Jane, these questions rather assume that every vehicle, vessel and officer present was somehow a resource allocated solely to the people arriving by boat.
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That is not what happened.
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This was a multi-agency operation involving HM Coastguard, the RNLI, Border Security, police, ambulance services and the authorities responsible for transporting people away for processing.
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The law-enforcement vessels were there as part of the maritime and border response.
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The RNLI was carrying out its lifesaving role under the search-and-rescue operation.
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The coaches were required to transport those brought ashore away from Gosport for the normal immigration and security processing.
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The ambulances were part of the medical contingency for an operation involving people who had spent many hours at sea, emergency-service personnel AND hundreds of members of the public gathering nearby.
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Indeed, an ambulance actually treated a member of the public who developed chest pains during the protest.
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And the large police deployment was very clearly not simply there for the boat arrivals.
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Hampshire Police explicitly said officers were deployed to manage public-order issues, protect the local community, allow the other agencies to work safely AND facilitate peaceful protest.
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Around 350 protesters subsequently gathered. Twelve people were arrested, police officers were assaulted and injured, ambulances were obstructed and public-order powers had to be used.
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There is also a small but important factual correction.
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It was not a “Section 24 notice”. Police imposed conditions under Section 14 of the Public Order Act, alongside other powers concerning face coverings and a dispersal order.
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And there was not necessarily one mysterious individual who “authorised” everything within twelve hours.
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Different agencies make operational decisions within their own responsibilities while coordinating with one another. That is precisely what emergency and contingency planning exists to achieve.
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In fact, the ability of police, ambulance, Coastguard, RNLI, Border Security and transport arrangements to come together at short notice is evidence of preparation, not evidence that somebody suddenly conjured up an enormous operation solely for 149 people.
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By all means ask what the operation cost and whether resources were used efficiently. Those are perfectly legitimate questions.
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But if we are calculating that cost, we also have to include WHY those resources were required.
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You cannot count police deployed to manage hundreds of protesters as though every one of them was deployed simply to “protect migrants”.
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Context matters here too.
I have taken a fair amount of stick today, much of it apparently because I have insisted on three rather unfashionable things: facts, due process and individual responsibility.
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So perhaps it is worth setting out where I actually stand, rather than where various people have decided I must stand.
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I am not defending the Government. I have criticised governments of different colours when I believe policy, administration or outcomes justify criticism, and I will continue to do so.
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Nor am I arguing that Britain should have uncontrolled borders, that everybody who arrives should be allowed to remain, or that the asylum system is functioning perfectly. I have said none of those things.
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I believe a country is entitled to control its borders. Claims should be decided properly and far more quickly. Safe-third-country provisions should be applied where the law allows them to be applied. People whose claims ultimately fail, who have exhausted their rights and who have no other lawful basis to remain should be removed where removal is legally possible.
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Serious criminals should face the criminal law, regardless of where they were born.
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None of that requires us to abandon due process.
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Arriving by an irregular route can involve an immigration offence. But it does not allow somebody on social media to determine, before the authorities have even established the facts, that every person aboard a boat is an “illegal”, a “criminal” or an “invader”.
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If somebody claims asylum, the state has processes for establishing who they are, considering whether their claim can be heard here, determining whether they qualify for protection and deciding whether they can remain.
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That is not weakness. It is the rule of law.
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The same applies to what happened on the south coast.
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The RNLI is a rescue service. It does not decide immigration status. HM Coastguard coordinates rescue. Border Force and the Home Office deal with immigration processing. The police maintain public order and deal with offences.
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Those functions are different for a reason.
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People are also perfectly entitled to be angry about immigration policy. They are entitled to believe the Government has failed. They are entitled to demand tighter borders, faster decisions and removals. They are entitled to protest peacefully and lawfully.
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I have never described everybody who protests about immigration as far right, racist or a thug.
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But the right to protest does not remove responsibility for your own behaviour.
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If somebody obstructs a coach, assaults a police officer, damages property or commits some other offence, responsibility for that action belongs to the person who chose to do it. You cannot transfer responsibility for your own conduct onto the people you were protesting about.
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Likewise, individual crimes committed by migrants or asylum seekers should be investigated and punished properly. Victims deserve justice, and nobody should minimise the appalling consequences of those crimes.
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But one person's crime does not make thousands of unrelated people collectively guilty.
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That principle should not change based on the offender's nationality.
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What has disappointed me today is how quickly some people have abandoned the argument altogether.
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I have been called a “leftie”, "right-wing", a "liberal wetwipe", a “simpleton”, a “ballbag”, a “retard”, a “soft-headed prat”, a government “sock puppet”, and apparently somebody even hopes that I or a member of my family becomes the victim of a migrant crime so that they can travel to laugh in my face.
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I have not responded in kind.
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Not because I cannot think of an insult, but because insults do not establish facts.
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If something I post is wrong, show me.
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Bring the evidence. Correct the statistic. Cite the law. Point out the missing context. I will examine it, and if I am wrong, I will correct it.
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That is how serious discussion should work.
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What I will not do is accept that putting “FACT” before an opinion makes it factual, that calling somebody an “invader” establishes their legal status, that calling somebody a “leftie” answers their evidence, or that shouting an insult somehow wins an argument.
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And I certainly will not pretend that everything is fine simply because I refuse to exaggerate what is wrong.
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Britain faces genuine questions about immigration, asylum, integration, policing, public confidence, housing and the capacity of public services. Those questions deserve serious answers.
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They are important enough that we should not need false claims, collective blame, inflated rhetoric or personal abuse to discuss them.
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So after a rather lively day, my position remains remarkably simple.
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Criticise the Government where it deserves criticism.
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Demand effective border control.
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Protect the right to peaceful protest.
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Enforce the law.
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Remove those who have no lawful right to remain when the legal process permits it.
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Punish people who commit crimes.
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Protect people genuinely entitled to refuge.
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Judge individuals on what they have actually done, not on the group into which somebody has placed them.
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And above all, establish the facts before deciding the conclusion.
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I have not spent today saying, “everything is fine”.
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I have spent it asking something much simpler:
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If we are going to argue about serious things, can we at least start with what is actually true?
I wanted to explain to you directly my announcement on creating a National Care Service and the triple lock.
Fundamental change is needed to protect the NHS and give older people the support they need.
At Labour conference, I announced a plan to create a National Care Service in the next parliament. To fund it, I am proposing an adjustment to the triple lock on the state pension. This will form the basis of a new settlement for older people in our country. I want to explain why this is necessary and what it would mean for pensioners.
Everyone knows that our social care system is broken. And yet, for decades, politicians have failed to fix it. Shamefully, millions of older people have unmet care needs. Far too many see everything they have worked for – their home, pension and savings – wiped out by care bills. The personal cost can be devastating, but we should not make the mistake of thinking the price is paid only by older people and their families.
I am convinced that if we carry on as we are, our broken social care system will eventually break our NHS too. Every day, older people who should be receiving support at home or in care settings are unnecessarily admitted to A&E. Meanwhile, hospital beds are occupied by people who are fit to leave but have nowhere to go because the care they need is not in place. Go to any hospital and you will see the effect. Corridor care is no longer simply the result of winter pressures. It is a commonplace indignity suffered by thousands of patients every day.
It is time for fundamental change. The best chance we have of saving our NHS is to build a high-quality care service. The National Care Service I am proposing will be based on NHS principles: everyone contributes and everyone is covered. It will give people peace of mind about their care needs and protect what they have built up over their lifetime. It will provide free personal care – support with the most basic human needs: eating, dressing and bathing. And it will be integrated with the rest of the system, preventative in nature, and deliver care at home wherever possible, exactly where older people want and should be.
A National Care Service, I believe, would become as significant as the creation of the NHS itself. But we need to be honest about the changes that are needed to pay for it. And I do not believe it makes sense to preserve the current triple lock while so many pensioners face the risk of catastrophic care costs. We can give pensioners greater financial security.
I am proposing to adjust the triple lock. This is not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one. We pledged in our manifesto that we would keep the triple lock throughout this parliament, and I will keep that promise. This means the state pension is set to rise by more than £2,000 a year, reaching around 30 per cent of average earnings by the end of the decade – its highest ever level.
From April 2030, under our adjusted triple lock, we will guarantee that the state pension rises every year by either inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. It will also increase by more than this when necessary to ensure that it holds its value relative to average earnings.
This means that if inflation spikes, pensioners will be protected. If wages rise, pensioners will share in that rising prosperity, with the state pension tracking earnings over time. Nobody’s pension will ever go down. And the state pension will be put on a sustainable footing for decades to come.
I want to be upfront about what I am proposing because this adjustment will bring change. The state pension will not increase as quickly as it otherwise would if we kept the triple lock in its current form. However, the adjustment will enable us to fix social care for everyone by building a National Care Service that provides older people with free personal care at the point of need. I believe this is a better deal for pensioners.
I do not expect people to support this plan without seeing the full detail. We will start laying the ground now for the National Care Service and introduce it as soon as possible in the next parliament. Louise Casey’s review will advise us on exactly how and we will build the maximum consensus around her recommendations. It will be fully funded – and not through borrowing.
I appeal to everyone to engage in this debate responsibly and urge politicians to continue the cross-party talks that began over the summer. We need less point scoring and more problem solving. The situation is too serious for us to play politics. Care workers struggling on low pay, families stretched to breaking point, older people fearful of losing everything they have worked for. We need to give them reason to hope again.
I have wanted to fix social care for a long time. As health secretary in 2009, I tried to find a cross-party solution. Since then, I have watched the challenges grow more acute and the consequences become more severe. It is a profound failure of politics that we have known about this problem for so long and yet failed to act. I would never forgive myself if I did not try now.
This is the settlement I am offering to pensioners: a state pension that rises every year, no care charges and a high-quality National Care Service to give peace of mind in later life. I do not pretend this will be easy. But in the end, politics is about finding a way. I gave my word that I would do everything in my power to build a care system worthy of the people who provide it and all those who depend on it. This is how we can achieve it.
Oh, @Nigel_Farage , there is a rather obvious contradiction here.
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When Border Force and the police meet arrivals, take control of them, keep groups together and move them to processing facilities, you and others complain about the “escort”.
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Now you complain that people are supposedly “landing here and disappearing into the ether”.
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Which is it?
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The whole purpose of controlled interception and processing is precisely to prevent people simply disappearing.
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At Manston, identities and other details are collected and checked. Nationality information is recorded, and the Home Office publishes detailed statistics on where small-boat arrivals come from.
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That does not mean every identity is instantly and perfectly verified. Of course it does not.
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But “we don’t know who they are or where they’re from” is not an accurate description of the system as a whole.
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Then there is the phrase “fighting-age men”.
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Why “fighting-age”?
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The official statistical category is ADULT MEN.
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“Fighting-age” is a military expression which encourages people to view civilian migrants as though they constitute some sort of hostile force.
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And while adult men are undoubtedly the majority of small-boat arrivals, they are not everybody.
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The latest breakdown is approximately:
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72% adult men
13% adult women
15% children
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And, to be absolutely clear, that children category includes both boys and girls.
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So why omit the women and children entirely?
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If you believe the border system is failing, make that argument using the evidence.
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If people really are “disappearing into the ether”, publish the figures showing how many, when, and from which arrivals.
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But “fighting-age men”, “we don’t know who they are” and “national emergency” are rhetoric.
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The facts are quite capable of standing on their own without militarising the language.
Chris, we can have a serious debate about controlling our borders, but we should also be honest about what you are proposing.
The ECHR is NOT an immigration treaty, and leaving it would not affect only people arriving in small boats.
It protects ALL of us.
Yes, migrants use ECHR protections.
Between 2015 and 2024, immigration judges allowed more than 60,000 appeals against removal on ECHR grounds.
But that figure covers the entire immigration system. It does NOT mean 60,000 people arriving illegally by small boat.
Look more closely at foreign national offenders.
Between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 deportation appeals were lodged. 6,042 were allowed, of which 2,392 were allowed on human-rights grounds.
And the supposedly all-powerful Strasbourg emergency injunction?
Between 2019 and 2021 there were 180 Rule 39 applications against the UK.
Just SEVEN were granted.
In 2023 there were 61 requests.
ONE was granted.
There is no comparable statistic saying “X British citizens used the ECHR”, because British people routinely rely on Convention rights through our own courts and public authorities under the Human Rights Act. Those cases are not centrally classified according to nationality.
And they matter.
The victims of serial rapist John Worboys used Article 3 and the Human Rights Act to hold the Metropolitan Police accountable for serious failures in investigating his crimes.
These rights protect your right to life, your liberty, your right to a fair trial, your privacy, your freedom of expression, your freedom of religion, your property and your protection from torture, slavery and degrading treatment.
There is another problem with your argument.
Leaving the ECHR does NOT automatically mean “no asylum claim”.
Refugee status comes primarily from the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, not the ECHR.
Nor are asylum seekers generally receiving the ordinary benefits available to British citizens. While their claims are being considered they cannot normally claim mainstream benefits such as Universal Credit. Destitute asylum seekers receive a separate, limited asylum-support system.
So let us debate immigration policy, deportation and border control on their merits.
But please do not pretend that withdrawing from the ECHR simply takes rights away from illegal migrants.
It does not.
It would withdraw the UK's external Convention guarantee, and access to Strasbourg, from every one of us.
And there is a certain historical irony here.
The ECHR grew out of the horrors Europe had witnessed during the Second World War. Winston Churchill championed a European Charter of Human Rights. British Conservative lawyer Sir David Maxwell Fyfe played a central role in drafting the Convention.
Britain was the FIRST country to ratify it, in 1951.
Our forebears fought against regimes that demonstrated what can happen when the State has enormous power and the individual has too little protection.
The generation that followed did something about it.
They put fundamental rights into law.
By all means strengthen our borders.
But if Parliament is being asked to surrender protections that belong to 68 million people in order to deal with a fraction of that number crossing the Channel, then we deserve a far more honest debate about exactly what we are giving up.
This is exactly why statistics need context.
The £11.9bn was not “£11.9bn given to migrants”. It was Universal Credit paid to entire households containing at least one person recorded as a foreign national.
That household may include a British spouse and British children. The foreign national may have lived here and paid tax for many years. The figure tells us none of that.
Nor can most people simply arrive in Britain and claim Universal Credit. Eligibility depends upon immigration status and access to public funds, while most temporary migrants have No Recourse to Public Funds.
There is a legitimate debate to be had about immigration, welfare and who should qualify for support. But presenting a household-level statistic as though £12bn was simply handed to “migrants” strips away crucial facts.
That sort of presentation does not improve public understanding. It corrodes trust and encourages division where what we actually need is accurate, responsible debate.
💥 On Oct 12th, Parliament will debate the UK JOINING THE EU
Use this page to send an email to your MP.
Looking at Canada-EU, Rejoin polling at 61%, and devolved leaders saying the future is the EU -
- Westminster needs to catch up. Sign & share. 👇
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Too big and important to tax, part 94 https://t.co/FAWLuQjbYU betting boss says don’t tax betting. Toys, Throw. Pram. There’ll be a lot more of this over the next 39 days!
Hey @BBCNews -
Can you please actually do your job and report how everyone, including Reform, were told in March the law would be retroactive.
Heres the wording:
“The cap will therefore apply retrospectively, so it will include all donations from overseas electors received from today and all regulated transactions entered into from today.”
Hansard, 25th Mar 2026
From today’s Times: ‘Researchers at the University of Cambridge said that regardless of “what or how we read”, sitting down with a book is linked to improved health and problem solving. Benefits include lowering stress and reducing the risk of dementia, and span all types of reading, from comic books to classic novels or hefty non-fiction tomes.’
This is a rare photo of Donald Trump from 1934, helping Albert Einstein finish the theory of relativity. According to Trump, Einstein had been stuck for weeks.
“Very smart guy. Terrible with numbers. I looked at the board and said, Albert, put a little 2 up there. He loved it."
Richard, this simply isn't an honest representation of what Jaguar Land Rover has said.
Any job loss matters. Behind every one of these positions is a person, a family and a livelihood, and I wish every affected JLR employee well.
But precisely because these are real people's jobs, politicians should not use them as props for a predetermined political argument.
You say the 4,000 reductions are “mainly down to Net Zero”.
JLR does not.
JLR says it is reducing around 4,000 roles globally over the next two years as part of a £1.7 billion programme to simplify the organisation, reduce its break-even point and improve competitiveness.
Its chief executive cited technological change, intense competition and continuing geopolitical uncertainty.
And JLR's own accounts identify a long list of pressures: the devastating cyberattack, US tariffs, deterioration in China, supply disruption, cost inflation, geopolitical instability, reduced Jaguar volumes and the deliberate wind-down of outgoing Jaguar models.
Yes, JLR also says slower than expected EV adoption and changing regulations are creating pressure. I have absolutely no difficulty acknowledging that. The ZEV mandate deserves proper scrutiny, and Britain's industrial energy costs are indefensibly high.
But “a factor” and “mainly responsible” are two entirely different claims.
Indeed, JLR says the very savings associated with this restructuring will help support £15 billion to £18 billion of investment over the next five years in electrification, digital technologies and advanced manufacturing.
There is another rather important detail missing from your post. These are approximately 4,000 roles across JLR's global workforce, not simply 4,000 British factory workers, and JLR says direct manufacturing jobs are not expected to be affected.
By all means argue for changing the ZEV mandate. Argue against Net Zero. Argue for lower industrial energy prices. Argue for tougher action on unfairly subsidised Chinese imports.
But make that argument from the evidence.
Don't take 4,000 people's livelihoods and attach a cause to their redundancy that their employer itself has not stated.
If a politician cannot make their case honestly, accurately and on the evidence, then the weakness isn't in the evidence. It is in their argument.
And if someone holding public office knowingly continues presenting political interpretation as established fact, they should seriously question whether they are fulfilling the responsibilities of that office.
What an extraordinarily short-sighted thing to celebrate.
Let us take Yorkshire as an example.
Along that coastline you have RNLI stations at Redcar, Staithes & Runswick, Whitby, Scarborough, Filey, Flamborough, Bridlington and Withernsea.
These are communities with fishing fleets, pleasure craft, beaches, cliffs, harbours and substantial tourism.
So let us imagine that the campaign succeeds and, as this post gleefully predicts, the @RNLI is eventually no longer there.
What happens next?
Do we simply tell the fisherman whose boat has lost power in bad weather that there is no lifeboat?
Do we leave the family cut off by the tide?
The capsized sailor?
The child swept from a beach?
The tourist in difficulty off Scarborough?
Of course we would not.
Somebody would have to replace the service.
Perhaps local councils should provide it, with the cost appearing on council tax bills.
Perhaps every commercial fisherman should pay a £3,000-a-year lifeboat levy.
Perhaps harbour dues should rise substantially.
Perhaps coastal businesses that depend upon tourism should pay.
Or perhaps central government should create a taxpayer-funded national lifeboat service.
Those figures are deliberately hypothetical, but the underlying point is not: there is no magical, cost-free replacement for the RNLI.
Today the RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations and 451 lifeboats and hovercraft, supported by more than 7,900 volunteer lifeboat and shore crew. Less than 1% of its funding comes from government sources.
Think about that for a moment.
People voluntarily give money, thousands of people voluntarily give their time, and in return Britain and Ireland have an extraordinarily sophisticated lifesaving network around their coasts.
And some people apparently think destroying that is a victory because they object to a tiny proportion of its work in the Channel.
By all means stop donating if you no longer support the charity. It is your money.
But perhaps before celebrating the prospect of the RNLI disappearing, ask who you expect to launch when your son is overdue from a fishing trip, your daughter is swept out to sea, or your family needs help on a day at the coast.
Because somebody will still have to pay for that lifeboat.
At present, remarkably, most of us do not have to.
Other people voluntarily do it for us.
In a difficult and dangerous world, a decade on from Brexit, there is a risk that Britain loses the confidence to lead and stand up for its values.
I’m not prepared to let that happen. It is more important than ever that Britain stands for something.
We have called for years for a two-state solution in the Middle East, but we must recognise that those words are meaningless unless we back them up with action.
For too long, we have been hesitant to act, fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel.
Today we are announcing carefully judged, targeted steps that are not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the unacceptable policies of the current Israeli government.
The suffering of the Palestinian people is a scar on the conscience of the world. Innocent Palestinians, including children, continue to be killed in Gaza. And there is still a humanitarian crisis, with far too little aid getting in.
The scale of destruction is hard to comprehend. More than 70,000 people lie dead - at least 20,000 of them children. Families and communities have been torn apart. Millions displaced. And the population of Gaza is now penned into just one third of the territory.
I know that people across the UK feel very deeply about this issue - and so do I.
Before I became Prime Minister, I said our country’s response had been too slow and simply not good enough. That’s why I committed to changing the government’s approach.
I will not stand by as the horrific suffering continues to grow and the prospect of a two-state solution - the best hope for peace and stability in the region - comes under attack.
More settlements have been approved under the four years of this Israeli government than in the previous 20 years. The UN has reported more than 1,500 incidents of settler violence so far this year, aimed at driving out Palestinians. And the situation is growing worse, fast.
The Israeli government has now approved 104 new settlements since it took office in December 2022, and ahead of the October elections in Israel, it is allowing tenders for the construction of the E1 mega settlement to go ahead. This would cut a swathe through the heart of the West Bank - snuffing out the hope of realising a two-state solution. It cannot be allowed to happen.
That’s why we are announcing a new package of tough measures to put pressure on the Israeli government:
First, we will ban the trade in goods with illegal settlements in Palestine.
Second, we have formally changed the view of the British government to say for the first time that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful - independent of, but in line with, the conclusion of the international court of justice.
And third, we will sanction individuals and companies that support, facilitate or profit from illegal settlements. That includes any businesses or investors that take part in the construction of the E1 settlement.
In addition, we are announcing a new package of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.
We are taking these steps because it is the right thing to do.
I have condemned the monstrous terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in the strongest possible terms - and continue to condemn Hamas. However, it does not justify the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza or the West Bank.
The measures we are taking are about targeting illegal settlements and increasing the pressure on the Israeli government to change course. We are not imposing sanctions on Israel as a whole, which would punish the Israeli people, many of whom disagree with their government’s position.
The Israeli people are not responsible for the actions of their government. And nor is the Jewish community in the UK. Blaming British Jews for the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is wrong, plain and simple. And it is antisemitism, plain and simple.
I met the representatives of the Jewish community just last week. I know the fear they live with day by day. My government will stop at nothing to ensure they are safe and to stamp out antisemitism in every part of our society.
The measures we are announcing today are about protecting the only solution that could see the Israeli and Palestinian people living side by side in peace and security - something that people up and down the UK desperately want to see.
The government I lead will keep working with our partners around the world to keep that hope alive.