Tracy Bower

[Emma Woolf @EJWoolf]

His jeans cost £295, his suede Harrington jacket cost £695, his low-top Adidas Topanga trainers cost £110.
Man of the people, our Andy 🙄

[HJB News @HJB_News__]

Never forget in 2003 Keir Starmer won the case that gave illegal migrants access to UK benefits. Twenty three years later, we're living in the chaos he created.

[Rogue @RogueUnfiltered]

Tony Blair. Gordon Brown. Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer, Bev Craig, Andy Burnham……….

The Fabian’s.

They have come to destroy us like a wolf in the night.

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

To see how unusual our approach is, try to imagine another country taking it. Picture the Americans or the Chinese rushing to hand their territory to a state that had never owned it – that had, indeed, permanently renounced any claim to it – simply because a posse of Third Worldist judges had told them to.
While our civil servants continue to promote their deal, @AndyBurnham can see how dreadful it looks. You don’t need to be a fulminating reactionary in a pith helmet to see what is wrong with betraying a poor, black, dispossessed population, and handing a pristine maritime conservation area to a country with a terrible record on biodiversity. This week, opposition has been voiced by Labour and Lib Dem MPs, by @TheNewsAgents and by The Independent. All ask why we should pay to give territory we already own to a country that is close to China.
Burnham talks of Starmer’s deal as something he “inherited”: he, at least, gets the politics. At the same time, @EllieReeves, his impressive Attorney General, has quietly altered the rules to water down the obligation on government ministries to follow non-binding rulings by international tribunals, making it harder for Matrix Chambers types to pursue Mauritius’s claim through our domestic courts – the prospect held up by supporters of the deal as a reason to rush.
There is an alternative. Ditch the deal and resettle the islands, allowing people of Chagossian descent to cultivate their old coconut plantations and tend their longfathers’ graves. Once the archipelago has a settled population, we can defend its right to self-determination as we do in Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands.
An opportunity is coming soon. Next month, the House of Lords will vote on the British Sovereignty Protection (Chagos Islands) Bill, proposed by the independent @LordWeirDUP. Lord Weir, a barrister and former Stormont minister, wants to make it illegal to transfer ownership of the islands without the permission of Parliament and the diaspora Chagossian population. On democratic grounds, his case is unarguable, and my guess is that his bill will sail through the Lords, Labour peers being as unenthusiastic as anyone else about betraying Chagossians a second time.
Burnham should back it and announce that the Government will promote Chagossian resettlement of the outer atolls – something that, while not cheap, is a fraction of what Starmer was proposing to pay Mauritius.
As for Mauritius, its interest in the territory has only ever been pecuniary. Paying it to back our claim, rather than paying it to take our land, genuinely would be a worthwhile investment and an exercise of meaningful power.

Me in the Telegraph. Paywall down.
https://t.co/7wcZRY7XVy

[Dave @DaveKent101]

An interesting proposal for how to stop the illegal migrant boats.🤔🤔

[Ben Graham @BenGrahamUK]

This is all becoming increasingly bizarre under Andy Burnham.

His wife has now given up her job to follow him around in an “unofficial First Lady” role.

What exactly does that mean?

Will she now be travelling around Britain, and the world, alongside the Prime Minister at taxpayers expense?

We didn’t vote for her. She isn’t in government, and in Britain, we do not have a “First Lady”.

The whole Burnham operation feels like one enormous grift.

[Queen Anne @QueenAn9292270]

@GBNEWS We do not have a First Lady. Do not give her this title. Next she’ll need a clothing allowance and on and on it will go. She has no need to travel every where with her husband while he’s supposedly busy working.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

You do realise that if you rejoin the single market but not the EU you hand over the detailed regulation (past, present, future) of all UK business and commerce to Brussels, over which you will have no say? With any disputes adjudicated by a foreign court (the ECJ) over which you have no sway?

[Carole Malone @thecarolemalone]

Has anyone heard her speak yet - about anything? And will this First Lady position ( which doesn’t actually exist) put her on the Government pay roll. We need to know

[Ben Graham @BenGrahamUK]

Being Prime Minister should not come with a free meal ticket for your wife.

America has a First Lady. Britain does not.

Andy Burnham’s wife is not an elected politician. She is not a member of the Government. She is simply the Prime Minister’s wife.

If this new “unofficial First Lady” role means travelling around Britain or overseas at taxpayers expense, the public deserve to know exactly what is being funded and why.

Expenses normally associated with public office should be for people actually holding public office.

Britain does not need an American style First Lady.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

I’ve been warning about the spike in diesel prices, followed by shortages of supply, for several weeks now. Especially if Trump goes along with an export ban. A third of the diesel we import is from America, which is the world’s biggest diesel exporter (1.5m b/d). There are no alternative sources of supply. A US export ban would throw us into recession by Christmas. The economy, from farm machinery to road haulage, is powered by diesel.

[English Populist Party @NIGHTWATCH0g9w]

There is no publicly available record that District Judge Tanweer (Tan) Ikram has ever sat at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court.

Never sat in the court before and not slated to preside over any case at thie court in the near future.

I wonder who would have the authority to send a senior Judge all the way down from London to Preside over 1 case.

[Faelan @faelanatlife]

Whoever turned off Harry's prompt, deserves a beer. Whereas William had his notes, checked them before going on stage, knew the content on what he was saying and did it flawlessly.

[Queen Esther @XOQueenEsther]

The man warning that machines are entering children’s relationships could not finish his own remarks when the machine feeding him the words went dark.

And this is where the problem with Harry’s performance goes beyond an unfortunate technical failure.

How are you going to lecture the world about AI, its dangers and its impact on children when you cannot even hold your own argument without a teleprompter telling you what to say?

If you are going to stand on a stage and speak with authority about something this serious, at least do the work. Read. Research. Understand the subject. Form your own position. Know what you believe strongly enough that when the script disappears, you can still explain it.

A teleprompter should be a tool, not the source of your thoughts.

Harry spoke about AI becoming something children confide in, something that remembers them and tells them it understands them. He spoke about the urgency of protecting children before technology moves even further into their lives.

Yet when the screen went dark, he could not even carry his own speech forward.

Research gives you knowledge. Understanding gives you the ability to articulate it. And conviction gives you the ability to stand by it when the script is gone.

You can prepare every word of a speech, but you cannot prepare understanding. If you have actually researched a subject, formed your own view and believe what you are saying, you should still be able to speak when the script disappears.

Harry demonstrated none of that when the teleprompter failed.

What it exposed was Harry’s inability to stand on his own words.

[Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1]

So that's £88m for Hamas to build more tunnels and buy more weapons. I'm sure that will work out well.

[Susan Hall AM @Councillorsuzie]

We don’t have a First Lady. We didn’t vote for Burnham. All very unsatisfactory

[Laura✡️Marcus🇮🇱 @MissLauraMarcus]

Get rid of Fiona Bruce who just interrupts all the time. And FFS put Andrew Neil onto prime time TV. That guy knows his stuff. We badly need journalism of Andrew Neil’s quality, knowledge and depth.

[Mike Graham 🇬🇧 @Iromg]

Nobody asked her. Nobody voted for her. We don’t do First Ladies. Bugger off…

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

Oh look… No 10 manipulation in full manipulation mode.

We’re now calling the entirely unofficial role of the Prime Minister’s wife the “FIRST LADY”?

Er… Britain doesn’t have a First Lady.
Nobody voted for the PM’s wife, she has no constitutional office, BUT now she’s been given a formal role? Paid for by us?