Farrukh

Content Creator 🤓
Photo Video & Drone Pilot 🎥
Entrepreneur & Tech Geek 🤖
Food Judge 😋
And now news as frustrated 👀
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[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Good morning, opening with the Eurofighter, Fursan Al Emarat and a Chinook at #FIA2026

We fly into the show with Blade, meet Joby's test pilot Buddy, chat to a Black Hawk pilot encouraging girls into STEM, and test Soundcore's ANC earbuds with the very loud air display ✈️🚁

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

@ChillaxBcn Contributing her fair share to controversy.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Laura Kuenssberg asks if the UK can rejoin the EU without Freedom of Movement

Michel Barnier points out that you can't cherry pick parts of the European Union

My view:

Why is freedom of movement so often discussed as something Britain must escape, rather than something British people could regain?

Living, working, studying or retiring across the EU means more choices for our own citizens. Why treat that as an unfortunate price of membership?

Those rights are reciprocal, with conditions governing residence. Europeans could build lives here, just as British people could build lives there. There are legitimate questions about housing, public services and investment, but politicians should explain how they would manage those pressures alongside the opportunities.

Barnier’s point about cherry-picking should hardly be surprising by now. Free movement is a founding part of the single market. An honest debate should explain the whole arrangement—and give the freedoms British people lost the same attention as the obligations membership brings.

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

"Now you get all the Labour MPs saying.. Abdul El-Sayed is so good. You would have 100% blocked him"

Yep! @michaeljswalker remembers how El-Sayed was in the UK in 2019 campaigning for Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen. Who was subsequently blocked by the Labour right leadership.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

@algingersmith That's probably why he blocked me a while ago.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Simon Schama, "The last war in particular was genuinely a struggle between good and evil"

"The whole world would be in a incontrovertibly different place, had those sacrifices not been made"

My view:

The evil of Nazism was written into its purpose: racial supremacy, conquest and the extermination of entire peoples. Defeating it was essential to preserving the possibility of a world in which your ancestry did not determine your right to live.

That victory belonged to people of many nations, faiths and colours: soldiers from across the British Empire, Soviet forces, American troops, resistance fighters and civilians who risked everything to protect their neighbours.

Remembering their courage also means recognising that many fought for freedoms they were themselves denied under colonial rule.

The responsibility of remembrance reaches beyond gratitude. It means challenging the dehumanisation of minorities, the normalisation of racial hatred and the promise that a nation can be restored by persecuting others.

Honouring those who defeated fascism requires us to recognise and resist its ideas today.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Left: Nigel Farage lays a wreath at the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day

Right: One of the 34 boys at Dulwich college accusing Nigel Farage of racism, Peter Ettedgui, "Farage repeatedly coming up to me and knowing that I am Jewish saying 'Hitler was right' and 'gas them' which was frequently followed by a hissing sound of escaping gas"

My view:

Something is deeply broken in our democracy when allegations of repeated racist and antisemitic abuse can remain unresolved while the politician accused takes his place among those representing the nation at the Cenotaph.

Peter Ettedgui alleges that Nigel Farage repeatedly targeted him with antisemitic taunts invoking Hitler and the gas chambers. Farage denies the allegations. But political prominence should bring greater scrutiny and accountability, rather than allowing questions of this gravity to fade into the background.

If Ettedgui’s account is true, the contradiction is appalling: someone who allegedly mocked the victims of Nazism now publicly honours those who fought against it. The passage of time cannot, by itself, resolve that contradiction.

Remembering the fallen must mean carrying their lessons into our politics. When we honour the fight against fascism while treating allegations of antisemitic hatred as an inconvenience, we risk reducing remembrance to a ceremony whose moral meaning we refuse to uphold.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Theo Paphitis, "Clearly President Trump has some form of illness or dementia because he's acting like a madman"

"He's a sex offender. He's a convicted felon"

"He's a protector of the pedophile ring of Jeffrey Epstein"

"He's bankrupted companies"

"How the hell did this man get voted in as the President of the strongest nation in the world"

My view:

Paphitis’s disbelief is understandable. A man convicted on 34 felony counts, found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, and associated with repeated corporate bankruptcies was nevertheless returned to the presidency.

Those facts alone demand a serious discussion about political accountability.

Winning an election gives someone the authority to govern. It does not erase their record, establish their integrity or oblige the public to stop challenging them.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Laura Kuenssberg, "You did once say there is a Nigel Farage in every country, do you gave a reflection on how his style of politics has had a lot of success?"

Michel Barnier, "We have our own Farage, Le Pen: the same populism, the same lies, the same false promises. We have to be careful"

Laura Kuenssberg, "So there are lies and false promises from Nigel Farage?"

Michel Barnier, "Yes it's clear"

Laura Kuenssberg, "On which issue?"

Michel Barnier, "Farage and Johnson promised the UK people to get £350m a week, it was not true, it was a lie"

Laura Kuenssberg, "How does the EU feel about dealing with Nigel Farage"

Michel Barnier, "I don't know what could happen in British domestic politics, it will be the choice of the UK people"

My view:

Electoral success does not turn false promises into facts. The question is why politicians who sell simple answers to complicated problems keep being judged on their ability to attract support, rather than whether their promises withstand scrutiny.

Barnier’s example needs one distinction: the £350 million slogan belonged to Johnson’s Vote Leave campaign. Farage called it a mistake the morning after the referendum. The claim was misleading because it ignored Britain’s rebate and money returning from the EU. Accuracy matters when challenging misinformation.

But the wider question remains: where is the accountability for what Brexit’s leading advocates promised, and what Britain actually got? Winning the argument at the ballot box should increase the scrutiny of those promises, not bring it to an end.

Barnier also recognises that Britain’s political future belongs to British voters. Respecting that sovereignty includes our right to scrutinise Brexit, challenge its champions and choose a different direction.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Laura Kuenssberg, "Would it be possible to go back in without years of negotiations"

Michel Barnier, "Leaving the EU meant the UK left 600 international agreements"

"It would be more rapid to rejoin because during the time there hasn't be as much divergence between UK and EU regulation"

My view:

“Would it take years?” is a reasonable question. But so is: how many more years should Britain spend accepting the costs of Brexit because reversing course would take time?

Barnier identifies a practical advantage: Britain’s regulations have not diverged so far from the EU’s that everything would need to be built from scratch. That doesn’t guarantee a quick accession, but it challenges the assumption that rejoining must be an impossibly prolonged process.

His point about 600 international agreements also exposes how much complexity leaving created. Brexit was sold as liberation from bureaucracy; rebuilding the relationships it dismantled is now presented as too much administrative trouble.

A government with ambition would investigate the terms, establish a credible timetable and explain the benefits. The time needed to achieve something worthwhile should inform the plan, not become a permanent excuse for doing nothing.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Laura Kuenssberg, "How much money the UK would have to repay in order to rejoin"

What she doesn't ask is how much money they UK would gain by rejoining the EU

My view:

Laura Kuenssberg asks what Britain would have to pay to rejoin the EU. Where is the equally important question: how much additional tax revenue could the Treasury collect from the resulting economic growth?

The sums deserve serious attention. Bloomberg Economics estimates Brexit costs Britain around £30 billion a year in forgone tax revenue. Commons Library calculations reported by the Liberal Democrats put the potential annual shortfall at £65–£90 billion, using higher estimates of Brexit’s economic damage.

That means income tax, National Insurance, corporation tax and VAT—money available for public services, investment or reducing borrowing. Rejoining would not automatically recover every pound, and membership contributions would have to be included. But examining the bill while ignoring the potential revenue gives viewers half the calculation.

Tens of billions annually can become hundreds of billions over several years. The honest question is how much Britain could recover, how quickly, and what the net benefit would be.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

@lawlecturer Sorry, but it was a disaster in 2023 just as much as it is today.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Michel Barnier, "The door is open, it will the sovereign choice of the UK (to rejoin the EU), as it was the sovereign choice for the UK to have Brexit itself"

"We have so many ways of acting together, to increase the co-operation between the UK and the EU, and in the current world which is unstable, being together makes us all stronger"

My view:

Barnier offers the clarity Lisa Nandy couldn’t: Britain can choose to seek EU membership again. Accession would require agreement from EU members, but deciding whether to make that case is a matter of political will.

Nobody pretends rejoining would simply restore our old terms or resolve every domestic problem. But voters deserve an honest discussion about what closer integration could deliver, what obligations it would involve, and whether it would improve their lives.

The referendum was an exercise in democracy, not an instruction to stop thinking forever. Britain is entitled to assess the results, reconsider its direction and choose a different future. With the door open, we need politicians willing to make a case for walking through it.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Laura Kuenssberg, "Do you want to go back into the EU?"

Lisa Nandy, "I don't know if that's a choice that we have"

My view:

I appreciate that Andy Burnham has only just opened this conversation. But Lisa Nandy’s inability to say whether she even wants Britain back in the EU is deeply disappointing. Where is the conviction, the ambition, the willingness to make a case?

It reflects a familiar wishy-washy approach: acknowledge a problem, then drift. She quit Twitter citing abuse and misinformation; now, with responsibility for online safety, the public needs to see how she will confront those problems for everyone still facing them. Leaving a platform is a personal decision. Making it safer requires political leadership.

Ministers should help shape public opinion, not simply follow its currents. If Brexit’s promised benefits haven’t materialised, explain what direction Britain should take and argue for it. The country needs the urgency of a cheetah; Nandy gives us the political equivalent of a penguin waddling along.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Lisa Nandy, "We left the EU ten years ago, with the promise of benefits from Brexit, most of those have not been realised"

"One of the strongest reasons people chose to leave was that the benefits of being in the EU were felt by people across the country"

My view:

If the benefits of EU membership weren’t reaching every community, that was an argument for distributing prosperity more fairly. How was leaving supposed to fix the decisions British governments made about investment, housing, wages and public services?

Nandy now acknowledges that most of Brexit’s promised benefits haven’t materialised. Yet in May she dismissed reopening the question of EU membership as a “world away” from what people wanted. People deserve a debate about whether the policy works, rather than politicians deciding which answers they’re allowed to consider.

Nobody should pretend Britain before the referendum was working for everyone. But the test is whether leaving helped solve those problems. When the promised benefits fail to arrive, acknowledging that failure should be the beginning of changing course.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Tax relief only helps you save money you can afford to put aside. Low wages, years spent caring, illness and insecure work are hardly evidence of personal irresponsibility. The OECD says UK private pension tax incentives disproportionately benefit higher earners.

DWP figures show 3.1 million people claiming Universal Credit in Great Britain were in work in April 2026 — 37.7% of all claimants. That includes employment and self-employment; it isn’t a count of full-time workers alone.

When someone needs state support to meet everyday costs despite working, where exactly is the spare money for substantial private pension savings supposed to come from? For those already working full time, “save more” does nothing to address the gap between wages and living costs.

The State Pension is an entitlement based on National Insurance contributions and credits, including recognition of caring responsibilities. Dismissing people who rely on it as having “failed to prepare” ignores both that entitlement and the financial constraints people face throughout their working lives.

And better pensions don’t automatically require more borrowing: taxation and spending priorities are political choices. We can debate affordability without treating poverty in old age as a deserved punishment. Today’s grandchildren will need a decent pension system too.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Gent in purple, "State pensioners who have contributed their whole lives are on a lot less than minimum wage"

"I'm very lucky to have a small German pension, and believe me, it's a lot more than what we pay in this country"

"Most of western Europe their pensions are much higher than the state pension in this country"

"I'm lucky I get a pension from the military"

"But people on the basic state pension, I reall feel sorry for them"

My view:

The full new State Pension is roughly £12,548 a year.

Someone working 37.5 hours a week on the £12.71 minimum wage earns about £24,785 before tax.

That puts the full new State Pension at barely half a full-time minimum-wage salary.

Government figures show that 12% of pensioner families received their income entirely from the State Pension and other state benefits in 2024/25.

That same year, around 1.7 million pensioners — one in seven — were living in relative poverty after housing costs.

A better pension means being able to heat your home, eat properly and see friends without calculating what you’ll have to go without afterwards.

It also means money spent in the communities where pensioners live.

After a lifetime of working, caring and contributing, financial security should be something people can expect.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

In January 2023, Lisa Nandy described reversing Brexit as "a fantasy."

Meanwhile here's Lisa Nandy making the case to do just that, by promoting Erasmus+

Don't get me wrong, I like that Erasmus+ is going ahead, I just find it a bit odd how politicians can flip from one position to another so quickly.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Theo Paphitis, "We've forgotten why NATO exists, we've forgotten the hardships that happened during tragic times, and we are on the cusp of something that could emulate what happened beforehand"

"The more we remember, the more we remember how horrific war can be, the better our chance of stopping it"

My view:

TP is right, it certainly seems to be getting worse than before.

But sadly, we forgot a long time ago. Korea, Vietnam, the Iran–Iraq war, the Balkan wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Since 1945, successive generations have endured the killing, displacement and destruction that remembrance was supposed to teach us to prevent.

For millions, these horrors are happening now. Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo deserve far more sustained attention. So do the Rohingya, driven from their homes in Myanmar and still denied safety and justice. Being pushed out of the headlines does not make their suffering any less urgent.

And what does remembrance mean when governments rightly condemn Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians, yet offer excuses, diplomatic protection or silence over Israel’s devastation of Gaza? Amnesty International has explicitly challenged these double standards. The principles invoked to defend Ukrainians must protect Palestinians too.

A Palestinian child’s life is worth as much as a Ukrainian child’s, a Sudanese child’s or an Israeli child’s. Human rights cannot depend on whether the perpetrator is an ally, whether the victims look like us, or whether their suffering is politically convenient.

Remembering the dead demands something of us towards the living. If we bow our heads for yesterday’s victims while excusing atrocities against today’s, we have remembered the ceremony and abandoned the lesson.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

@_knoxfox_ @LucasSa56947288 👏

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

@England 👏

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Sounds like a sensible plan.

[Peter Stefanovic @PeterStefanovi2]

Closer ties with EU would boost UK economic growth, Bank of England governor says

https://t.co/pCz96dRqlR