Gary Spellins

Dad, Traveller, Pilot, GRCC member. Love politics and wine (preferably together)

[The Ricky Gervais Clips @gervaisclips]

Let’s give the British people what they want.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

Remarkably, this was posted exactly two years ago today.

[Geoff Norcott @GeoffNorcott]

I have never enjoyed historic tweets which embarrass public figures and I am not going to start now 2/3

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

But you can’t use social media until you’re 16.

[Andrew Lawrence @andrewlawrence]

By far the shittest production of 'The Wizard of Oz' ever attempted.

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

Where is the outrage for the women in Iran & Afghanistan?

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Just to remind these same folk:
You’ve not lifted 1/2m kids out of poverty. You’ve just moved them over a bureaucratic line on a Whitehall spreadsheet.
Your ‘workers rights’ are destroying entry-level jobs, hitting young people disproportionately, where unemployment is now over 16%.
You have not transformed the NHS. It’s still the same old wheezing leviathan, just with a lot more dosh and still dismal productivity.
And you’ve nationalised steel and rail before. It was not the prelude to an economic or industrial miracle. Plus you will now have to include their demands for capital/subsidies among all the other priorities already crowding in on the public purse.
Other than that your reminder was useful. Thank you.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

A welcoming present just out this morning for a Mr A Burnham to underline just how limited his latitude as PM will be:
The UK government borrowed £23.3 billion last month, 30 per cent or £5.4 billion higher than a year earlier.
It was also more than the £18.8 billion expected by most economists and the £17.7 billion forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s independent fiscal watchdog.
 The interest payable on government debt rose to £11.7 billion, the highest ever recorded in any May.

[Gary Spellins @GarySpellins]

@afneil 😂

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

You’ve listed the make up of the ‘counterfactual’ against which actual UK performance is being compared: 61% US, 11% Estonia, 10% Greece, 7% Italy. That alone should have made you realise the study’s not worth the paper it’s written on. What on earth makes you think that a proper comparison — 61% America, which has way outperformed all major European economies??!! It’s almost as if the counterfactual was specifically chosen to make UK look bad.

[Edwina Currie @Edwina_Currie]

Well, Zarah, you didn’t go to a local comprehensive.
You went to a highly selective grammar school for girls.
And we all paid for that, too.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

He bought that long before he became a trillionaire. How would you have stopped him from buying it? It’s not a monopoly. And the world is awash in toxic social media NOT owned by Musk.

[Richard Williams @williams_rje]

@AlistairCarns had a distinguished military career. It is damning that Benn, Starmer, Hermer, Reeves and others would not listen to him on lawfare, the Northern Ireland Bill, on defence transformation or on financial resources; and all credit to this RM veteran for stepping into the breach and his resignation on principle.

His dynamite resignation, on the back of the Healey exit represents the necessary detonation of a political bomb under UK defence; highlighting how screwed up it all really is, how badly Starmer is lying to the country, and how totally irresponsible is this @UKLabour government.

Carns is very right on the big things, the MoD and the “centre” are not facing reality on the changing technologies of war, they are not getting the resources they need and they are not defending veterans from lawfare. On this latter and vital point, this is led and encouraged by the UK’s own Attorney General as chief back-stabber.

For this, Hermer should be the next to go. And by the way, don’t expect much from the Starmer-loyalist, ex-Para Jarvis….not every Politician has the guts to do what Carns and Healey have just done…

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is an outrageous, disgraceful smear on John Healey — and an outright lie. There are a ton of ways to finance more for defence — starting with net zero — without taking a penny from schools or hospitals. Reeves should be ashamed of herself for allowing this nonsense. Suggests she’s really desperate.

[Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306]

My pinned tweet explains the background to Healey resignation.
We got real numbers in 2020 for first time in ~20 years.
Since then everything reverted to fake.
Thanks to Trolley & Wally, they let HMT and MoD shovel cash into things they KNEW were broken, like AJAX, and scuppered funding the future (e.g drones, robotics, AI, cloud).
The nuclear weapons supply chain is a multi-billion multi-decade fiasco and reinforces fake budgets.
MoD & CO used UKR war to prop up the lies and disasters, not to fix them. Trolley, Sunak and Starmer all went along with: classify, punt, spin fake budgets.
All these chickens are coming home to roost.
The DIP is a disaster because it combines: a/ continuing to fund old things which shd be scrapped but senior people's careers rest on lying about, b/ failure to fund the future, c/ more dodgy accounts, d/ classified nuke shitshow, which forces lies/cannibalisation of conventional, and e/ continued failure to change procurement and long term budgets despite covid and UKR.
Ive said this 100 times for years.
Also relevant to resignation --
In 2020, I got the PM & CHX to agree to take the next gen fighter AWAY from HMT and MoD. (FOI the doc screenshotted below!)
They were using a bogus 'above STRAP 3 study' to claim that AI would be irrelevant to future fighters in 2045. This 'top secret' study was written *before* DeepMind was created!!
We agreed to take away the next gen fighter/drones from MoD/HMT and put them into a new civilian project with huge commercial development of drones/robotics/AI, with procurement and budgets done totally outside normal system (like vaccines, ARPA etc).
After I left this was u-turned along with shredding all the true budget numbers.
The MoD and HMT proceeded with the usual procurement with BaE.
This has now blown up *as it was obvious it would SIX YEARS ago'.
HMT is refusing to fund it because the MoD is a corrupt shambles.
And MoD is knackered by the HMT's insane budget processes and insane procurement.
HMT and MoD have reasonable complaints about each other. 'Everyone's right and everyone's unhappy'.
The only way out is the Vote Leave plan and No10 smashing heads together with the full authority of the PM, as in the secret process of 2020. It cannot be left to 'normal processes'. Senior people must be forced to tell the truth 'or you're fired'. We did this. It works!
The MPs refuse to engage. The MPs on defence committee say they cannot ask officials re the 2020 process because 'they'll just refuse to answer'.
But our enemies know everything everything I say is true!
It is impossible for dud Starmer to solve these problems.
It is good timing that Burnham will soon take over and could draw a line under decades of Tory failure and set out a new path...
But there will be HUGE pressure from the old system, in HMT and MoD, to patch everythign up with more lies, spin, fake accounts, and massive classification...
Maybe some MPs could finally pay attention to these issues and resolve to stop constant lies, please!
Our security, prosperity and critical technologies are at stake and the old parties and old Whitehall are pathological!
NB. In 2020 we also bought LEO satellites. SW1 laughed. Starlink has been critical in UKR. Whitehall sold off the satellites!
NB. In March 2022 when the UKR disaster started I wrote: 'Prediction: 1) lessons from UKR will overwhelmingly support the arguments of those who in 2020 argued for radical MoD changes (including taking money from old tank projects that everybody privately admitted were a multi-billion pound disaster) and 2) the correct criticism of the review and connected documents will be seen as a) they did not go nearly far enough, b) the collapse of No10 follow through on defence reform in 2021 was — like the collapse of 2020 plans for planning reform, tax cuts, deregulation, Project Speed, intense focus on R&D and skills etc — a disaster for the country (and a political disaster for the Tory Party).'
NB. Special Forces who have observed the drone wars in UKR have told the senior MoD repeatedly that the mega expensive things they want to plough cash into in the DIP will get VAPOURISED in a real war by cheap drones! The SF are told to shut up and not give HMT a chance to cut the budgets!
I know it's psychologically extremely hard for SW1 but Vote Leave worked with the deep state on this in 2020 and we were right on all the big things.
The disastrous old processes have now blown up with unprecedented resignation over these exact issues.
6 years have been wasted. Tens of billions have been wasted. Lives lost. Talent resigned.. Opportunities to lead squandered...
All over Whitehall are officials involved in 2020 who know what I say is true, the MPs and hacks should finally get the details into the public...

Maybe SW1 could update its mental models?!

Ps. if you're a hack still getting Ciaran 'AI is fake, PRC infiltration is overrated' Martin to comment on tech, you're as dud as Starmer

[Gary Spellins @GarySpellins]

@leicesterliz Precisely what is illegal about sharing a video as long as it’s not endorsing a call to action or violence. Whilst I personally don’t support sharing a video I can’t see what could be illegal. I look forward to reading the legislation

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

While we still wait on Labour government defence spending plans (the Defence Investment Plan — DIP) to finance last year’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), let’s keep in mind these salient points when it eventually appears:
1. The current £28 billion shortfall in defence spending over the next four years has nothing to do with implementing the SDR. The £28 billion is simply what’s needed to meet current defence commitments/plans.
2. So funding for SDR would have to be on top of the £28 billion — which would mean tens of billions more over the next five or so years into the early 2030s.
3. The extra money now being floated as what the government is likely to announce — £13.5 billion over four years — wouldn’t even cover half the shortfall never mind produce a penny for the SDR. It’s a pittance compared with what’s required.
4. We currently spend 2.4% GDP on defence (and even that is boosted by some statistical sleights of hand). The only current concrete plan is to go to 2.5/6% in the next financial year. Now the Treasury is saying it doesn’t even want to set 3% as a target before 2034/35 — by which time if Reeves-Starmer-Treasury have their way we will be a minor player in military matters.
5 This government is dishonest the best of times. I fear we’re about to discover that when it comes to the defence of the realm — its primary duty as a government — it is a serial liar.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

We are not subject to the four massive regulatory acts/controls Brussels has passed since 2020 which have stymied AI in the EU.
WE have combined lighter regulation with a financial environment conducive to venture capital — more VC investment in UK last year than four biggest EU VC markets combined.
That’s why we’re three in the world in AI (behind China/America, which are in a league of their own) and the EU is nowhere.
Best you educate yourself in such matters before concluding if you’re convinced or unconvinced.
I hope this helps.

[Gary Spellins @GarySpellins]

@peterkyle @BBCSimonJack Always remember you’re spending taxpayers money - the governments track record in investing in private companies is very poor and it has been proven to get regularly ripped off by shiny new things (carbon capture …) - leave it to the private sector, we know what we are doing.

[Imtiaz Mahmood @ImtiazMadmood]

Two days after Henry died Hampshire Police secretly recorded Digwa in a police van speaking Punjabi to his brother. Digwa admitted stabbing Henry. Discussed claiming self defence. Made zero mention of racial abuse. Not one word.

Hampshire Police had that tape.

They knew Digwa was lying about the racist attack. They had the evidence. They had his own words and then tried to smear Henry as the aggressor anyway.

Three days after his death their statement read “it was reported two men had been assaulted by an unknown man.” Henry was the unknown man. The boy bleeding out on the street. They flipped it.

Family complained. Statement changed. Then police told the family their NEXT update would again infer Henry was the initial aggressor. His family had to fight them a second time. While grieving their murdered son.

Then during the trial Hampshire tried to issue a statement telling the public to stop talking about it online. Calling it disinformation. The CPS had to step in. Told them they were about to collapse their own murder case.

This is the force that handcuffed a dying boy. Missed the murder weapon twice. Had a secret tape proving the killer lied. And still tried to bury Henry's name.

That's not incompetence. That's a machine protecting itself. At the expense of a dead boy's reputation and three officers are still on active duty. Not suspended. Treated as witnesses. To their own actions.

Hampshire Police didn't just fail Henry on that street. They kept failing him for six months after he died.

- @Banksycat