John MacBrayne

STH North stand lower 103. Ya Voy

[Declassified UK @declassifiedUK]

Richard Tice said a debate on Israeli influence on UK politics was “antisemitic in its very motivation”

What he didn’t tell MPs was that he had been on a trip to “the Gaza front line” last September funded by the newly-created Reform Friends of Israel

https://t.co/GS4gOabc5L

[The National @ScotNational]

LATEST: The UK Government has refused to comment on the findings of a French government report stating that an Israeli firm attempted to meddle in the Scottish parliament elections

[Jimmy Jungas @JimmyJungas]

Brilliant article.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Just met a Reform UK voting couple who didn't know it opposed:

Rise in minimum wage
End of two-child benefit cap
Expansion of free school meals, free breakfast clubs
Help with school uniforms

Horrified that they would lose big from Reform

How many others voted without knowing?

[Ross Greer @Ross_Greer]

Polls are open!

There's just 1% between the @scottishgreens and Reform UK - use your regional (peach coloured) ballot to stop Farage & Offord in their tracks AND to ensure a pro-independence majority.

Let's demand better - Vote Scottish Greens 💚🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🗳️

[penelopepitstop ( blue tick) @BlondeKbf]

650 MPs are getting the following government benefits-
Free rent
Free council tax
Free utilities
Free childcare
Free travel
Free fuel
Free insurance
And more!
On top of almost £100k salary!
All paid by working tax payers!
But hey let’s go after pensioners

[John MacBrayne @john_macbrayne]

@HereCelts @Oa3Michael They black ball Michael Stewart for calling out that crap😂

[Diane Abbott @HackneyAbbott]

Once again, Tony Blair is wrong and advocates to make ordinary people worse off.
Britain has one of the lowest effective state pension entitlements in the whole of Europe.

Tony Blair's thinktank urges scrapping of state pension triple-lock
https://t.co/ipQ9PuGNUl

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

BREAKING: The Israeli naval vessel that abducted the 180 Sumud Flotilla crews off the coast of Crete (an act of piracy and a gross violation of the Law of the Sea) is intend on victimising two of them: Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish citizen of Palestinian origin, and Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian citizen who has distinguished himself with repeated attempts to break the illegal, genocidal, Israeli blockage of Gaza.

Unlike the remaining abducted members of the Sumud Flotilla crew, which the Israeli navy disembarked in Crete, Saif and Thiago are detained and bound for an Israeli prison. This is a double violation of International Law: First, Israel abducted them illegally at sea. Second, Israel is now transporting them, violently, illegally, to one of its notorious prisons.

Meanwhile, the Greek government is cooperating fully in Israel’s criminal behaviour, effectively surrendering its search and rescue obligations and conniving with Israel to victimise the brave crews of the Sumud Flotilla who are steadfastly, through their activism, defending International Law as well as the verdict of the International Court of Justice which has clearly and unequivocally declared Israel’s continued naval blockade of Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal.

Through their complicity and their silence, the Greek government, the European Union, the mainstream media, the West more generally, are flouting, indeed they are trashing, their supposed, much publicised, ‘Western values’. Let us all demand:

· The immediate release of Saif and Thiago
· An end to Israel’s criminal behaviour in international waters
· The termination of Israel’s illegal Gaza blockade
· That the Greek government and the European Union cease and desist from lending logistical and moral support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ethnic cleansing campaigns in E. Jerusalem and the West Bank

[jbceltic @jbceltic7604]

Rangers fans Tav was here for 55,,, me Tav was here for. 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55.🍀🤣

[John MacBrayne @john_macbrayne]

INCREDIBLE Bernard Ponsonby Speech AGAINST Dermott Desmond & The Celtic ... https://t.co/GHx4mfwSj4 via @YouTube

[David Maddox @DavidPBMaddox]

I knew that Mandelson failed security vetting. So why didn’t Keir Starmer?
@Independent

https://t.co/WVfblWGnEL

[Republic @RepublicStaff]

🚨🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Activists have replaced posters for the Elizabeth II exhibition in London with posters asking 'What did she know?' about allegations against Andrew. #AbolishTheMonarchy #Epstein #QueenElizabethII

[Grouse Beater @Grouse_Beater]

BBC

The audience organiser watches the visitors, but who watches the employee that chooses audience members?

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

The British government has wasted more money on failed projects than some countries spend building their entire infrastructure.

After hearing about the cancellation of the Stonehenge Tunnel project, yet it still racking up £179 million in cost, I wanted to look at other projects and costs to see what the picture looks like this century.

Every number here comes from official reports, the National Audit Office, parliamentary committees, and ministers' own admissions.

Let me show you where your money has gone.

HS2 was sold to the country as a £37.5 billion high speed rail network connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. The first phase was supposed to open this year. In 2026.

Here's where it actually is.

After six years of construction and £46 billion spent, tunnels have been bored, earth has been moved, viaducts have been built. But there is no railway. Not a single metre of track. The legs to Manchester and Leeds have been cancelled entirely. What's left is a line from London to Birmingham with no confirmed opening date, no confirmed final cost, and estimates so unstable that Parliament's own Public Accounts Committee has warned the cash cost of Phase 1 alone could reach £80 billion. Some industry forecasts put it above £100 billion.

The Transport Secretary stood in Parliament last year and called it "an appalling mess." She said billions had been wasted on scope changes, ineffective contracts, and bad management. Fraud allegations have since emerged in the supply chain.

Three times the original price. A fraction of what was promised. And still years from completion.

But HS2 is just one example.

The NHS National Programme for IT was supposed to create a unified electronic health record for every patient in England. Launched in 2002 with a budget of £6 billion. Abandoned in 2011 with the Public Accounts Committee putting the expected cost at £12.4 billion. It delivered a fraction of its promised benefits. Only 13 out of 169 hospital trusts received the systems they were meant to get. Then one of the contractors sued the government and won a settlement of nearly half a billion pounds. On top.

During Covid, the government threw billions out the door with almost no checks. The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner's final report, published December 2025, found that fraud and error across pandemic support schemes cost taxpayers £10.9 billion. How much has been recovered? £1.8 billion. The Commissioner's words, not mine. The previous government "left the front door open to fraud." Bounce Back Loans were rolled out in under two weeks with no independent verification. PPE contracts were handed to companies with no track record. Defective gowns, masks, and visors weren't inspected for two years. By the time anyone checked, the money was gone.

Universal Credit was supposed to simplify the benefits system. The original programme was budgeted at around £2 billion. The National Audit Office has flagged massive overruns repeatedly as the project ballooned in scope and complexity. Total costs have run many times higher than planned. Nobody was fired.

The smart meter rollout was supposed to be finished by 2020. It wasn't. Costs have hit £13.5 billion. The programme has been dogged by meters losing functionality, missed deadlines, and a failure to deliver the energy savings that justified the whole thing in the first place.

One many of you will be familiar with. The Post Office spent £600 million on a computer system called Horizon. It was fundamentally flawed. Its defects led to more than 900 wrongful convictions. Sub-postmasters lost their homes. Their businesses. Their families. At least 13 people took their own lives. Compensation has now reached £1.4 billion and is expected to hit £2 billion. Fujitsu, the company that built the system, has not paid a single penny toward that bill. It is still collecting government contracts.

The Fire Control project. £469 million. Seven years. An attempt to modernise fire service control rooms. Scrapped. Nothing delivered. What a waste.

The electronic tagging programme. Five years late. Tens of millions spent. Abandoned. They ended up buying off the shelf tags that could have been bought for a fraction of the price years earlier.

The Garden Bridge. £53 million of public money. Not a single piece was built. You might ask what £53 million was spent on exactly.

The Rwanda deportation scheme. £715 million. Four people went voluntarily. Not a single forced deportation was carried out. Then the whole thing was scrapped.

Now here's the part that ties it all together.

In 2019, the Prime Minister's own Implementation Unit looked at the government's £432 billion portfolio of major projects. Only 8% had proper plans to evaluate whether they were working. 64% of that spending, £276 billion, had no evaluation at all. None. The government was spending hundreds of billions of your money with no way of knowing if any of it was delivering.

The National Audit Office has said there has been a "consistent pattern of underperformance" spanning 25 years. Twenty five years of reports saying the same thing. And nothing changes.

Add it up. HS2 overruns. NHS IT written off. £10.9 billion in Covid fraud. Universal Credit ballooning. Smart meters over budget. Post Office compensation approaching £2 billion. Fire Control. Rwanda. Garden Bridge. Tagging. And those are just the ones that made the news. The total runs into the tens of billions. More than the entire annual education budget. Approaching what the government now spends on debt interest in a single year.

And here's the scary part. This is only what we know about. The NAO has been clear the real picture is worse because most projects aren't properly evaluated in the first place. These are the failures too big to hide. Imagine the ones that aren't.

This is the same government that says there's no money for public services. That raises your taxes every year and delivers less every year. That can't build a railway. Can't roll out a computer system. Can't buy protective equipment without losing billions to fraud.

And every time it happens, the pattern is the same. The project fails. The minister moves on. The civil servant gets a knighthood. The contractor gets the next contract. And you pick up the bill.

The UK doesn't have a funding problem. It has a competence problem. And until that changes, no amount of tax rises, borrowing, or spending reviews will make the slightest difference.

[The National @ScotNational]

BREAKING: Nigel Farage has been heckled in Shetland and branded a 'scrounger'

The Reform UK leader is expected to be leaving the islands on his private plane later today

[Together @Togetherdec]

Digital ID has not gone away - on Sat 25 April, join us to call for it to be SCRAPPED with rallies in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Return your unwanted Reform UK flyers to this address and it costs them £2.50 a pop.

Pop this address on an envelope with the flyer in, and pop it in a post box!

The more we return, the less they will send!

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

Massive scandal brewing: Lord Mandelson facilitated a meeting between the PM and the CEO of Palantir. Shortly after, the government signed a 250 million pound defense deal with Palantir, a client of Mandelson's lobbying firm. Absolute corruption.

[Shen Shiwei 沈诗伟 @shen_shiwei]

I have a very simple question: Why doesn't🇺🇸the U.S. ask its newly formed #BoardOfPeace for help and send troops to the #StraitsofHormuz?🤔🤔🤔