I want to let people know that I was recently arrested and am currently on police bail while an investigation is ongoing. This is only to explain why I won’t be publishing or active for a while. I won’t be commenting further at this time.
🚨Ugh, a Tottenham fan was totally out of line yesterday, making fun of Declan Rice's girlfriend during the match.
Seriously, this kind of fan behavior needs to stop.
Farage blaming ‘work from home' for Britain’s troubles is just so lazy, whilst attacking the idea of youngsters seeking a work-life balance. It is predictable and it is boring.
For young men and women in modern Britain, finding their way in life is incredibly difficult. No use people of my age telling them that if they stopped buying cappuccinos, they’d all be able to afford a home within a few years. It’s just not true.
Wages are stagnant. House prices are high. Interest is excruciating, on mortgages and student loans.
Everything costs SO much. Rent bleeds them dry, how on earth are they supposed to save 20k for a deposit, if not far more? What, to buy the leasehold on a dingy flat? They don’t even own it, then get done by service charges and whatever else.
Raising a family in Britain is brutally difficult. Childcare is extortionate, so yes - working from home does make that more possible. Good. If British men and women want to have more children, we should be making that as easy as possible.
A lawful relationship between an employee and a private employer is none of our businesses. If they decide working from home is workable, then good for them. If not, that’s fine too.
From my experience in business, happy workers are good workers. They care. They want the business to succeed. That benefits everyone. A healthy work-life balance is essential. Absolutely essential. Anyone who has run a successful business will tell you that.
Politicians of my age are so far away from what young men and women are dealing with. Of course there are many who take the piss, and we should brutally crack down on them. But the good majority of British men and women want to work hard, contribute to society and build a prosperous life for their family.
If they do that from their desk at home, or one in the office, I really don’t care.
Thank you mackems for the most incredible 4 years, experiencing some of the best moments of my career and giving me a home ill forever be grateful for. I wish you nothing but success for the future ♥️ 🤍 @SunderlandAFC
We can today confirm the departure of long-serving midfielder Dan Neil.
Neil has joined Ipswich Town on loan until the end of the season, ending his 18-year association with Sunderland at the end of his contract in June.
He lived the dream, and we all wish him well in the next chapter of his career ❤️
One message has been reinforced today, in THE most spectacular fashion. Westminster is a vile snake-pit, infested with those who put their own personal interest above that of the country. There are an exceedingly small handful of patriots, but that number is vastly outnumbered by those who have their priorities in the following order.
Self.
Party.
Country.
Party politics has failed. It has failed all of us. It’s failed Great Yarmouth, it’s failed England, it’s failed Britain. It is a circus. A pantomime. A show. With no care for what’s really being inflicted on decent taxpaying men and women. They all treat it like a sport. It’s not. It is our country. Our home. Our people.
The solution? A Reform dictatorship that is packing its ranks with the very same people who decimated the country over 14 dire years? I think not.
Nadine Dorries? Jake Berry? Lee Anderson? Nadhim Zahawi? Really? Are these the people to turn this country around? A Labour defector is on the way too. I mean, really?
Even Jenrick, who has to take full responsibility for what happened on his watch as immigration minister. Entire communities transformed into what now resembles the third world. Vast streets of foreigners unable to speak English. Towns, changed beyond recognition. This is what they did to our Britain. All of them. Today, he betrayed his colleagues. That’s his choice.
I am of the view that nobody who has had any role in past Governments should be allowed by the British people to serve again.
The damage is just too immense, too grave, possibly even too irreversible.
All these washed-up former MPs who are weaponising the rightful anger of the British people to slink back into Parliament. It’s sickening to watch.
Please remember this.
THEY DID THIS TO THE COUNTRY.
These are the people who destroyed Britain. They will not fix it. Reform will not fix it.
Farage was supposed to destroy the establishment, not join them. That is why I backed him for so long. I was wrong to do so.
Sadly, joining that establishment is all he cares about. He wants to be accepted by the people who spurned him for so very long. That is what drives him. Take revenge on a Conservative Party that refused to accept him, and then force them to bend the knee and kiss his ring.
Party politics is dead.
We need an entirely different way of doing things - hundreds of men and women from outside politics, put forward for election. All of whom must have had NOTHING to do with how our country has been so abhorrently failed.
I am going to think long and hard over the weekend about my next step.
Britain doesn’t need mere reform from the same arsonists who burnt it to the ground.
A real alternative MUST be provided. I will do that.
I am VERY strongly of the view that at the next general election we need hundreds of candidates put forward to the British people that have largely had zero involvement in politics up to that point.
I will work tirelessly to make sure that is provided, in some form.
After the shameful news from Reform today, I'm more convinced than ever of its necessity.
I am absolutely certain that we do not need a host of failed Conservative MPs manipulating the rightful anger of the British people to slink back into Parliament. Farage has got it wrong, again, and sadly it has revealed what really drives him - I do not believe that is the best interests of the country. I'm sorry, I just don't.
I understand people are frustrated that I remain an independent, without a political party.
But we are going to have one shot at getting this right.
And we need to get it right - there is no other choice.
Alongside that, if we wait until 2029 to deliver the change the country so desperately needs, there won't be a Britain left to restore. This is the immediate priority.
That is why decent-minded MPs must come together now to fight for a different Britain TODAY. That's what I'm trying to do through Restore and in Parliament. Some wins, some failures. But with progress regardless.
If we do a good job now, as so often in life, a path will present itself. If it does not, one will be forged in the coming months.
There will be a viable alternative at the next election, I promise you that.