Michael G 🇿🇦 🇬🇧

GB Lancastrian, left in 1976, +45 yrs working in mining in Africa, semi retired, now live in South Africa. Banish Neoliberalism!

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

Thatcherism devastated the UK's industrial base, put three million people on the dole and plunged entire communities into the kind of poverty they still haven't recovered from four decades later. Kemi Badenoch is offering us a repeat performance.

[CrémantCommunarde #GreenTransitionNow💚 @0Calamity]

J'accuse❗️
It won't be long before people are killed.
I blame Reform. I blame Restore. I blame Tommy The Sniff, Danny Tommo, the Frauditors, and all the others stirring up hatred and division in our country.
I blame the multi-millionaires funding civil unrest.
But, most of all, I blame the Labour government, who are in a position to stop this, but choose to let it run.
The laws are in place. Use them.
The rhetoric could be pivoted in an instant, if there was a will to do so.
The material conditions that are causing so many of our citizens to struggle and suffer could be addressed tomorrow, if there was a will to do so.
J'accuse❗️

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Failures of privatisation.

Royal Mail to cut up to 2,500 jobs

RM doesn't meet letter delivery targets. Regulator keeps lowering them

Postage: 1st class, £1.80, 2nd class 91p.
When privatized in 2013: 1st class 60p; 2nd 50p.

Poor service, triple price.
https://t.co/wgNErAR4Fi

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

She can’t concede water privatisation is a failure.

To do so is to accept privatisation of essential utilities has failed.

But it goes further than that.

It would be a tacit admission that Thatcherism itself has failed and failed, catastrophically.

A majority of the country is living with that failure.

That’s an opportunity for us to now spell out the alternative.

[Sharon 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @K4rmaRules]

Donations galore, housing costs paid for by the tax payer, food subsidised in the house of commons. We all pay for your way of life, so don't you dare talk about a life on benefits. That's your world.

[Paul Allen @PaulAllenSK1]

We must cut MPs expenses.

We shouldn't be paying the housing costs on a millionaire's 2nd home.

MPs should live and work in their own constituency save for when they have to go to Westminster to participate in a debate or vote.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Andy Burnham announces end of triple-lock on the state pension from 2030.

Replaced by double-lock, slower growth in state pension.

Full state pension is already less than 50%of the minimum wage.

Poverty awaits future retirees.

£500bn of taxes not collected by HMRC since 2010.

[dave lawrence 🐟🐟🐠 @dave43law]

Single State Pension £230 per week

Single UC over 25, £424pm

UK House of Lords £371 per Day.

Wealth Inequality!

Slash benefits they say, question the triple lock

[CrémantCommunarde #GreenTransitionNow💚 @0Calamity]

I'm going to say this again in clear, simple terms so there can be no equivocation:
Prior to Brexit, immigrants very rarely came to the UK in small boats because it is an extremely dangerous mode of transport. They came in lorries. Organised smuggling gangs knew that because there was free movement of goods between EU countries that there was a high chance that a lorry concealing immigrants would not be searched.
I am sure you all remember that terrible case of a lorry-load of migrants from China and Vietnam that was abandoned in Essex. 31 men and 8 women died.
The onset of Brexit meant that gradually, from approx 2018 onwards, more and more stringent checks began being carried out on lorries, as well as increased security at ferry ports - even Newhaven-Dieppe are surrounded with high barbed wire security fences, and every vehicle leaving Dieppe is opened and checked, so I imagine it must be pretty much the same at Calais and Boulogne as well.
We have no idea how many people a year arrived in the UK unlawfully by lorry. The reason for this is because they were literally untrackable. Occasionally you would see a lorry stopped by the M2 or the M25 with a handful of people standing behind the safety barrier while the police had the blue lights on. But they certainly could not track what they didn't know about.
The likelihood is that there were a great many more people getting into the country. The overwhelming majority of them would disappear into the undergrowth, never to be seen again until either
a) they committed an offence
b) they were caught in raids working illegally
c) they either walked into a police station to claim asylum almost immediately or
d) they popped over the parapet several years later because they wanted to regularise their status, either by marrying, or because they had children, or under the Long Residence rules - it used to be 15 years but is now 20 years. If you can prove you have been in the UK continuously for 20 years and have otherwise kept your nose clean, you are entitled to limited leave to remain. Eventually you might get settlement after 30 years - again, if you can prove you have always been in the country in that time. You will not get nationality if you entered the country illegally these days, though, unless you can show that there is something exceptional about your contribution to society.
The small boats are different. The small boats are highly visible. The small boats - and their passengers - are very easy to spot, and very easy for the Coastguard and Border Force to track. A man from the BBC used to spend all his time stood on a cliff counting them post-Brexit.
Yes, there will be the occasional one that slips through undetected. But that is the opposite of the way it was with lorry smuggling, where it was the occasional one that was actually detected, and the majority slipping through un-noticed.
The irony of Farage, Lowe, Robinson, Tommo and all the other far-right screechers claiming we are unsafe because of "fighting age men" arriving on these boats is hilarious if it wasn't so desperate. When the boats arrive, every person is fingerprinted, screened and vetted as best we can, although another irony of Brexit is we no longer have automatic access to Europol except if we have grounds to suspect someone is a criminal rather than just an asylum seeker, so well done Brexit for that as well.
Also, as we are no longer party to what's called the Dublin Agreement, whereas before we could make an application to France to take them back, and take responsibility for the asylum claim, now we are out of the EU we can't do that either.
But at least we know who is here, we have their fingerprints, and we know who they are.
In short, we are arguably safer from the "fighting age men" now that at any time in the past 30-odd years. The numbers are reducing. The numbers of crossings are reducing.
I hold no candle for Labour these days, but at least they are processing the backlog the Tories (deliberately?) built up and those who don't have the right here are being deported as well.
Boris Johnson is as full of shit as he always was.
Feel free to share this.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Around 40% of the world's dirty money, proceeds of corruption and crime, is laundered through the UK, its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

Successive govts promise new laws but they make little impact.

Why do govts continue to fail?

Watch the Minister's reply.

[Buddy Wells @BuddyWells1]

The hilarious thing here is that the @MYANC failure and loss of support over the last 30 years is largely because it allowed @Treasury_RSA and @SAReserveBank appointees to unconstitutionally implement unnecessary austere fiscal and monetary policy and to open capital markets, which have discouraged local investment by the state and private sector.
The ANC has gone along with the pretence that it has no power to direct SAs money supply (savings and bank credit) toward local investment by both govt and private sector, and has allowed public monopolies and institutions to be incapacitated, under the pretence that rand supply is not a public monopoly.
The private banking oligopoly who the ANC policies handed the public monopoly on increases in SAn money supply to, have made massive profits. Standard Bank returns to shareholders averaged 20% gains per year over the last 30 years.
Meanwhile SAs productive businesses and households have struggled, and manufacturing is crumbling.
Even now, with 42% real unemployment, and near 0 growth since @KganyagoLesetja become governor of the SARB 12 years ago, the ANC can’t bring itself even to criticise the SARBs policy of responding to cost pushed, imported inflation and insufficient demand for goods and services, with rate hikes, which add to costs and reduce demand even further, and net weaken the rand over time (increased interest outflow).
Any other party would have replaced the useless SARB board and MPC ages ago, for their utter failure to realise the SARBs constitutionally mandated end goal of balanced and sustainable growth.
The SARB & Treasury officials will probably follow the trend of resigning and then getting employed at high salary by the very banks their policies benefit, while the ANC will continue to lose support.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Neoliberals want to end the triple-lock on state pension.

They inflict low wages, consign millions to poverty.

Govt spending on state pension as % of GDP in G7 countries.

Italy 12.8
France 12
Germany 9.8
Japan 8.9
USA 6.6
Canada 4.7
UK 4.7

https://t.co/Esao2YJlRy

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

For the umpteenth time: Quit trying to analyze Trump. Quit trying to figure out why he says and does the things he says and does. I’m so fucking sick of listening to some panel on CNN try to discuss his latest bizarre pronouncement like he’s some normal human being. Stop that. This isn’t complicated- He’s not a normal human being. He’s a sociopath. He lies as he breathes. He’s an idiot. He’s a Russian asset. He gets off on being cruel. He’s never been held accountable for anything he’s done his entire life. He’s a horrible person. And he’s the biggest fucking crybaby who’s ever lived. That’s it.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

“Move faster to solve climate challenges”

~ Prince William

Yet, the Royal Family's two newly leased AgustaWestland helicopters flew 58,000 miles (420 flying hours) between February and November 2025.

Prince William has taken a helicopter 47 times to Windsor and 5 (so far) to his new home, Forest Lodge - flying to multiple locations every single month - including a 40-mile flight to an event.

Meanwhile, us plebs are told to only boil the exact amount of water we need in a kettle.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Swathes of UK economy are foreign-owned.

No tax is deducted from billions paid to them in dividends.

USA, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden have a dividend withholding tax for foreign investors.

UK could do the same, generate billions.
https://t.co/9DLCUPTCex

[Republic @RepublicStaff]

🚨🚨 BREAKING: Activists have unveiled a 'Cut the Royal Budget' banner in front of Buckingham Palace after MPs voted to give the royals another £50 million in Sovereign Grant money. It's time to scrap the grant; it's time to get rid of the royals. #AbolishTheMonarchy

[Jack Devnarain @JackD157]

You're demanding what? From who?!
Rather shut up and sit this one out. You've poisoned this country with your corruption, greed, and incompetence. Uniting against yourself proves you're a liability to women and children

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

King Charles inherited £650m tax free, gets £354m a year tax free from the tax payer including £132m personal spending money and has an estate worth £22bn that’s never taxed.

Like if he needs a pay cut.
RT if you want the Monarchy gone.

#NotmyKing

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Crypto billionaires must be stopped from undermining democracy.

This is more than that. Politicians are bought by corporations and the super rich.

Must ban all political donations. Let parties be funded by modest membership fees and public money.
https://t.co/1kjRDBAvfd

[Supertanskiii @supertanskiii]

The tens of millions in foreign donations received by Reform is, first and foremost, about foreign interference and billionaires buying British politics.

But it’s so much worse than that.

It will allow Reform to continue to campaign like it is the run up to an election, but all year round. It will buy them ads in newspapers, airtime on tv and the ability to micro target to an alarming extent on social media.

It will buy foreign hate bots who threaten and abuse, bots that call women worthless slags and black people the n word. It will be spent continuing to normalise racism, misogyny, homophobia and ableism in Britain.

It will be spent on online radicalisation, spreading fear and panic about minorities and creating an illusion of mad consensus.

They will create the problem, then they will claim to be the solution to that problem.

Their rhetoric will only get worse. They will have to get worse because Restore will only become more extreme and they’ll need to compete for votes.

It will exponentially increase division in society, it will incite unrest, all on behalf of and to the benefit of their billionaire pay pigs.

It is rich men, who don’t even live or trade in Britain, trying to buy our political outcome for their own financial benefit.

The only people who will get richer are the politicians they are funding and the disaster capitalists who need Britain to decline to prosper.

It’s treachery. The antithesis of patriotism.