Astro Martin

daughters x 2 wife x 1 triathlete x sometimes

[Alan Smith @AlanJLSmith]

The government forecast private school numbers would drop 6% after VAT was added to fees.

Now, the data from Scotland shows secondary schools registrations have fallen 15% - numbers from the rest of the UK will be similar.

Far from raising money, the policy looks like it will cost the taxpayer millions.

Meantime in Europe, parents get a tax break for using private schools - as they’re saving the state the cost of funding.

Another poorly thought through policy.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Rachel Reeves promised that she wouldn’t raise taxes again.

Later this month, she’s going to break that promise, and blame everyone else but herself.

There is an alternative: cut spending and lower taxes.

[Peter Stefanovic @PeterStefanovi2]

I suspect this clip will be played a lot in the coming weeks

[David Frost @DavidGHFrost]

Good reshuffles symbolise a new message with new people.

This, in contrast, is more a rotation than a reshuffle. Same people, in different jobs, to which they are generally even less suited than before.

Hard to see why Starmer thinks this would change perceptions of his govt.

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

Time to go @AngelaRayner.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

‘Tough on Tax’ Starmer Embarrassed by Rayner’s Stamp Duty Underpayment https://t.co/L8FE6cEmj0

[David Starkey @DrDStarkeyCBE]

Where have the rituals of our nationhood gone? Imagine these days trying to do something which was completely normal when I was a boy; sing the national anthem at public events like cinema screenings. Can you imagine the bafflement or, for some, actual offense it would cause?

And yet just across the Atlantic it is routine for schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day, as @DouglasCarswell explains here.

The thing is, the Left knows full well the importance of unifying rituals. That's why they chant their creedal statements about trans women, or Palestine, or welcoming asylum seekers. Only when those rituals seek to foster a sense of national pride and belief do they sneer and dismiss them.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Yet another post from Keir Starmer that hasn’t aged well.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

Rachel Millward elected a Green deputy leader.

She is currently living in a house with 6 bedrooms, billiards room, and pool last sold for £1,624,000.

She also lets out the top floor on AirBnB – a company Greens regularly campaign against.

The house has an EPC rating of E.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Baroness Minouche Shafik, Torsten Bell and Dan Tomlinson have all been appointed by Keir Starmer to the Treasury team:

They were all involved in the Resolution Foundation’s ‘Economy 2030’ report. Published on 4 December 2023, the report called for this jaw dropping long list of tax rises:

[Priti Patel MP @pritipatel]

These are the same Labour MPs who opposed tough controls on illegal migration, voted against life sentences for people smugglers, campaigned to block deportations, and have championed the human rights of foreign criminals and illegal migrants. 

Labour are not on the side of the British people.

[Ian Miles Cheong @ianmiles]

British WWII veteran: “To be honest with you, this is not the country I fought for.”

[Alex Armstrong @Alexarmstrong]

BREAKING TONIGHT: Rayner uses top wealth protection firm in new house deal

Angela Rayner is now part of the wealthy elite, not a “working class hero”.

No amount of left wing spin can deny that truth to the public who see through the hypocrisy.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

Trevor Phillips:

“Your lawyers under your guidance have said in terms that the rights of asylum seekers are more important than the rights of local people in Epping Forest...do you agree?”

Education Sec. Bridget Phillipson:

“Yes, of course we do.”

Another mask off moment.

[Priti Patel MP @pritipatel]

Under this Labour government, there’s one rule for small boat freeloaders including their tax-dodging Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner and another rule for Britain’s hard pressed taxpayers. Absolute power has corrupted them absolutely…

[James Cleverly🇬🇧 @JamesCleverly]

Labour hypocrisy on full show.

Putting up taxes, telling everyone that they need to pay more, then doing this:

[Lee Harris @LeeHarris]

Angela Rayner, the Labour MP who said "the public are furious with those who get away with tax avoidance" has just avoided £40,000 stamp duty on her second home by declaring it as her 'main residence'.

Rules for thee, but not for me.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

I’ve now researched Labour’s pledge to cut household electricity bills by £300 by 2030. It isn’t worth the paper it isn’t written on!Intriguingly Labour’s 2024 manifesto did not mention £300. It merely talked vaguely about more renewables cutting household energy bills.
But Labour leaders (including Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband) did make many references to £300 as an estimated average annual saving per household by 2030.
This was based on sketchy modelling by energy think tank Ember, which projected that a clean power system (with 98% renewable electricity by 2030) could reduce average household electricity bills by around £300 compared to levels in mid-2023. Ember claimed, with scant regard to the facts, that lower wholesale costs from renewables would outweigh costly network upgrades. The £300 figure was quickly out of date because it was referenced against the 2023 price cap high, which had already fallen from this peak by the time Labour was making the promise.
Even so, post-election government ministers have stood by the commitment to lower bills via clean energy by £300 by 2030.
It is meaningless, irrelevant, undeliverable, uncheckable. But it will be ‘achieved’ by inventing a figure for what energy bills would have been without Labour policy and claiming actual bills are £300 less.

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

Ed's lying again.

In real terms the price of gas is comparable to 2019 levels and cheaper than 2013 and 2008. Prices are rising because of the system costs of renewables, and Ed's mad dash for CP2030 is making it worse.

[𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐦 @ChangeForSpurs]

We've listened to the fans opinions and feedback, and planned our next protest accordingly.

Please find below our statement and protest plan for Saturday 30th August (Bournemouth at home).