@LFCLaurie Imagine seeing your team 16 points clear and in a final Sunday and moaning about a penalty shoot out loss… are you actually a Liverpool fan?
@LFCLaurie Mate? 16 points clear? Cup final Sunday?
We have won 6 champions leagues in our history? 1 league in 35 years?
Jesus.. get some perspective …
So you’re telling me that:
- Income Tax
- National Insurance Contributions
- Corporation Tax
- Capital Gains Tax
- Council Tax
- Value Added Tax
- Excise Duty
- Fuel Duty
- Stamp Duty Land Tax
- Air Passenger Duty
- Insurance Premium Tax
- Green Taxes (Includes levies on energy bills or vehicle emissions, like road tax).
- Gambling Taxes
- Plastic Bag Charges
- Carbon Emissions Levy (embedded in energy costs for businesses and indirectly passed to consumers)
- Landfill Tax (paid by waste management companies but often reflected in local authority charges)
- Television Licence Fee
- Congestion Charges
- Soft Drinks Industry Levy
Isn’t enough to fund public schools, public services, roads, etc? They also have to apply a death tax and charge your kids on money you’ve already paid tax on? 🤡🌍
Vamos, @RafaelNadal!
As you get ready to graduate from tennis, I’ve got a few things to share before I maybe get emotional.
Let’s start with the obvious: you beat me—a lot. More than I managed to beat you. You challenged me in ways no one else could. On clay, it felt like I was stepping into your backyard, and you made me work harder than I ever thought I could just to hold my ground. You made me reimagine my game—even going so far as to change the size of my racquet head, hoping for any edge.
I’m not a very superstitious person, but you took it to the next level. Your whole process. All those rituals. Assembling your water bottles like toy soldiers in formation, fixing your hair, adjusting your underwear... All of it with the highest intensity. Secretly, I kind of loved the whole thing. Because it was so unique—it was so you.
And you know what, Rafa, you made me enjoy the game even more.
OK, maybe not at first. After the 2004 Australian Open, I achieved the #1 ranking for the first time. I thought I was on top of the world. And I was—until two months later, when you walked on the court in Miami in your red sleeveless shirt, showing off those biceps, and you beat me convincingly. All that buzz I’d been hearing about you—about this amazing young player from Mallorca, a generational talent, probably going to win a major someday—it wasn’t just hype.
We were both at the start of our journey and it’s one we ended up taking together. Twenty years later, Rafa, I have to say: What an incredible run you’ve had. Including 14 French Opens—historic! You made Spain proud... you made the whole tennis world proud.
I keep thinking about the memories we’ve shared. Promoting the sport together. Playing that match on half-grass, half-clay. Breaking the all-time attendance record by playing in front of more than 50,000 fans in Cape Town, South Africa. Always cracking each other up. Wearing each other out on the court and then, sometimes, almost literally having to hold each other up during trophy ceremonies.
I’m still grateful you invited me to Mallorca to help launch the Rafa Nadal Academy in 2016. Actually, I kind of invited myself. I knew you were too polite to insist on me being there, but I didn’t want to miss it. You have always been a role model for kids around the world, and Mirka and I are so glad that our children have all trained at your academies. They had a blast and learned so much—like thousands of other young players. Although I always worried my kids would come home playing tennis as lefties.
And then there was London—the Laver Cup in 2022. My final match. It meant everything to me that you were there by my side—not as my rival but as my doubles partner. Sharing the court with you that night, and sharing those tears, will forever be one of the most special moments of my career.
Rafa, I know you’re focused on the last stretch of your epic career. We will talk when it’s done. For now, I just want to congratulate your family and team, who all played a massive role in your success. And I want you to know that your old friend is always cheering for you, and will be cheering just as loud for everything you do next.
Rafa that!
Best always, your fan,
Roger
There are a lot of very stupid things being said on the family farming tax, by people who are proving themselves to be entirely ignorant of British agriculture.
The farm may be worth millions, but it's worth NOTHING until it's sold. So when the farm is passed down, and this huge tax bill arrives - what is the family supposed to do? They don't have hundreds of thousands of pounds sitting in the bank...
Farming is not a lucrative career. It does not make much money. The land is valuable, but the returns are not.
Running a farm is bloody expensive - profits are minuscule in comparison to the value of the actual farm.
This is really not a complicated principle, yet I see idiots parroting utter nonsense.
Labour's farming tax will force thousands of farming families to sell the farm to pay the inheritance tax bill. Farms that have been in those families for generations - if it were not for this tax, they would never dream of selling.
It's really that simple, and it will change British farming forever.
This is a tax drawn up by people who have NO understanding of agriculture. There are three farming MPs in Parliament, I am one of them...
Trust me when I say this - Labour does NOT understanding farming. It would be laughable if they were not running the damn country.
I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of Labour MPs believe that potatoes grow on trees. These are urban people who think that a farm is a family day out, an opportunity to feed the sheep and ride the tractor.
Clueless. On farming, and so much else.
I will be standing alongside thousands of other British farmers tomorrow. We must make our voices heard.
Reeves must reverse her cruel assault on British family farms. Either she does it now, or we'll do it in 2029.