John Tempest

PR guy who asks difficult questions. Supports underdogs. Saved the Odeon. Widower to Julie. 3 kids [inherited] +1 other.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@Ameer_Kotecha @LaurenMaeve Knowing our current (UK) Govt., he could probably get Chagos for a second-hand ‘in need of repair’ submarine. Or at least a tenner.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@LaurenMaeve @GBNEWS Credit where it’s due. Good to see you back on @GBNews.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

Note to interviewees: If you’re not sure about your subject/might struggle to explain it, watch the excellent @LaurenMaeve on @GBNews and see how it’s done.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@elonmusk Because he wasn’t black, or Muslim?

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@jamespriceglos Excellent explanation today on @GBNews regarding the fiscal ineptitude of our current government. Thanks.

[Bill @real_bechambers]

Today is my son’s(Danny) birthday. He turns 35 today. Could you please wish my son a very happy birthday today 🎂🎉🥳🎈🎁

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@cristo_radio @dalrymple_mrs @UKLabour You’re not wrong on all you say, but maybe you could get further if you were to investigate the aims (and membership) of the Fabian Society.
Just a thought.

[Jo 💕🛍💅💋🩵 @Jo2901TF]

Sorcha Eastwood, we need more MP’s like her! She’s bloody fantastic ❤️

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

The Man Nobody Is Talking About. His Name Is Sir Philip Barton.

Buried inside Tuesday's committee testimony, beneath the headlines about constant pressure, bullying and secret job searches, is the detail that may prove the most consequential of this entire affair. It concerns not Olly Robbins, not Morgan McSweeney, not even Keir Starmer. It concerns the man who was there before all of them. The man who said no. The man who then left his post eight months early.

Sir Philip Barton was the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office when Peter Mandelson's appointment was announced in December 2024. He was, in other words, the most senior civil servant in the building at the precise moment the machinery of state was being directed to place a man with documented links to Russia and China into the most sensitive diplomatic posting in the Western alliance.

What Robbins told the committee on Tuesday is this. Barton pushed back. When the Cabinet Office argued that vetting Mandelson was unnecessary, that a peer and Privy Councillor did not require developed vetting, Barton refused to accept it. He insisted that vetting was a requirement. He had to be, in Robbins's own words, very firm in person. He also voiced reservations about the appointment to Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, reservations that were noted and not acted upon. He was worried, Robbins suggested, about exactly the same reputational risks that had been detailed to the Prime Minister before the appointment was announced.

Then Sir Philip Barton left his post. Eight months before his tenure would otherwise have concluded.

The question Richard Foord put to Robbins on Tuesday was the right one. Why did Barton's tenure end early? Robbins said he did not know. He suggested ministers may have felt it was time for a change. That answer is not an answer. It is the absence of one.

Consider what the timeline now shows. A senior civil servant pushes back against the appointment, insists on vetting when the Cabinet Office wants to bypass it, raises reservations with the National Security Adviser, and departs eight months ahead of schedule. His replacement arrives to find the appointment already treated as a fait accompli, the vetting process under constant pressure from Downing Street, and the question of outcome entirely subordinate to the question of speed.

If Barton was removed because he stood in the way of this appointment, then Robbins was not the first civil servant sacrificed to protect it. He was the second. And the question of who else was moved aside, overruled or silenced in the months between December 2024 and the moment the security services finally said no, becomes the most important question this affair has yet produced.

Starmer sacked Robbins for following the rules. The Foreign Affairs Committee will now call Barton to give evidence. What he says will either confirm what the timeline already suggests or provide an alternative explanation that the evidence does not currently support.

There is a pattern here that goes beyond process failure. Process failures are random. They point in different directions. What this affair has produced is a series of events that point consistently in one direction. Officials who comply are retained. Officials who push back depart. The security services are bypassed. The vetting is treated as an administrative inconvenience. And the one question nobody at the top of this government will answer is why this appointment, this man, this post, mattered so much that every obstacle was removed to make it happen.

Barton apparently asked that question. He left eight months early. The country deserves to know why.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@jamespriceglos Another excellent appearance by you on @GBNews tonight.
Can I go to bed now?!

[A View From Yorkshire @models_by_Russ]

PLEASE READ AND RETWEET

In May, we head to the polls for the local elections — assuming, of course, nobody in Westminster decides a conveniently timed international “situation” is more important than letting the public have their say.

So let’s keep this simple: if you can vote, vote.

And vote like it actually matters — because this time, it does.

Now before the Restore crowd start foaming at the mouth, take a breath. I respect what they’re trying to build, and I’d genuinely like to see figures like Rupert Lowe gain real traction in the future. From what I’ve seen, a lot of his views aren’t a million miles away from where many of us stand.

But politics isn’t about what might happen one day — it’s about what can happen right now.

And right now, they don’t have the numbers.

Reform, for all its flaws, is the only outfit currently in a position to seriously rattle the establishment. Do I agree with everything? No. Do I trust every face involved? Also no. Farage, for me, still has the air of a man who might fumble the moment when it truly counts.

But I’d much rather take that risk than guarantee nothing changes at all.

Because here’s the truth — if the vote splinters, nothing shifts. The same machine rolls on, the same voices dominate, and the same outcomes repeat.

Division is a luxury we can’t afford.

Unity — even if it’s imperfect — is the only way anything changes.

The left has entrenched itself deeply across institutions, influence, and narrative. That doesn’t get undone by wishful thinking or protest votes — it gets undone by numbers.

So if there’s no merger, no alignment, no last-minute miracle before May… then people need to be pragmatic.

Pick the option that can actually move the needle.

Because if we don’t, we’re not sending a message — we’re just handing them another win.

And frankly, Britain deserves better than being the punchline.

[Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green @MPIainDS]

The mark of a bad Bill is obvious: sweeping Henry VIII powers hidden inside something thin and flimsy, handing the Government carte blanche to rewrite it after the event. That is exactly what this was. Now, having pushed it through, the Government is retreating: call it a pause, call it a U-turn.

But let’s get to the point, the rights of the Chagossians. This Labour government talks about enabling their return, yet when the Supreme Court ruled that Section 9 of the 2004 Order in Council, denying their right of abode, was unlawful this Government chose to appeal.

So which is it? Does the goverment believe the Chagossians have the right to return, or are they determined to keep them out?

This is not about process. It is about justice.

[Christian @InTheTrenchesUK]

Mr Starmer,

The world is watching. And for once, I’m not here to play nice or balance both sides. This is the one shot I get to say what millions already know in their bones.

You are not Britain’s Prime Minister.
You are a man who won an election and immediately began dismantling the very things the British people voted for in 2016. You are squatting in Downing Street while steering the country back into the arms of the institution it explicitly rejected.

If you will not stand down, the British people will make you.

Here is every claim you made today, stripped bare, no spin, no mercy:

1. “The Middle East conflict has now entered its second month.”
Thank you for the calendar update. While you counted months, the IRGC a group formally designated as terrorists by the United States, Canada, and others, continued running its London operations from 16 Prince’s Gate, Knightsbridge. You did nothing.

2. “The UK is working at pace for de-escalation and peace.”
Translation: we issued strongly worded statements. Results: zero. Your “pace” is the speed of a snail on tranquillisers.

3. “The war will affect the future of our country, energy and cost of living.”
It already is. Your green ideology and EU realignment have left Britain with some of the highest energy prices in the developed world. Pensioners choose between heating and eating. That’s not “the war.” That’s policy.

4. “We are well-placed with a long-term plan to emerge stronger and more secure.”
Record taxes. 7.5 million people on NHS waiting lists. Record small-boat crossings. Energy bills that could bankrupt households. If this is your definition of “stronger and more secure,” the English language just filed for divorce.

5. “I held meetings with business leaders…”
Photo opportunities. They warned you. You smiled for the cameras and carried on regardless.

6. “Energy bills will be cut today and fixed until July.”
A £117 cap that your own NI increases and green levies have already vaporised. It’s not relief. It’s an insult dressed up as compassion.

7. “The most effective way to support the cost of living is to push for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.”
Then why did you help shut down North Sea production and make us dependent on foreign energy? The hypocrisy is so thick you could spread it on toast.

8. “The UK is taking back control of our energy security by investing in clean British energy.”
Britain now pays the highest industrial electricity prices in Europe. Blackouts are on the menu. This is not “taking back control.” This is self-sabotage with better PR.

9. “Because the world is volatile, Britain’s long-term national interest now requires closer partnership with the EU.”
Let’s be honest for once: you are using a foreign crisis as cover to hand sovereignty, money, and decision-making back to Brussels without asking the British people. That is not statesmanship. That is betrayal by stealth.

10. “I will announce a new summit with the EU later this year…”
Re-joining by the back door while an Iranian terror-linked operation sits in one of London’s most expensive postcodes. The sheer gall is almost impressive.

You stood at the podium today and spoke of “British interests” while actively working against them. You swore you wouldn’t rejoin the EU. You are doing it anyway. You talk of security while leaving a designated terror network untouched in central London. You lecture about the cost of living while your policies make it worse.

The mask is not slipping, Keir. It has fallen off and shattered on the floor.

The British people see you clearly now: a politician who values international approval and Brussels goodwill more than the nation that elected him. You are not leading Britain. You are managing its managed decline.

The clock is ticking. Not in secret. Not in silence. Out loud, in broad daylight, across every pub, every kitchen table, every X feed and every street in this country.

History does not forgive those who sell their own people’s sovereignty for applause.

Britain did not vote for this.
Britain does not want this.
And Britain will not tolerate this forever.

The reckoning is coming.
And it will not be kind.

Britain First. No Surrender. 🦁🇬🇧

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

To encourage them, teenagers who vote between 10pm and midnight on 7th May will have their votes counted twice. “It’s never too late to support democracy.” said a Green Party spokesman.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@DobbsandPolicy “The proof is in the pudding.” you say on @GBNEWS.
Oops.
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” is what you probably meant to say. Standards, Ms Dobbs. Apart from that you were quite good and I look forward to your next appearance.

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

The UK has always been based at the deepest level on Christian values, regardless of dogma

Despite the many mistakes made by churches, for centuries British people have been influenced by Christ's teaching

If these values are replaced by Islamic ones, this will not be Britain any more

[Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar FSHC @BishopDewar]

As a Bishop, I cannot stay silent. I have today drafted and sent an open letter to His Majesty King Charles III, the text of which reads as follows:

To:
His Majesty, Charles III,
King of the United Kingdom and the Realms,
Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
Bearer of the ancient title Defender of the Faith.

Your Majesty,

I write to you neither as a politician nor as a commentator, but as one of your loyal subjects who, as a bishop of Christ’s Church, cannot remain silent while the Christian foundations of this kingdom are steadily dismantled.

Sir, there are moments in the life of a nation when silence becomes a form of betrayal. If I refused to speak to Your Majesty now, this would be such a moment.

For more than a thousand years the Crown of this realm has stood in solemn covenant with the Christian faith.

The laws of this land were shaped by it.
The liberties of our people were nurtured by it.
The conscience of our civilisation was formed by it.

From the abbeys of medieval England to the parish churches of our villages, from the preaching of the Reformers to the missionary zeal that carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth, the Christian faith has not merely influenced Britain — it has defined her.

Yet today that inheritance is being quietly but deliberately eroded. Across the institutions of this nation there is a growing hostility toward the faith that built them.

Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age.

Within the very Church that bears the name of England, voices have arisen that appear more eager to mirror the spirit of the age than to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel.

Meanwhile, beyond the walls of our churches, powerful political movements openly speak of removing Christianity from its historic place within the life of this nation.

What would once have been whispered is now proclaimed openly: that Britain must become a post-Christian state.

It is in this context that I write to you, Your Majesty. For the British Crown does not stand apart from this crisis.

The Sovereign of this realm bears a title that is not merely historic but sacred in its origin and meaning: Defender of the Faith. Those words are not decorative. They are a charge.

They speak of a monarch whose duty is not merely to preside over the ceremonies of the Church, but to stand as a guardian of the Christian inheritance of the nation.

Yet many among your subjects now ask, with increasing anxiety: “Who will defend that inheritance today?”

They see a nation drifting from its foundations. And they ask whether the Crown will remain silent while that inheritance is dismantled.

Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law.

Those words bind the conscience of the sovereign. They remind the Crown that its authority is not merely constitutional but moral. The monarch is not merely a symbol of national continuity, but a custodian of the spiritual inheritance that shaped this realm.

History records moments when kings and emperors were confronted by the Church and reminded that their authority was accountable before God. In the fourth century Ambrose of Milan stood before the Emperor Theodosius I and reminded him that even the ruler of an empire must bow before the moral law of Christ.

That tradition of prophetic witness has never disappeared. Nor should it. For when rulers forget the foundations upon which their authority rests, the Church must speak — not with hostility, but with holy clarity.

And so, I write to say this, Your Majesty: The Christian character of this nation is under profound and accelerating assault.

If the Crown does not stand visibly and courageously in defence of that inheritance, history will record that the guardians of Britain’s institutions watched in silence as the foundations were removed.

The issue before us is not nostalgia. It is civilisation. Remove Christianity from the story of Britain and you do not create a neutral society — you create a moral vacuum. And history teaches us that moral vacuums are never left empty for long.

Your Majesty now stands at a crossroads that few monarchs in modern history have faced.

For the erosion of Britain’s Christian inheritance will not ultimately be judged by speeches made in Parliament or debates in the press. It will be judged by whether those entrusted with the guardianship of our ancient institutions chose to defend them — or merely preside over their quiet surrender.

You may preside over the quiet dissolution of Britain’s Christian identity. Or you may rise to the ancient responsibility entrusted to the Crown and speak with clarity about the faith that built this kingdom. The first path requires little courage. The second will require a great deal. But it is the path that history honours.

Your Majesty’s subjects are not asking for religious coercion. They are asking for leadership. They are asking that the sovereign who bears the title Defender of the Faith remember what that title means.

They are asking that the Crown hear the growing cry of anguish from Christians across this land who feel that the spiritual inheritance of their nation is being surrendered without resistance. And they are asking whether the Crown will stand with them.

For the faith that shaped Britain is not merely a cultural ornament. It is the wellspring from which our laws, our liberties, and our moral imagination have flowed. If it is cast aside, the nation will discover — too late — that it has severed itself from the very roots that sustained it.

Your Majesty, to many the Crown is a symbol of authority. But before God it is also a symbol of stewardship. And stewardship carries with it the duty to defend what has been entrusted.

May Almighty God grant Your Majesty the wisdom to discern this hour, and the courage to fulfil the sacred duty entrusted to the Crown.

Yours faithfully,

Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar FSHC
Missionary Bishop
Diocese of Providence
Confessing Anglican Church

@PhilHs10 @RevBrettMurphy @revwickland @BishopRobert1 @GBNews @TalkTV @danwootton @Jacob_Rees_Mogg @LozzaFox @BackBrexitBen @RupertLowe10 @KemiBadenoch @JohnCleese

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@Geoffrey_Cox Excellent speech in the House re the abolition of Jury Trials. Regrettably, I suspect enough minds will not be changed. Let’s hope HoL can exert some pressure.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

I am a juror.
Lammy + Starmer: GUILTY.

[John Tempest @OriginalTempest]

@NileGardiner Absolutely spot on with your assessment of Starmer re the current ‘local difficulty’ in the Middle East. In times of trouble the people expect a leader, not a ditherer. Probably too much to expect from KS.