Gregor McNie

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

Two years in prison for throwing a plastic bottle and swearing at police. Unacceptable behaviour, sure. But when far more violent criminals routinely receive much less punitive sentences - and sometimes avoid jail completely - how can this be justified?

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

That thing that never happens just happened again.

[Camilla Tominey @CamillaTominey]

BINGO

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

You have to be a little bit intelligent to realise that you're not very intelligent

That's the problem

[Gregor McNie @mcnie_gregor]

@UKDefJournal Have we borrowed one from somewhere. Only asking as an ex stoker!

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

This month’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham @andyburnham has just announced he’s increasing foreign aid to 0.7% of GDP, which is £21 billion per year. Let me put that in context for you. The average amount of income tax paid per year by basic rate taxpayers in the UK is £2,700. So that means that nearly 8 million taxpayers in the UK are working all year ONLY to give their wages to foreign governments. There are 30 million basic rate taxpayers in the UK, so one in four people that you see working in restaurants or pubs, nurses, cleaners and many more are paying all of their tax to foreign countries. Countries like Pakistan that can afford nuclear weapons, to India that can afford a space programme, to China that can afford to buy the world, to Somalia that doesn’t have a government, only warlords. Etc etc etc etc etc. One in eight British basic rate taxpayers are paying all of their money not to schools in this country. Not for hospitals in this country, nor to fix the roads, nor anything whatsoever in Britain. Every penny goes abroad. Eight million people here giving their hard earned money to the British government who then give every penny away. Every single penny. So, if you’ve ever wondered why things aren’t improving in this country and wonder what happens to the money you’ve made from your toil and your sleepless nights of wondering how you’ll pay the next bill, that’s what happens to it. 8 million of you are working for foreign governments. Think about that.

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

In 1922 the British Empire was larger than at any point in history. It extended to 24 percent of the total landmass of the whole world. At this time, the government had 300-350,000 civil servants. They had no computers, no electric typewriters, no calculators. Calculations that would take seconds today would take minutes or hours. Research that would take seconds today would take days and yet those 300-350,000 were able to do everything necessary to run a quarter of the planet. Today the British government employs 557,000 civil servants with computers and modern technology to run only Britain. I can’t help thinking that maybe we’re employing too many civil servants.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

The Labour government are spending up to £30 billion on carbon capture machines.

Absolute masterclass in stupidity.
Trees have silently hoovered up and stored carbon for 400 million years - cheap, self-replicating, oxygen-spitting, temperature reducing, photosynthesis producing, flood protecting, landscape beautifying and with no gargantuan contracts to corporations.

Yet the Labour government are investing gigantic sums of money in giant metal dystopian lungs that cost a small country’s GDP and still need endless consultation exercises to prove that they’re not just a very expensive version of a machine cosplaying as a tree.

Carbon capture: nature already solved it. 🌳
But the Labour government preferred the invoice from their donor corporations.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Money doesn’t grow on trees. But they do on the carbon capture machine version.

[The Spectator @spectator]

In a post on X last night, which was hastily deleted this morning, the Hartlepool MP declared: "Public sector workers use their income to pay FOR the private sector. The state is one of the biggest procurers of the private sector.

"It wouldn't exist without taxpayers. People creating the divide between public and private genuinely don't understand how an economy works."

There we have it. In Brashonomics, the private sector owes its existence to a state funded by taxes levied on the private sector. Answers on a postcard if anyone can decipher that word salad…

✍️ Steerpike

Article | https://t.co/YgsLZooVQy | @MrSteerpike

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

Jason Arday’s death is tragic. But please spare us the sanctimonious complaints that he was merely an ‘obscure’ academic who was the victim of a racist witch-hunt. The probing and questioning and exposure were entirely legitimate.

Arday was plainly guilty of plagiarism. He had also made a series of fantastical claims about his life and career. He ended up being appointed as a professor at one of the world’s most august seats of learning – where his students, who had worked extremely hard to get there, were paying large fees for the privilege of being taught by him.

Far from being obscure, Arday had happily engaged with the media over many years, often repeating his false claims. He appeared on numerous TV shows and guest edited Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. He even carried the Olympic torch.

Moreover, he had secured a major publishing deal for his autobiography, which was set to be released in Britain and the US just as the scandal broke. By no measure was this man ‘obscure’.

When a fellow academic in Plymouth began to question his credentials, Arday (or someone close to him) made a complaint to the police. When a journalist from Times Higher Education started investigating, he was subjected to a police inquiry and also received a threatening letter from the leading libel solicitors, Carter Ruck.

Arday and those around him were clearly not averse to hounding others when they felt like it.

It’s very possible that Arday did not have sufficient support measures in place when he was finally exposed – but that’s on others. The investigation and questions amounted to legitimate journalistic inquiry.

This was never just about Arday’s fabulism. It was also about the increasingly controversial philosophy of DEI, the obsession of our political, corporate and educational institutions with pushing that philosophy, and how it might have led to someone with Arday’s subpar credentials being appointed in the first place.

These are all valid questions to ask – and, by asking them, journalists are simply doing their jobs.

[Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ]

Jason Arday’s death is very sad. Some people at Cambridge and perhaps other universities should resign. The review into how Arday was hired should continue. And we should have a wider discussion about the impact of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

A superb letter which demolishes the archbishop's case. The Church of England will deservedly become an utter irrelevance in this country if it continues in this vein.

[Nick Timothy MP @NJ_Timothy]

The Church of England is sending £100 million overseas for slavery “reparations”.

Meanwhile our parish churches - our national inheritance - are crumbling.

This is gesture politics - and it’s theologically nonsensical.

My letter to the Archbishop.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

Cabinet minister Miatta Fahnbulleh on Radio 4 this morning confirming that Andy Burnham’s government will not set a target figure for future net migration because to do so would be “arbitrary”. But government sets targets in countless other areas - NHS waiting times, educational standards, net zero, etc - so why not migration? It’s a total cop-out. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

If the speculation is right that Andy Burnham offered Rachel Reeves defence, that really doesn’t bode well. She has no interest in defence and stood in the way of giving our military the resources it needs. A relief she turned it down (if speculation correct). She should never have been offered it in the first place. Indicates Burnham not serious about defence.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

This is possibly the best example of guerrilla marketing by an airline all year - SAS - Scandinavian Airlines😍

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Well who wudda thunk it?! The Starmer-Reeves defence spending plan assumes £10 billion in defence ‘efficiencies’/savings — and leaves Andy Burnham to find a further £5 billion for defence in the next Budget for the figures to add up. Starmer-Reeves — shysters til the very end.

[Gregor McNie @mcnie_gregor]

@KemiBadenoch Apologies this should have read “has this man had appropriate medical counselling?”

[Gregor McNie @mcnie_gregor]

@KemiBadenoch Had this man had appropriate medical counselling?

[Benonwine @benonwine]

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this.

For years, Sunday nights meant Top Gear. We’d sit down at 8pm and watch Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May do what they did best.

Now, through Clarkson’s Farm, Jeremy has introduced a whole new generation to the realities of British farming and earned the respect of millions all over again.

He’s made us laugh, he’s frustrated us, and he’s entertained us for decades.

Get well soon, Jezza.

The country is rooting for you. ❤️🇬🇧🙏