dassgaz

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@susannareid100

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@TashP351

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@MrJamesMay

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In Haugesund, where I’ve just paid £20 for a large glass of average IPA. 😳

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@our_jesse I was just listening to NY state of mind and saw that 👌🏻

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@RupertLowe10 It’s just one murder though

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Deer spotting in Dumfries

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Only in Scotland can you go half an hour drive and the temperature changes from 25 to 18 degrees

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@Ginger_Tucci They are a worry! I hope your boy is on the mend and you get a sleep

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@hirdy1888 @RupertLowe10 @KayBurley Lowe trying to appeal to the American audience by calling a mass murder of children a single murder was particularly shocking. Not a clue

[The Heartlands Tribune @HeartlandsTrib]

This one stopped me cold.

I was listening to Joe Rogan with Rupert Lowe as a guest. Yes, I listen to Rogan, probably the best podcaster out there.

I listen to people I agree with and people I do not. That is how you learn, test arguments, and understand what is moving in the world beyond your own little trench.

But I had to turn this off.

Lowe was talking about the police confiscating his shotguns. Fine. There is a legitimate debate to be had about licensing, police process, rural communities, sport shooting and the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Britain should be able to have that debate without importing America’s gun-war lunacy wholesale.

Then Rogan asked about handguns.

That is where Lowe crossed a line. He described Britain’s handgun ban as the result of “a murder up in Dunblane”, then repeated it: “one murder.”

No...

Dunblane was not “one murder”. It was the massacre of sixteen children and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, at Dunblane Primary School on 13 March 1996. Fifteen others were injured. The gunman then killed himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern British history.

For those of us old enough to remember it, Dunblane was not a footnote in a gun-rights argument. It was one of those days that lodged itself in the country’s bones. Children hunted in a school gym. Families destroyed. A town broken. A nation looking at itself and deciding that whatever else came next, this could not be normalised.

That is why the law changed. After the Cullen Inquiry and the public Snowdrop Campaign, Parliament passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 under John Major’s Conservative government, and the later Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 under Tony Blair’s Labour government further restricted handguns in Great Britain.

Lowe knows this. He is not a fool. But sitting in front of an American audience, talking to Rogan, he chose to frame Dunblane in a way that softens the horror and flatters the gun lobby’s worldview.

That is what angered me.

There is a difference between defending clay shooting, game shooting and lawful firearms ownership, and reducing the murder of little children to an inconvenience in a licensing debate.

The United States has chosen one path. Again and again, children die, politicians offer prayers, the gun lobby digs in, and nothing serious changes. Britain chose another path after Dunblane. Not because we are perfect. Not because all violence disappeared. But because a civilised country looked at murdered schoolchildren and said: never again means something.

Like many people at the time, the news of #Dunblane hit me hard. It stayed with me. I am not saying that for effect. I have written about the horror of that day before, because some events should not be allowed to fade into the small print of political argument.

https://t.co/jP0hnNY4Bi

You can argue about gun law. You can argue about licensing. You can argue about policing. But do not minimise Dunblane to make yourself more palatable to the American right. It showed Lowe to be little more than a grifter afraid of the truth in case it gave him a negative from the gun lobby.

#JoeRogan #RupertLowe #RestoreUK

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@ItsJamesHall As the government scrabble about to grab as much tax from the middle class as possible (freezing thresholds constantly). The reality is 100k isn’t that much these days

[J Stewart @triffic_stuff_]

Andrew Neil has once again perfectly summed up the rotten, self-serving core of British politics:

“It’s once again politicians using the political system to their advantage, at the expense of the people. Labour did it in Makerfield Nigel Farage is doing it in Clacton.” 🎯

Farage resigns his Clacton seat and forces a by-election to dodge scrutiny over donations, framing it as people versus the establishment. The big parties refuse to contest it, exposing the whole exercise as a cynical farce.

Labour pulled the exact same trick in Makerfield, forcing a vacancy so Andy Burnham could parachute in and challenge Starmer for the leadership. No hand-wringing about democracy or taxpayer costs then. Just naked self-interest.

This perfectly illustrates how politicians of all stripes treat the system as their personal plaything.

These people are not public servants. They are careerists who manipulate by-elections, rules and voters for power and survival. They bend the rules when it suits them and howl with outrage when others do the same. @afneil exposes the hypocrisy. The entire class is in it for themselves, and the public always pays the price.

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@johnrich That will be that British tech working as it should 🤣

[Empire ✶ ✶ ✶ ✶ @Empire1872]

Best one yet. Lost it when Strachan turns up 😂😂😂😂

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Cracking pair from overkill

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Breakfast with a view 🇹🇹

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Trinidad local brews

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Sailing from one side of the world to the other. Time to get a few beers

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@ambergambler_ The lad is getting spoilt today ❤️