Jacob

Binge thinker, all views are sadly my own.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

£6.15 for a 330ml bottle of Leffe in a local pub...what in the inflation is this!?

[Nitin Sawhney @thenitinsawhney]

I grew up watching flag-waving little Englanders parading their nationality around Rochester like Dickensian caricatures, puffing their chests out in pride over an imperial history carefully reimagined to paint over barbaric cruelty with Constable landscapes and Churchillian swagger… As if the accident of where they were born had been an achievement…

These folk were everywhere… with their arrogant smiles and entitled condescension. They were the National Front-supporting parents of school friends, avoiding eye contact if I dared visit their house via their sons, asking me transparent questions about my ethnicity and explaining how mixed race marriages never work, in case I propositioned one of their vulnerable teenage daughters…

I was taught to consider myself both lucky to be here and self-evidently inferior by virtue of my heritage.

So when I see those same superior, colluding, patronising smiles on the over-rehearsed faces of attention-seeking rabble-rousers like Farage and Tice, I have to remember…

We can’t change the past but we can make damn sure those who belong in the past don’t destroy our future…

Farage is a disease, a malicious vessel of hate… A gleeful provocateur. Everything he touches becomes a toxic wasteland of hopeless misery. He is a cancer waiting to destroy the same host over and over again.

I said this about him in a Channel 4 News interview back in 2014.

I’m saying it again now.

[Brian Cox @ProfBrianCox]

The points Macron makes in this interview came up in several conversations I’ve had over the last few months - when the same points are made by different knowledgable people, I listen. The consensus appears to be that the chance of NATO being drawn into conflict in Europe with Russia over the next decade is priced much higher than I imagined - and I imagined it was quite likely. The rise of nationalism in Europe (and the US) makes this more likely. The historic lack of investment in R&D and defence across our continent makes this more likely. From the U.K. perspective, pretty much everyone agrees (behind the scenes for the moment) that Brexit has made these problems more difficult to address. As Blair said in the recently recirculating interview from 2019, the politicians who advocated it were naive and ignorant and did not understand how power is deployed on the international stage. What can be done? Again, I was surprised by the unanimity of the views from people with otherwise different political positions. We have to plan for a more isolationist US whose focus may shift away from Europe, even as we hope and work to avert this possibility. The U.K. therefore needs to reengage with Europe - by which I mean get itself firmly on the path to EU membership - as quickly as possible and before Macron leaves office. That depends primarily on the Conservative Party accepting the principle in opposition. The ball is in their court. This will (a) demonstrate that attempts to destabilise our continent politically are failing and (b) boost our economies so we can invest more in R&D and defence. Obviously, as you’ll see in the replies below, some people will need a lot of persuading. But the alternative is potentially existential, and so the case will have to be made. What we need in the U.K. is for a politician to emerge who has the rhetorical ability, courage and intellectual firepower to make the case to a public still shell shocked by the experience of 2016 - and who has the diplomatic skill to convince Europe that we are serious.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@fredsirieix1 @kala_manchester It's the best, you should try their other restaurants!

[Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy]

Laura Kuenssberg try to tell Stephen Fry that not everyone believes Brexit has been a catastrophe.

Stephen Fry is having none of it.
👏�

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@Xeon4f145d96s1 This is fake.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@sid_lambert @andyswan94 🤣

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@wendyjwinn78 Great work!

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@RohanShotton What side of the fence do you come down on?

[Sky Sports @SkySports]

Jeff Stelling with a powerful message during Mental Health Awareness month ⬇️

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

Sure is a lot to unpack here...

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Alleged former Russian spy whale spotted off Sweden's coast https://t.co/Tq4pUQulq5

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@thomasdolphin @TheBMA ✊️✊️✊️

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@grimpick19 @JennieRed14 @sarahjoOT @theRCN @The_HCPC @theRCOT @unisontheunion Thinking about your point; AHPs should get paid more than AHPs that don't work in an acute setting, would that be fair? Nursing pay shouldn't factor into that.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@grimpick19 @JennieRed14 @sarahjoOT @theRCN @The_HCPC @theRCOT @unisontheunion Interesting point...maybe I am? The problem to me is that nurses don't want to work on wards anymore; how do we get them back? A system that pays a nurse working OPA and someone on HDU the same does not recognise skill or responsibility.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@Srikesavan @sarahjoOT @theRCN @The_HCPC @theRCOT @unisontheunion My apologies, I meant the same banding. I respect your opinion, but mine differs and I will fight for nurses to have their own pay scale.

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@gabbicohen_ @kelbob Aw this is wonderful!

[Jacob @mr_scruffy]

@JoannaCavill @Srikesavan @sarahjoOT @theRCN @The_HCPC @theRCOT @unisontheunion I think this Us vs You attitude is exactly why we shouldn't be on the same pay scale!