Nicola Chaston

[Nicola Chaston @nicchaston]

@Prior3Evie What is your answer to that issue?

[Nicola Chaston @nicchaston]

@Prior3Evie Bullshit - she has no fucking clue about the importance of immigration to our society (ironically, as she has immigrant parents). If we didn’t have immigrants, the NHS would collapse and there would not be enough care workers for the most vulnerable members of our society.

[BBC Question Time @bbcquestiontime]

“If someone's going to call themselves English, I presume you've got an idea in mind?”

What does it mean to be ‘English’? Watch Reform UK’s Suella Braverman and Labour’s Miatta Fahnbulleh debate on #bbcqt

Watch now: https://t.co/N8rHbriMfX

[Nicola Chaston @nicchaston]

@deanbegley1 Suella Braverman is talking bullshit! Look at the stats for sex offences and grooming. Also look at the stats for immigration to the UK (5% or less are illegal, most immigrants are legal and contribute to society - I work in the NHS which would collapse without migrant labour)

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

I wanted to explain to you directly my announcement on creating a National Care Service and the triple lock.

Fundamental change is needed to protect the NHS and give older people the support they need.

At Labour conference, I announced a plan to create a National Care Service in the next parliament. To fund it, I am proposing an adjustment to the triple lock on the state pension. This will form the basis of a new settlement for older people in our country. I want to explain why this is necessary and what it would mean for pensioners.

Everyone knows that our social care system is broken. And yet, for decades, politicians have failed to fix it. Shamefully, millions of older people have unmet care needs. Far too many see everything they have worked for – their home, pension and savings – wiped out by care bills. The personal cost can be devastating, but we should not make the mistake of thinking the price is paid only by older people and their families.

I am convinced that if we carry on as we are, our broken social care system will eventually break our NHS too. Every day, older people who should be receiving support at home or in care settings are unnecessarily admitted to A&E. Meanwhile, hospital beds are occupied by people who are fit to leave but have nowhere to go because the care they need is not in place. Go to any hospital and you will see the effect. Corridor care is no longer simply the result of winter pressures. It is a commonplace indignity suffered by thousands of patients every day.

It is time for fundamental change. The best chance we have of saving our NHS is to build a high-quality care service. The National Care Service I am proposing will be based on NHS principles: everyone contributes and everyone is covered. It will give people peace of mind about their care needs and protect what they have built up over their lifetime. It will provide free personal care – support with the most basic human needs: eating, dressing and bathing. And it will be integrated with the rest of the system, preventative in nature, and deliver care at home wherever possible, exactly where older people want and should be.

A National Care Service, I believe, would become as significant as the creation of the NHS itself. But we need to be honest about the changes that are needed to pay for it. And I do not believe it makes sense to preserve the current triple lock while so many pensioners face the risk of catastrophic care costs. We can give pensioners greater financial security.

I am proposing to adjust the triple lock. This is not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one. We pledged in our manifesto that we would keep the triple lock throughout this parliament, and I will keep that promise. This means the state pension is set to rise by more than £2,000 a year, reaching around 30 per cent of average earnings by the end of the decade – its highest ever level.

From April 2030, under our adjusted triple lock, we will guarantee that the state pension rises every year by either inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. It will also increase by more than this when necessary to ensure that it holds its value relative to average earnings.

This means that if inflation spikes, pensioners will be protected. If wages rise, pensioners will share in that rising prosperity, with the state pension tracking earnings over time. Nobody’s pension will ever go down. And the state pension will be put on a sustainable footing for decades to come.

I want to be upfront about what I am proposing because this adjustment will bring change. The state pension will not increase as quickly as it otherwise would if we kept the triple lock in its current form. However, the adjustment will enable us to fix social care for everyone by building a National Care Service that provides older people with free personal care at the point of need. I believe this is a better deal for pensioners.

I do not expect people to support this plan without seeing the full detail. We will start laying the ground now for the National Care Service and introduce it as soon as possible in the next parliament. Louise Casey’s review will advise us on exactly how and we will build the maximum consensus around her recommendations. It will be fully funded – and not through borrowing.

I appeal to everyone to engage in this debate responsibly and urge politicians to continue the cross-party talks that began over the summer. We need less point scoring and more problem solving. The situation is too serious for us to play politics. Care workers struggling on low pay, families stretched to breaking point, older people fearful of losing everything they have worked for. We need to give them reason to hope again.

I have wanted to fix social care for a long time. As health secretary in 2009, I tried to find a cross-party solution. Since then, I have watched the challenges grow more acute and the consequences become more severe. It is a profound failure of politics that we have known about this problem for so long and yet failed to act. I would never forgive myself if I did not try now.

This is the settlement I am offering to pensioners: a state pension that rises every year, no care charges and a high-quality National Care Service to give peace of mind in later life. I do not pretend this will be easy. But in the end, politics is about finding a way. I gave my word that I would do everything in my power to build a care system worthy of the people who provide it and all those who depend on it. This is how we can achieve it.

[Sue Etha @sue_etha]

@alanferrier @RNLI

[Alan Ferrier @alanferrier]

As an antidote to the poison being thrown at the @RNLI, I give you Bill Bryson.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

Since its foundation in 1824 the bravery of Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers has saved more than 146,700 lives at sea.
Hundreds of those volunteers have died attempting to save others. They are the best of us.
Any person or organisation questioning their actions or loyalty to this country should be corrected and ostracised.
Anyone can drown, but no one should.
https://t.co/d81tKprNkY

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

A prelude of what is to come.

Just you wait until this drought breaks and that inevitable deluge of rain comes and with it million of tons of sh*t getting dumped into our rivers and onto our beaches.

[Hedgehog Cabin @HedgehogCabin]

As we enter yet another week of drought conditions please, I beg you, put out water for the wildlife.
They have nothing.
No puddles.
No ponds.
No streams.
All have dried up.
Sometimes the birds are thought of and provided for.
But the nocturnal animals go unseen.
Unthought of.
No kind dishes.
Just the tantalising smell of water from a pond they may drown in, or a drain they may get trapped in.
Or a stagnant, dirty old birdbath they may get fatal fluke from.
Hedgehogs need to drink a lot of water to stay healthy. Please provide clean, fresh, safe, ground level water each evening for our precious nocturnal wildlife.
Tap water is best.
Pop a dish or two out tonight.
Dying of thirst is a terrible, painful way to die.
It should never happen to any animal, and certainly not in a country that has the safest tap water in the world.
The few minutes it takes you to fill a dish will make the difference between life and death.❤️

[🇬🇧King 🇬🇧 @King0243_PJC]

MAGA Americans keep telling us England is a dystopian hellscape and London is apparently one step away from Mad Max, despite most of them never having been here.

Meanwhile, England and Wales have just recorded their lowest homicide rate in almost 50 years, lower than every single US state.

But please, do carry on explaining Britain to us from 4,000 miles away. 🇬🇧😂

[All On The Board @allontheboard]

You might be breaking, but you’re not broken, you just really need a break.

[amante2 @AmeliaBee7]

Difference between America and Canada in a nutshell

🇨🇦👍

[dominic dyer @domdyer70]

Scotland has just done something quietly brilliant for its birds 🐦

New buildings across the country will now have to include "swift bricks", hollow bricks built straight into the walls that give birds a safe place to nest.

It sounds like a small thing but it isn't. Swift numbers in the UK have fallen by around 60% since the mid-1990s, and one of the biggest reasons is heartbreakingly simple: modern buildings have nowhere for them to go. Swifts have always nested in the nooks and gaps of our houses, and as those disappeared, so did they.

The birds themselves make it worse by being loyal to a fault. Swifts return to the exact same nest site year after year, having flown thousands of miles from Africa to get there.

When they arrive to find it sealed up, some will keep flying at the spot again and again, sometimes injuring themselves in the process.

The bricks cost about £30 each. They need no maintenance, they don't affect insulation, and once they're in the wall, you'd never know they were there. Sparrows, starlings and house martins use them too, all species in trouble for the same reason.

One RSPB conservationist put it starkly. In his part of Glasgow, not a single swift bred in 2025, the first time in his 30 years there. He called it "nothing short of heartbreaking."

Scotland is the first country in the UK to write this into law. Campaigners are now hoping the rest follows.

[KATY PERRY @katyperry]

I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.

I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.

My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

"My message to the people of the UK is that I'll train the new guy but you're going to have to stick with one of them eventually."

[Rob Rinder @RobbieRinder]

This England team reminded us that sport can be about more than trophies. It’s about courage when it hurts, dignity when it doesn’t go your way & believing that how you play matters as much as whether you win. Hold your heads high. You did your country proud. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[Nicola Chaston @nicchaston]

@Number10cat RIP Tony

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

Nigel Farage hasn't bothered to vote in Parliament for the last 11 weeks.

During that time he will have collected about £50,000 in wages and expenses.

But he will tell you Disabled People and immigrants are the problem.

No, it's rich lazy parasites like him.