 New Page. Same Passion.
Excited to launch this space to help golfers of all levels improve their game ⛳️
I'll be sharing: ✅ Swing tips ✅ Drills that work ✅ Practice advice ✅ Coaching insights
Follow along & let's get to work! 💪 #GolfTips#GolfCoach#GolfTwitter
Sheep are destroying precious British habitats – and we taxpayers are footing the bill to the tune of millions in a climate and biodiversity emergency - it’s bad and bonkers ! @WildJustice_org https://t.co/V4THSsgvQ7
20mph What more evidence do you need? 40 per cent fewer people killed, and 75 per cent fewer children killed. Facts that can’t be ignored…. https://t.co/Kv8ie6sEkV
The Class of 2025!
An incredible day with glorious sunshine at University of Birmingham to celebrate our new PGA Members🏆
Read more below as we celebrate their success at the 2025 Graduation Ceremony.
👉🔗: https://t.co/N3V6lfNdtT
Our beautiful birds of prey are routinely and illegally slaughtered on driven grouse moors . If you are as sick of this criminal persecution as me then please sign this @WildJustice_org petition https://t.co/LojMKe4jZT Please RT
(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine��s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.
In June of 1941, Hitler's Army began a rampage through Ukraine, razing towns, unleashing death squads, and massacring Jews by the hundreds of thousands. In one village, four Jewish brothers enlisted in the military, said goodbye to their parents, and walked off to fight the Nazis.
By the war's end in 1945, only one of the brothers, named Semyon, was still alive. He returned to find that the Nazis had torched his entire village, burning his parents to death. Semyon's family was dead, and his beloved Ukraine was in ruins. The Nazis had murdered between 1.2 and 1.6 million Ukrainian Jews.
Semyon married a fellow Ukrainian Jew who had survived the war by fleeing her city, in which the Nazis had killed 5,000 Jews. Two years later, in that same city, they had a son, Oleksandr, keeping alive the family line that the Nazis had brought a razor's width from extinction. Thirty-one years after that, Oleksandr had his own little boy.
That boy was Volodymyr Zelensky, who grew up to become the President of independent, democratic Ukraine. Today, he leads his outmanned, outgunned, ferociously defiant nation against the onslaught of Russia. As Russia dashes itself against the will of his people, Zelensky, the survivor of survivors, summons the resilience of his ancestors. He does not bend. #Zalenski #Ukraine
This is Marco Rubio explaining how the USA promised to defend Ukraine forever if they got rid of their nuclear arsenal left after the Soviet Union fell.
This is why lil marco was sinking into the couch. He was hoping we wouldn’t find it…so don’t RT right now this very second.
Here is a recap of the Ukraine situation, for those choosing to reject propaganda and continue seeking truth:
December 1994, Ukraine agrees to give up its nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees from the US, UK, France, China and Russia.
February 2014, Russia invades and subsequently annexes Crimea, President Obama does next to nothing. War through weakness.
July 2019, Trump admin withholds $250 million in military aid to Ukraine to apply pressure to investigate alleged corruption by Hunter and Joe Biden.
February 2022, Russia invades a weakened Ukraine, world expects Zelenskyy to flee and Kyiv to fall within days. Ukrainians fight bravely for 3+ years, inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties on Russian army, weaken Putin politically.
U.S. has sent ~$70 billion in outdated military equipment to Ukraine since start of war, providing opportunity for U.S. military to modernize its weaponry. We’ve sent an additional $30+ billion in budget support, $75 billion in ancillary appropriations related to war.
~50,000 Ukrainians have died defending their homeland, protecting U.S. and Western interests in the process. Meanwhile, the U.S. President and V.P. are calling democratically-elected Zelenskyy a dictator and berating him in Oval Office in pursuit of a financial payoff.
The U.S. should be thanking Ukrainians, who have fought for our common interests with only modest financial support from a country with a ~$30 trillion GDP.
America can and will reclaim its backbone again soon, with better policy and messaging from common sense moderates.
Slava Ukraina.
Farmed salmon without the colourings added to the feed would look grey.
Farmers actually have a colour picker called a “salmofan” they choose the colour they want and add in the amount of colouring into the feed.
Only ignorant people eat farmed salmon.
There is no "energy dominance" without renewables. Why would *anyone* not want to power the world with unlimited, free sun, wind and water, while cutting a fossil fuel addiction which requires at least 535 times more mining than renewables? (hint: see cartoon)
Another example of an increasingly serious problem across all of tax/pensions policy. We are locked into terrible policies which politicians know are terrible policies, but they’re too scared of the electorate to tell the truth.