Phil

[Phil @philmarshall44]

@KayBurley I think it is hilarious!!!

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

Bridget tried her best to undo all the great reforms to education in the last decade and a half.

Reforms that resulted in England massively climbing international tables.

Having said that, there is room for Lucy to be worse. Her recent tweets are cause for real worry.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Well, that’s one way to make sure nobody ever comes to our country again to make major investments and/or start businesses.
And to make sure those already here quickly scarper.
Good luck forcing them still to pay after they’ve left.
And all for a measly £10bn a year (of course it will be nowhere near that in reality) — 0.7% of actual annual government spending.
Much more, of course, will be lost in capital flight and foregone future investment.
Is the country going bonkers?

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

They are determined to destroy private schools. Each child that goes to private school allows more funds to be spent on children in state schools. It’s the nasty politics of greed & envy.

[Alan @A1an_M]

This ⬇️was in The Guardian the day after Jo Cox was murdered and the day BEFORE her killer appeared in court for the first time.

No worries about trial and conviction by political commentary in 2016, was there?

Different rules apply when the victim is from the political right, clearly.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

We can’t say we’re shocked that Andy Burnham has sacked Bridget Phillipson as Education Secretary.

One of her first acts as Secretary of State was to torpedo the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) — arguably the most consequential piece of free speech legislation in the past 15 years.

She reversed the commencement orders that would have brought the Act’s most important provisions into force, including the vital complaints scheme.

Rather than asking Parliament to do so, she bypassed it through ministerial fiat. The Free Speech Union challenged this in the High Court on two grounds: first, that it breached the sacrosanct constitutional principle that a minister cannot defy the will of Parliament; and second, that she had failed to carry out an adequate impact assessment.

Days before the case was due to be heard, Bridget Phillipson partially U-turned, announcing that she would commence most of the key provisions — and she duly did.

We then became embroiled in a long-standing dispute over who had won the case. That mattered because it determined who would pay the legal costs.

The High Court decided that the Free Speech Union had won and ordered the Government to pay our costs.

Importantly, when Phillipson announced her partial U-turn, the Free Speech Union offered to settle if the Government paid £80,000 — around a quarter of our total legal costs.

Pretty fair, no?

Well, the Government refused. The Free Speech Union believes this was because Phillipson did not want to admit she had reversed course.

The High Court has now ordered the Government to pay all of our costs. Bridget Phillipson’s hubris has cost taxpayers around £200,000. Combined with the Government’s own legal costs, the total bill exceeds £500,000.

That also means we now have the resources to challenge Phillipson’s successor, Lucy Powell, should she attempt to reverse any of the commencement orders that bring HEFSA into force — including the much-needed complaints scheme for academics, university staff and visiting speakers, which is due to come into force on 1 September.

Hear from @SpeechUnion General Secretary Lord Young of Acton 👇

[Michelle Dewberry @MichelleDewbs]

*Except the ones who go to private schools….

🤦🏼‍♀️

[Kelvin MacKenzie @kelvmackenzie]

A convicted fraudster is now Deputy Prime Minister. That’s a first.

[Laurence Fox @LozzaFox]

Horrific.

Why is this assassination being ignored?

Once again, if this was someone who held differing values and morals, we would never hear the end of it.

A grandmother of politics massacred and all the media talks about is Andy’s new cabinet.

Shameful disrespect.

[Riley Gaines @Riley_Gaines_]

Now imagine him in your daughter's bathroom...

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@martianwyrdlord I’m down

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

Because the media establishment, which has spent a full decade now demonising people like Ann, can't look in the mirror and admit their language and tone have been deeply irresponsible and dangerous. That would be incompatible with their self- image of Good People.

[Phil @philmarshall44]

@BethRigby We don't care. He was useless.

[Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @DrewPavlou]

Hey guys, just so you’re aware, a communist terrorist broke into the home of an old right wing lady in Britain and brutally bashed her to death, destroying her skull with 21 seperate hammer blows because she was a member of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party.

British police knew almost immediately that it was a communist terrorist attack but they drip fed the news to the media so that it took almost 12 days to learn that the communist terrorist murdered Ann Widdecombe in one of the most brutal ways possible.

Her last moments on this earth were filled with blood curdling terror and horror.

We really need to do something about the communist terrorists running around inflicting terror and horror on innocent people 👍 Cheers.

[Adrian Hilton @Adrian_Hilton]

When Jo Cox was murdered, the police announced *the day after* they were examining the suspect’s links to the far right and searching his home for extremist right-wing material. It was widely reported, no fear of contempt, prejudicing a trial, or quashing of political commentary.

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

My god… poor Ann. 🙏

[Brendan Cox @MrBrendanCox]

Feeling sick that someone could do this to anyone, let alone an old lady who had devoted most of her life to public service.
https://t.co/aZwTUm3Gi5

[Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott]

It must have been completely obvious to police, immediately, that Ann Widdecombe had been brutally murdered. The misinformation that followed, over several days, is inexplicable.