GN

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Labour inherited a mess, certainly.

But we’re meant to believe AFC Bournemouth can build corner infills for their stadium over the summer break, and into the start of the season, but the British state can’t build robust, temporary prison capacity in…two years?

[Nozza_ @Nozza_]

Saltburn CC Cheating XI

Click Knight
Marcus Trescothclick
Clicky Ponting (c)
Graeme Click
Snapil Dev
Mark Clickolas
Clic Marks
Snap Russell (wk)
Blair Clickner
Martin Clicknell
Laclick Mafinger

[GN @Naylor_93]

@RebelHQ Any inkling on what to expect from the trading update on 5 August, Rebel?

[ShareSpeccy @ShareSpeculator]

Have I woken up in some sort of weird parallel universe?

Donald Trump is openly going to profit by charging people to get his market moving presidential announcements ahead of the public so they can front-run…. and that’s apparently ok 😵‍💫

Oh. Ok then.

[Laurence Hulse @laurence_hulse]

We have been buying this one all the way up from 14p as Tony Brewer swung the odds more and more in his favour. This mornings news from Headlam reads like an event horizon. Core holding for #ONWD and actually one of the largest now.

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

The full details of this case are appalling:

- Victims included three children and mum.
- Dad had already died in a separate car accident.
- Mum begged paramedic not to make her children orphans.
- Kids have PTSD, while mum suffered suffered a broken ankle, scarring to her face, and damage to her right hip, leg and ribs.
- Still experiences intermittent dizziness and migraines and had to give up her hobby (kickboxing)
- Criminal is wife of multi-millionaire popstar Rag'N'Bone Man.
- She said: "I was a little bit late to pick my boys up. They suffer with anxiety and I felt the need to get there."
- (If you can't tolerate getting stuck behind a tractor, you perhaps should consider living somewhere other than rural Sussex.
- No jail, one year driving ban.

[Harry Cole @MrHarryCole]

Glorious to watch the same self-declared political media nodes - who were screaming about fascism when the Tories were in power - now tap dancing to justify a zero scrutiny coup because the guy also wears trainers in his fifties.

We see you.

[Sky Sports Cricket @SkyCricket]

"What are they doing?" 😵‍💫

New Zealand's players were picked up on the stump mic last night mocking Harry Brook's dismissal 👀

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

"I grew up on a council estate" is not an excuse for failure. You are sacrificing the future of generations of kids on the altar of your class envy -reversing even Labour's academy reforms.

0% of teachers think you're doing a great job. I'm not here to give you a pat on the back.
I speak for those people whose lives you're destroying and I'll NEVER stop speaking up for them.

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

Labour's Welfare Secretary admitted to Peter Mandelson what he won’t tell you.

Labour raised your taxes to pay for more benefits.

[max tempers @maxtempers]

Quite funny how Blair’s got everyone churning out articles in response to him all the way up to the Prime Minister.

[Anglo Futurism Capital LP 🇬🇧🐿️ @RollingHedge]

Ok now let’s consider what a real CV for public office looks like, shall we?

Andrew Griffith (@griffitha) current Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs and Shadow Business and Trade Secretary, is the antithesis to Burnham and the structural inverse of the usual Tory caricature too…

No Eton, no Oxford, no inherited rolodex. Born 1971 in Bexleyheath, raised in Bromley, state comprehensive in Sidcup, Law at a redbrick (Nottingham) 1989-92, qualified FCA in 1996. Everything that follows was earned in the free open market economy.

That is to say his professional trajectory is entirely inside the real world, the private sector business world:

1992-96: Trainee chartered accountant at PwC

Mid-late 1990s: Rothschild & Co, TMT advisory

1999: Joins Sky as a financial analyst (3m customers)

1999-2008: Senior finance roles at Sky

2008: Group CFO and executive director of Sky plc, youngest CFO in the FTSE 100

2012: Adds responsibility for Sky’s advertising business, oversees AdSmart launch

2014-19: Senior NED then interim Chairman of Just Eat plc, Sunday Times NED of the Year 2018

2016: Adds Group COO role at Sky alongside CFO

2018: Works the Fox/Comcast takeover battle

2019 (Jul): Leaves Sky after 20 years to become Johnson’s Chief Business Adviser at No. 10

2019 (Dec): Elected MP for Arundel and South Downs, 22,521 majority

2020: Net Zero Business Champion ahead of COP26

2022 (Feb-Sep): Head of the No. 10 Policy Unit

2022 (Sep-Oct): Financial Secretary to the Treasury under Truss

2022-24: Economic Secretary (City Minister) under Sunak

2024-present: Shadow Business and Trade

This is a Sidcup comprehensive kid who made FTSE 100 CFO at 37. No family money, no network handed down, no soft landing.

The route was articled accountancy, then Rothschild, then twenty years building Sky from a sceptics’ punt into one of the most valuable companies on the index. 3m to 30m customers, AdSmart, broadband and mobile entry, the Fox and Comcast endgame. P&L, board, capital markets, operating scale, all of it earned. The Just Eat chairmanship runs alongside, with the Hungryhouse CMA review and the https://t.co/XE8tyu4Vx0 merger on his watch.

The Treasury postings under Truss and Sunak handed him the City brief during Edinburgh Reforms, Solvency II and the ringfencing review. The current Shadow Business and Trade brief plays directly to the operator background.

On the question that matters, whether he has ever had to make a balance sheet balance, he is the precise antithesis of Burnham. Self-made operator first, politician second. The boys from the comprehensive who built the country, not the ones who annexed it on the way down from the Cotswolds.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Where Burnham has drawn every penny of his living from the taxpayer, Griffith has BEEN the taxpayer. Twenty years of FTSE 100 PAYE, NICs, and CGT on vesting equity puts his lifetime contribution to the exchequer comfortably into eight figures, plausibly £15-20m and counting.

Here’s what you could have won.

I want a meritocratic selected political class with real world experience formulating and executing policy in the national interest.

Is it so much to ask???

[talkSPORT @talkSPORT]

You all know what’s coming…

[GN @Naylor_93]

@RoworthJack @AlexJervis4 @2ChrisJones

[Markos Mom @Markos_mom]

Martin: Right, we've got Sarah from Basingstoke on line three. Sarah, you're on the Money Saving Expert hotline, what's your question?

Sarah: Hi Martin, love the show. So I've got about £40,000 sitting in a cash ISA earning 3%, and I was thinking of moving maybe £10,000 of it into a global index tracker....

Martin: [sound of tea being spat out]
Sarah. Sarah. SARAH. Can you hear yourself right now?

Sarah: I just thought, for the long term....

Martin: Let me stop you there. You have got, and I want everyone listening to really absorb this, you have got a GUARANTEED three percent. Guaranteed. Do you know what that word means? It means it's in the tin. It's locked in. You could put your head on your pillow tonight knowing, with absolute mathematical certainty, that your money is growing at three percent per annum.

Sarah: Right, but inflation is running at about.....

Martin: And you want to throw that away, THROW IT AWAY, for what? The possibility of ten percent? The hope? The dream?

Sarah: Well, historically, global trackers have.....

Martin: Historically! HISTORICALLY! Do you know what else happened historically, Sarah? The South Sea Bubble. The Wall Street Crash. That time my Premium Bonds didn't win anything for six consecutive months. History is LITTERED with financial corpses, Sarah.

Sarah: I was just going to leave it for twenty years and not look at it.....

Martin: Oh, you're not going to look at it! Marvellous! So when the market drops thirty percent, and it WILL drop thirty percent, probably on a Tuesday, probably the Tuesday after you invest, you'll just sit there, will you? In your house? Not looking? While your £10,000 becomes £7,000?

Sarah: I mean, that's paper losses, and if I don't sell.....

Martin: [hyperventilating] Can someone get me my laminated flowchart? The one about risk?

Sarah: Martin, I've got a stable job, no debt, six months' emergency fund.....

Martin: And a DEATH WISH, apparently! Let me paint you a picture. It's 2026. The markets have crashed. Your tracker fund is DOWN eighteen percent. You're weeping into a bowl of supermarket own-brand cornflakes because you can no longer afford Kellogg's. And you know what I'm doing? I'm sitting pretty on my guaranteed three percent. THREE. PERCENT.

Sarah: That doesn't even beat inflation though.....

Martin: I'm going to stop you there because I am not qualified to give investment advice. I need to be very clear: I am not saying don't invest. I am not saying do invest. I am simply saying that the very concept of investing keeps me awake at night in a cold sweat and I think it should do the same for you.

Sarah: So what should I.....

Martin: Have you considered Premium Bonds? You won't beat inflation but you MIGHT win a million pounds, and the hope is basically free.

Sarah: ...

Martin: Sarah?

Sarah: I think I'll just put it in the tracker.

Martin: [long pause] Well. That's your choice. I want everyone to know I tried. We're going to a break. When we come back: is your broadband contract up for renewal? Because THAT'S something I can help with.

[Ring Magazine @ringmagazine]

"There is, and only ever will be, one Ricky Hatton."

Boxing commentator Adam Smith giving an emotional eulogy at Ricky Hatton's funeral today 🎙️

[TopShagger @Plentyshit]

#RickyHatton 😆

[max tempers @maxtempers]

Woman brags about getting a Motability car for NARCOLEPSY!

"I can't do public transport as I fall asleep randomly and miss my stops"
"No worries, here's the keys to your new death machine!"

[Tour de France™ @LeTour]

😅 Facing the cold the old fashioned way, by @alafpolak1! 👍

😅 Se protéger du froid à l'ancienne, par @alafpolak1 ! 👍

#TDF2025

[The Kop Watch @TheKopWatch]

On repeat ❤️