David Evans

Ex RN. Here for chat about beers, wine, eating, countryside, military, books, art, cars, travel, rugby & tech, and the laughs.

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@MozPerkins Definitely not good news. There's a reason going commando was the way to go!

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

No way is this in the UK's best interests, stop this foolishness.

[Great British PAC 🇬🇧 @GreatBritishPAC]

🇬🇧 10 DAYS TO GO 🇬🇧
Ten days until the Labour Government returns to court to try and remove Chagossians from their homeland.
We beat them once.
Now they are spending YOUR money to appeal that decision.
The Chagossians want to remain British.
The Chagossians want to live on their homeland.
The Chagossians deserve justice.
Please share.
#Chagos #JusticeForChagossians

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@haynesdeborah As they used to say nobody DIPs out in the RN, your oppo has just DIPped in more than you did - gen dit HMS Raleigh circa 1977.

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@ForcesNews Armed Forces, not Armed Services you plank.

Not worth paper it's written on, as AB can ignore it as it's not "his plan".

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@RenownVet21 Top answer! 😂😂😂😂

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

It's been quite the day as Al Cairns AF Minister resigns as does John Healey Defence Sec and Pamela Nash MoD PPS.

Is this a record?

https://t.co/xsLjeuEDSI

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

If you care about UK Armed Forces and defence please read this. The dereliction of duty of the PM and the rest is shocking to behold.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

The Defence of the Realm vs The Defence of the Majority

George Robertson has been a Labour man for sixty years. He served as Tony Blair's Defence Secretary. He ran NATO. When Keir Starmer needed someone to write his Strategic Defence Review, he turned to Robertson. That is the context in which Robertson's words this week must be understood.

Britain's national security, he said, is "in peril." The Treasury is committing "vandalism." The government is gripped by "corrosive complacency." His co-author, General Sir Richard Barrons, was equally precise: the British Army can currently "seize a small market town on a good day."

That verdict comes from the men Starmer himself commissioned. But Robertson said something else, something quieter, that explains everything. The reason Starmer will not act, he told the Guardian, is that everybody is "worried about votes." Left and right. Reactions. The political situation. He said it almost as an aside. It should have been the headline.

The Defence Investment Plan was due last October. It has still not appeared. The military faces a funding gap of £28 billion over four years. Defence chiefs are meeting this week to discuss cuts of £3.5 billion. The Treasury, it is widely reported in Whitehall, is simply refusing to release money. Meanwhile the welfare budget runs at five times what Britain spends on defence.

Robertson's remedy is direct: the welfare budget must be reduced to fund the armed forces. Within hours, Diane Abbott was on cue. Cutting welfare to spend on armaments, she said, was "appalling." Labour would lose votes to the Greens. That was the authentic voice of the constraint Robertson was describing.

Starmer cannot cut welfare. A backbench rebellion of over a hundred Labour MPs killed his welfare reform bill last year. He cannot borrow more without alarming markets. He cannot raise taxes without another political crisis. So the system deadlocks. The review sits on a shelf. The investment plan drifts toward June, then perhaps beyond. And the men who wrote the review go public.

Those who follow my work will know I have written at length about Starmer's paralysis on Iran. The inability to act decisively in the Gulf, the refusal to name what is actually driving his hesitation. The answer, in both cases, is the same. Starmer leads a coalition held together by Muslim communities whose votes he cannot afford to lose and whose instincts run directly against any muscular projection of British power abroad. That constraint does not stop at the water's edge. The same electoral arithmetic is now preventing him funding the armed forces. It is not a coincidence. It is a governing philosophy. When survival of the parliamentary party conflicts with the national interest, the parliamentary party wins. Every time.

The government's response to Robertson was to say Britain's armed forces are "among the best in the world" and that Starmer is "determined" the investment plan will be fit for purpose. Determined. Not funded. Not scheduled. Determined.

General Barrons put the timeline plainly. At the current pace, Britain needs ten years to reach genuine war readiness. British intelligence, alongside allied assessments, gives Russia three to five years before it tests European resolve directly. That is the gap. That is what "corrosive complacency" means in operational terms.

Lord Hutton, another former Labour Defence Secretary, has called this the defining moment of Starmer's premiership. He is right, though not in the way he intends. The defining moment has already passed. Starmer has chosen. Faced with a direct conflict between what the defence of this country requires and what his backbenchers will tolerate, he has chosen the backbenchers.

Robertson said he believes his country is in danger. He said he had to speak out even though it would be uncomfortable. A sixty-year Labour loyalist broke with his own government because he concluded the alternative was worse. And he was right.

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@almurray is correct - like to be full of waffle and light on actions.

[Al Murray 🇺🇦 @almurray]

A year to decide not to do the thing you were never going to do

[Scott Wortley @Scott_Wortley]

Via https://t.co/ZzfdxVOAW8

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@RobNoLastName I look forward to seeing them.

In the other "big news" today there will be twats, you can guarantee it!

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@RobNoLastName Beginning to think I'm not a member of the right clubs!

Guessed that was the case, so gave you time.

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

Remember this from 2020? Read the room, it's over. Democracy has spoken. Go Starmer - literally, just go.

[Dave 🇬🇧💂🏼‍♂️⚔️🪖 @Dave1RO]

@YvetteCooperMP https://t.co/SDiFYKe1Zx

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

Hermer the soldier Harmer Just more lies

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

When the Lies Were Exposed, Hermer's Instinct Was to Attack the Soldiers.

On 19 April 2014, a document emerged at the Al-Sweady Inquiry that ended the case. A personnel list, written in Arabic, identified nine of Richard Hermer's Iraqi clients as members of the Office of the Martyr al-Sadr, another name for the Mahdi Army, the Iran-backed militia that had ambushed British soldiers at the Battle of Danny Boy a decade earlier. The clients had claimed to be innocent farmers and labourers caught in crossfire. The document proved they were armed insurgents. The inquiry, which had already cost thirty-one million pounds, was heading toward its inevitable conclusion. The following day, Hermer wrote an email.

He was not writing to the soldiers who had spent years under false accusation. He was not writing to Lance Corporal Brian Wood, who had won a Military Cross fighting the same insurgents his clients represented and who had been falsely branded a war criminal for his trouble. He was writing to comfort a junior solicitor at Leigh Day who had failed to recognise the significance of the document that had just destroyed their case.

He told her she was making an extraordinary contribution to securing justice for torture victims in Iraq. He told her her work had made a real difference to people's lives. Then he added that this was not something the lead counsel for the British soldiers, or his clients, could ever say.

The lead counsel for the British soldiers was Sir Neil Garnham, now a High Court judge. His clients were the men Hermer had spent years pursuing on false charges. At the moment those charges were collapsing under the weight of documentary evidence, Hermer's verdict was that the lawyers pursuing them had contributed more to society than the soldiers they had falsely accused.

Documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph show Hermer also described legitimate criticism from a former SAS officer and a Conservative MP as the military establishment venting after years of facing scrutiny over Iraq. Decorated soldiers and their advocates raising concerns about a case built on lies were, in Hermer's private assessment, simply letting off steam.

A further email shows him acknowledging it was inevitable that some of the Iraqi cases were going to collapse. He was not troubled by what that collapse revealed about the claims he had been advancing. He was concerned about its effect on the remaining civil cases and the likelihood of future settlements.

Then there is the Shiner question. In 2015, with Phil Shiner already under investigation by the solicitors' watchdog, Hermer described him publicly as having brought extraordinarily important cases and exposed systemic use of torture by the British Army. In a private email from the same period he called Shiner an arse. In 2019, after Shiner was struck off, Hermer described his conduct as an unforgivable act of dishonesty. Shiner was later convicted of fraud. The public position shifted with the political weather. The private view had always been different.

Hermer is now Attorney General. One of his primary functions is to advise on the legality of military operations. The man who decides whether British soldiers can lawfully act is the same man who, at the moment his false case against them collapsed, wrote that they had made less of a difference to people's lives than the lawyers pursuing them.

Brian Wood has called him clearly unfit to remain in post. A former head of the Army says his position is untenable. The Bar Standards Board has been asked to investigate. A leading Labour peer has called him an arrogant progressive fool. Starmer has said nothing. The machine keeps running.

"A personnel list, written in Arabic, identified nine of Richard Hermer's Iraqi clients as members of the Office of the Martyr al-Sadr, another name for the Mahdi Army"

[Andrew James @FreeNationTalk]

VAT on private school fees was sold as a policy on two grounds.

1) Taxpayers were “subsidising” private education of the wealthy.

2) The policy would raise £1.5 billion a year and fund 6,500 new teachers.

These were both lies, and have been proven to be so.

The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) suggests that the net cost to the economy of this crazy policy could reach as much as £1.58 billion.

In other words

1. Private schools were actually already subsidising state education.

2. Rather than filling the public purse with extra revenue this policy is sucking funds out of the public sector pot.

Once again, as with every major government policy, these people were elected on a raft of lies and invalidated assumptions.

[David Evans @DCEvans001]

@RobNoLastName Oi!

I spent 10yrs doing just this whilst working for the Queen.

"If you can't do your job pissed, you've not been trained properly" was our motto.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

In November 2023, a Palantir-led consortium was awarded a £330 million contract to run the NHS Federated Data Platform. It was awarded by the Conservative government. What happened next happened under Labour.

In April 2025, Chinese researchers were granted access to NHS Biobank data despite MI5 warnings that Chinese organisations could be ordered by intelligence agencies to work on Beijing's behalf. One in five successful applications for UK Biobank data came from China. BGI, a Chinese genetics company blacklisted by the United States for links to military programmes and the surveillance of ethnic minorities, was among those granted access. Health officials pressed ahead regardless.

Two days later, a former deputy head of MI6 warned publicly that China could use NHS data to develop a targeted bioweapon. MI5 had already warned that Chinese access to UK data posed direct national security risks. The government's response was to say it had strict security procedures in place.

In May 2025, Chinese state-linked hackers directly attacked University College Hospital and University Hospital Southampton in what intelligence firm EclecticIQ described as a credible espionage campaign linked to a Chinese intelligence gathering group operating across multiple countries.

In November 2025, former defence secretary Gavin Williamson wrote formally to Darren Jones warning that Chinese access to NHS data posed an immense risk and constituted a direct threat to national security. Britain, he said, was lagging behind its allies. The government did not act.

This week, the health data of half a million UK Biobank volunteers appeared for sale on Alibaba, listed by three Chinese research institutions. Researchers described it as the 198th known exposure of Biobank data since last summer.

The escalating pattern sits alongside connections the government has not explained. Palantir's NHS contract was facilitated in part by Global Counsel, the lobbying firm Peter Mandelson co-founded and in which he held a 24 percent stake. Global Counsel had Palantir as a registered client. The connection between Global Counsel and Palantir was reportedly absent from Mandelson's vetting as ambassador. On February 27 2025, Mandelson arranged an undeclared meeting between Starmer and Palantir executives in Washington with no minutes taken. Seven months later Palantir won a £240 million MoD contract without competitive tender.

Meanwhile Wes Streeting gave instructions in October 2024 to press ahead with transferring half a million GP records to Biobank despite objections from GPs and privacy campaigners, at precisely the moment Chinese access to that data was under active security service scrutiny.

Since Palantir was awarded the NHS contract in November 2023, the incidents have escalated significantly. Synnovis ransomware June 2024. Chinese state-linked hospital hacks May 2025. Repeated Biobank exposures throughout 2025. The Alibaba breach this week. Whether that escalation is connected to Palantir's expanding presence in NHS data infrastructure, or reflects other vulnerabilities being exploited simultaneously, is a question that has not been asked with sufficient rigour.

Why were MI5 warnings about Chinese access repeatedly overridden? Why did the government expand Chinese researchers' access to NHS data while being warned it posed a direct threat to national security? Why was the meeting between Starmer, Mandelson and Palantir not declared? And why did a company with a direct financial connection to the British ambassador win a three quarter of a billion pound defence contract without competition?

The warnings were formal, documented and delivered by serious people. They were ignored. The breaches escalated. And the connections between the decisions that enabled both have never been explained.

"Streeting gave instructions in October 2024 to press ahead with transferring half a million GP records to Biobank"

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Rape Gang Inquiry update.

Our team is currently going through our draft report to ensure that all is legally sound for publication.

The plan is straightforward.

I intend to use parliamentary privilege in the chamber to name a number of the worst perpetrators/officials who we believe have escaped justice.

We will then use private prosecutions to pursue those individuals through the courts, and eventually put them in prison.

These are incredibly dangerous scumbags. It is an national network of organised crime - it is not simply disparate gangs. This is a comprehensive criminal network that is capable of the most evil acts.

I will be informing the police, parliamentary security and the Home Office beforehand of who I intend to name and why - I also now have private security for the first time in my life.

But do not underestimate the danger of these networks. It is organised crime of the very worst kind.

We started this inquiry not to just talk, but to act.

The report will be published after the elections as I want this to be a cross-party effort, and party politics should not interfere with any of our activity.

Numerous Conservative MPs have been supportive, as have the Northern Irish and even a Labour MP attending the hearings. I want this to go beyond petty party politics.

We still have a significant amount of money from the crowdfunder, and that is ready to privately prosecute.

This is where we are. This is the plan.

Thank you to everybody for your support.