Clive Armitage

Still eating too much junk and still obsessing about WHUFC.

[Dux Backup @DuxVul2]

Lewis bought his private jet through a BVI holding company to avoid tax

He wears blood diamonds mined by African slaves

He lives in Monaco to pay no income tax, but here he is to give you a lecture 😂

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

The vast majority of people in Britain are not extremists. They want the same thing.

They want safe streets where children can play and women can walk without fear. They want an NHS that treats them when they are sick, not a system collapsing under demand it was never designed to absorb. They want homes they can afford, wages that keep pace with the cost of living and schools that teach their children rather than lecture them.

They want a country that feels like home - cohesive, recognisable, and ordered by the quiet British virtues of hard work, fair play, and looking out for your neighbour.

They want immigration that is controlled, selective and matched to what the country can actually sustain. Not the open-ended massive numbers of illegal migration of recent years that has left services strained, housing unaffordable and social trust frayed. Those who arrive illegally should have the incentives removed.

They want crime punished rather than explained away. Free speech protected so ordinary people can discuss real problems without being branded or jailed. Fairness over grievance. Entrepreneurship rewarded, not punished. They do not want their history rewritten as a catalogue of sins, nor their future managed as government surveillance or stealth tax punishments.

The extremists - the open-borders activists who treat national identity as a problem to be solved, and the racial obsessives who reduce debates to the colour of skin when playing for the national football teams. They dominate timelines, television studios, and too many institutions. But they are not the country. The country is the quiet moderate majority who simply want Britain to function again for the people who built it and the people who show up every day to try and improve their lives.

They want to pay their taxes and get a return on investment - the basics - civic pride and infrastructures that are fit for purpose, rather than feeling that their ever increasing tax burden is being spaffed away to the corporate donors of whatever colour of government.

They want governments to spend less time on TikTok videos and more time fixing the cost of living crisis.

That shared desire still exists. Politicians have failed to deliver it. The question is no longer whether most people want the same things. It is whether anyone in power will finally act on them.

This is not radical. Poll after poll shows it is ordinary common sense.

[Darren Jones @DarrenRJones]

BREAKING: Andy Burnham to legislate that all sellotape must come with a dispenser to prevent losing the end. The PM said, “When taping up your broken windows after a riot, there is nothing worse than losing the end of the tape. I’m ending that”

[Christian @InTheTrenchesUK]

My dear Stephen,

How lovely to see you marking the sixtieth. One of the darkest days in our history, etched in the memory of the nation, a community of such strength. All true. And all of it happening to somebody else.

Here is the part your tribute left in the drawer. The tribunal found the Coal Board wholly to blame and said the disaster "could and should have been prevented". The Coal Board then demanded £250,000 from the disaster fund to clear the tip that killed them. The fund, raised by public donation for the families, handed over £150,000.

Your party's government applied the pressure, in secret. George Thomas objected, then folded, and leaned on the trustees until they folded too. The Charity Commission sat on its hands. Nobody was prosecuted.

It took thirty years to give it back. In July 1997 Ron Davies, your party's first Welsh Secretary of that spell, returned the £150,000 without interest and without inflation, and conceded the demand should never have been made.

So yes. Remembering is lovely. Your lot billed the bereaved for clearing the mine's own tip.

Twenty three likes. Five retweets. And looking more like your father every year.

Do carry on, pet.

[Nick, 30 @an0n_Nic]

Incentives and outcomes strike again.

FT decided to dig in to the biggest drag on growth this country has. We have a new record of a 72% marginal tax rate.

If you are evenly remotely above average, it increasingly feels like Britain is not the place for you.

I know many people caught in this. You either need household income closer to £500k or someone to stop working for this to make any sense. Yet again, the middle gets punished for doing the thing that the economy and country functions on (working, having a family).

I try to be optimistic here but I don’t see this being fixed. It’s too small of an issue to be a vote winner and high-risk for any politician who’s trying to appeal to the average earner in third world Britain.

[Emma @MrsEmmaWebber]

To clarify. It’s actually even worse.
The horror of what our families face is this: my son’s killer, Valdo Calocane, was given a Section 37/41 hospital order. This is medical care, not a penal sentence.
By January 2027—the 3-year mark—he can legally apply to a tribunal to come out if deemed well enough. Worse, until our recent fight to close the loophole, these criminal patients actively pocketed up to £800/month in state benefits from their hospital beds.
A hospital order is not prison. We face a life sentence ensuring this monster is never released. #JusticeForBarnaby #NottinghamAttacks 💚💛

[Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306]

Reminder: just yesterday we learned that:
A) a former ISIS guard for a beheading squad came to yookay illegally on a boat, obviously because of the ECHR/HRA he can't be jailed or deported, living freely;

B) SAS guys sent on missions to deal with ISIS beheaders were then arrested for MURDER for dealing with them; they were lied to by the military police; they have been told they can never be clear of the charges (because the ECHR/HRA means any time some lawyer like Jolyon or Hermer wants to team up with nutters on a ECHR case, the government will be forced to investigate again and remember Hermer's friend *invented* war crimes to bring cases against British soldiers, but obviously wasn't jailed, triples all round in the Inner Temple).

So we're importing the jihadis at scale while prosecuting for murder SAS we rely on to defend us from the jihadis - and if you don't like this you're fascist and it's a reason to ban X in yookay.

No you will not see Kemi-kasi campaign on these issues because the Tories agreed with Labour for 25 years that this combination is 'defending civilisation'. The Tories imported many of the jihadis now in the news, and the Tories approved all the worst officials and lawyers in SW1 bringing the lawfare cases, including against those who were given medals by the Queen for stopping IRA terrorist attacks - they now have to beg for cash for lawyers in their 70s/80s.

And because Reform is a bin fire which can't maintain focus on anything for 2 minutes -- like Kemi-kasi -- you probably won't see anything sustained from them either.

[Robert Colvile @rcolvile]

Let me get this straight. Work all your life building a business. Sell that business to a rando - charged at 24%. Try to pass it on to your family - charged at 45%. Genuinely insane https://t.co/uNhYXHdn32

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

That first paragraph is one of the most insane things I’ve ever read. What on earth are we doing to our elite warriors?

[Charlie Walsham @CharlieWalsham_]

As somebody who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum, I’d be happy to have the debate again if it were even vaguely honest.

The truth about the European Union is that being part of the single market obviously brings considerable benefits. But the EU is much more than a single market. It’s a political project committed to ever-closer union, one that progressively strips nation states of their sovereignty.

And you either believe in sovereign nation states or you don’t.

I voted Remain because the EU’s progressivism chimed with my worldview at the time. But world events, not least the pandemic and the authorities’ response to it, have opened my eyes and shifted my political outlook.

And those waving the flag for the EU today should ask themselves a simple question: would they still be so enthusiastic about membership if the EU evolved into something they profoundly disliked?

Because that’s the crux of the matter.

You either want to live in a country where your vote matters, where there’s a direct line between the ballot box and the laws of the land, or you’re happy to sacrifice that democratic accountability to a bureaucratic, supranational body that takes powers away, slice by slice.

Why do you think the European Union has its own flag, anthem and currency? Its architects have long envisaged a political union that goes far beyond economic cooperation, potentially culminating in a federal United States of Europe.

And look what’s happening in the actual United States. A country increasingly divided into two bitterly opposed political camps, united under one flag but profoundly divided over values, identity and the direction of their country. There’s even been serious talk of civil unrest as political polarisation deepens.

Do we really want to replicate that on a continent of countries with different languages, histories, cultures and political traditions?

Why not focus instead on making the United Kingdom sovereign, strong and resilient? A country that cooperates with its neighbours, trades freely with the world and negotiates agreements without surrendering democratic control over its own affairs.

Why is that such a controversial ambition?

Why has the perfectly reasonable desire for democratic self-government become something that so many supposedly progressive people regard with suspicion, even contempt?

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Stephen Kinnock’s claim that there were no boat people because we were in the European Union is a straightforward lie. Illegal immigrants flooded in by lorry, train and cars. They disappeared into towns/cities and couldn’t be properly counted. When advances in technology made these methods of transport much harder to use the illegal migrants took to boats, courtesy of the people smugglers. Since the boats are usually interdicted on arrival the counting is easier. Nothing to do with being in or out of the EU.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

There’s a lot of self-serving spin emanating from the UK government about how virtuous it is re fiscal consolidation.
Here are the facts.
Labour inherited an OBR budget deficit forecast of £87bn (3.1% GDP) for FY2024/25. After R Reeves’ 1st disastrous budget the actual deficit was £153bn (5.2%). Massive jump.
Labour inherited OBR budget deficit of £77bn (2.7%) for FY2025/26. After RR’s disastrous 2nd budget that turned out to be £133bn (4.3%).
So in its first two years it added over £120bn to borrowing/deficit (despite huge increase in taxes).
The OBR forecast it inherited for this FY2026/27 was £69bn (2.3%). It is now forecast to be £116bn (3.3%). That looks like an underestimate. More likely to be closer to £130bn again.
Inherited budget forecast for 2027/28: £51bn (1.6%). Latest forecast: £97bn (2.9%).
Inherited budget forecast for 2028/29: £39bn (1.2%). Latest forecast: £86bn (2.5%).
Far from fiscal consolidation Labour is forecast to borrow an incredible £260bn more over the 5 years from 2024/25 than the forecasts it inherited. Despite the tax rises.
Which will continue. Alone among G7 countries the IMF projects the UK tax burden to rise by 3.7% of GDP 2025-31. The only other country with a rising tax burden is France (0.8%). Italy is static. Rest of G7 have falling tax burden.
And let’s not forget Labour’s so-called ‘fiscal consolidation’ is all backloaded to end-decade. Unlikely to happen. So taxes will have to rise by even more.

[Kevin Edger @KEdge23]

Sunday - Andy Burnham: "Was there interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum from Russia? I've had the clear answer that yes, there was."

Monday morning - Labour: "They attempted to, but didn’t succeed"

Monday lunch - No10: "Yes, we do believe the referendum results to be legitimate."

Monday afternoon in Commons - Burnham: "I implied no such thing."

Andy Burnham is a liar.

[John Ruddy @jruddy99]

Iran carried out 11 public executions last year. Jeremy protested against precisely none of them.

[jeremy warner @JeremyWarnerUK]

The marginal rate of tax on UK banks is 46.4pc, against just 27.9pc in New York. Yet Labour is toying with the idea of restoring the 8pc surcharge. Ministers speak the language of growth, but don't seem to understand the first thing about it. My column https://t.co/G8xrGHKcib

[Dennis Noel Kavanagh @Jebadoo2]

@MothinAli It’s over Mothin. You’ve overplayed your hand and the world has seen clearly what an antisemitic bin fire the modern Green Party is. Better luck with the next party.

[Kate Hoey @CatharineHoey]

I don’t know who said this but I agree 100 per cent.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

The 2024 Budget raised the rate of capital gains tax. CGT receipts from that tax year *doubled*.

Looks like a triumph - but actually it was a failure.

And it means CGT reform is dead. A prudent Chancellor won't touch CGT.

A 🧵 on the CGT paradox:

[Merryn Somerset Webb @MerrynSW]

The UK: running a real time Laffer Curve experiment. Super useful for everyone else. Bit of a disaster for us.

[Clive Armitage @CliveArmitage]

@ouraring I have now been trying to get my account reactivated for two weeks via online customer support and have got nowhere. Please can someone contact me here to discuss? I was a strong brand advocate until this situation arose!