Phil Stringer

Somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan but maybe less brutal. Ex Army (REME), married, two grown up boys. Lost access to previous 3000+ account @philstringer7

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

The great Net Zero con in a single laid bare.

A cold November evening, peak demand arriving, and 33GW of installed wind capacity is generating just 1.4GW. Not even 4%. The film Margin Call would be apt for this situation although in terms of catastrophe the UK hasn't "stepped on the wrong side of it." For now.

To keep the lights from going out, we have to fire up gas at exorbitant spot prices and import power from French nuclear reactors via interconnectors. Yet the political class genuinely believes the solution to a system that doesn't produce power when the wind drops is to spend billions more building identical turbines.

It’s not an energy strategy; it’s an expensive ideological suicide pact paid for directly through household standing charges.

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

Watching Tom Watson go from GMB trade union bruiser and Labour deputy leader to corporate frontman and Senior Vice-President for Peter Thiel’s Palantir is the Westminster revolving door in its purest, most cynical form.

I posted about this the other day, and seeing this PR exercise makes the danger even clearer: wiring our national health infrastructure into a proprietary American tech conglomerate without undertaking any root-and-branch reform of the NHS itself is completely reckless and ill-thought-out.

Look at how the uniparty built this pipeline:

The Tories: The £330m Federated Data Platform (FDP) contract was cooked up under Steve Barclay and Sajid Javid, greased by Tory insiders. Isaac Levido’s firm was retained by Palantir, while Rishi Sunak’s former Downing Street aides—like Ben Mascall and No 10 policy adviser Luke Gardiner—walked straight through the revolving door into senior Palantir strategy roles.

Labour: Peter Mandelson’s Global Counsel advised the firm, bringing in former Gordon Brown adviser and ex-NHS England deputy chief Matthew Swindells. Now that Labour is in government, Palantir hired Watson to lean on backbenchers and lobby ministers to expand their platform directly into local GP records.

The political class loves these deals because buying software allows ministers to pretend they are "modernising" healthcare without confronting the administrative decay that is quite literally strangling frontline care. Bolting on an algorithmic surveillance engine onto a broken 1940s command infrastructure doesn't fix waiting lists or staffing crises; it just hands a foreign contractor leverage over our entire medical data architecture while retired politicians pocket corporate retainers to run interference.

Labour and the Tories simply can't think or reason further than the first year of every term they serve in office.

Reform UK is the only party cutting through this stitch-up. You do not fix a systemic institutional collapse by handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Silicon Valley and letting party hacks manage the optics. You fix it by dismantling the managerial bureaucracy, putting resources directly into frontline delivery, and delivering actual structural reform.

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

Look no further than Sophy Ridge’s post this morning to see how easily the Westminster lobby is taken for a ride on Net Zero. Sky’s lead presenter breathlessly announces £12bn for two offshore wind projects "off the east coast of Scotland". They aren’t in Scotland. They are Norfolk Vanguard East and West—50km off East Anglia. No 10 slipped "Scotland" into a press release, and the lobby typed it out without checking a map.

If they won’t check which country a £12bn project is in, they certainly won’t check the balance sheet.

Strip away the slogans from Ed Miliband’s zealots and look at the financial engineering. We are told this is "homegrown British energy." In reality, it is a 50:50 joint venture between German giant RWE and New York private equity firm KKR. Taxpayers are handing over £1bn from the National Wealth Fund to de-risk their equity, while locking households into a 20-year inflation-linked Contract for Difference at £91.20/MWh in 2024 prices—well over £100/MWh today. For two decades, your energy bill will legally underwrite the guaranteed yield of a Wall Street fund.
Where do the industrial jobs go? Not here. The 184 turbines come from Denmark’s Vestas, backed by Danish export finance. Worse, the steel monopile foundations were promised to the SeAH factory at Teesworks in Redcar. In April, RWE pulled the plug on the Teesside contract for Vanguard West—triggering North East job cuts—and outsourced fabrication to Bilbao in Spain and Nordenham in Germany, underwritten by German export agency Euler Hermes. British taxpayers put up the £1bn subsidy; German and Spanish factories get the heavy engineering.

Then look at the environmental reality Net Zero ideologues ignore. Building 184 15MW turbines requires over 400,000 tonnes of virgin blast-furnace steel, thousands of tonnes of copper, and Chinese rare-earth neodymium and dysprosium mined in toxic conditions. To connect it, developers are using compulsory purchase powers to rip a 60km, 45m-wide trench—wider than a motorway—through prime Norfolk farmland from Happisburgh to Necton, pouring tens of thousands of tonnes of concrete into 150 jointing bays and a 300m converter substation.

Before a single blade turns, the embedded carbon from smelting steel, curing concrete, and running diesel jack-up vessels across the North Sea is vast. The switchgear relies on sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)—a gas 23,500 times more potent than CO2 that lingers for 3,200 years. And when these turbines hit the end of their 20-year subsidy life? We are left with 552 epoxy-resin blades, each 115m long, which cannot be economically recycled at scale and end up shredded, incinerated, or buried in landfill, while 400,000 tonnes of rusting steel stay driven into the seabed.

Yet Kemi Badenoch and the Tories now tour studios calling Net Zero "fantasy politics," hoping we have amnesia. Look at her record:
In June 2019, she waved through Theresa May’s statutory Net Zero 2050 target in 90 minutes without objection.

In 2022, she boasted at the dispatch box that Net Zero would cost "under 2% of GDP."

She sat in the Cabinet that passed the Energy Act 2023, expanding the exact CfD subsidy racket behind this £12bn RWE/KKR stitch-up.

The uniparty built this machine together, mortgaging our industrial base to foreign utilities and private equity, giving Britain the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world while paying gas stations to sit on standby when wind drops to 4%.

Only Reform UK—led by Nigel Farage and Richard Tice—will rip up the Net Zero mandates, scrap the CfD racket, fast-track domestic North Sea oil, gas, and modular nuclear, and stop treating British billpayers as a cash cow for global finance.

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

Think about the sheer cynicism of the timing. Today is 11 November—Armistice Day. Across the country, ordinary Brits are standing in silence at war memorials to honour the men who bled and died for this nation. And how does our state broadcaster mark the occasion? By splashing a grainy dark photograph across its front page with the headline: "New photos are 'essential evidence' of possible SAS war crimes, inquiry told".

They couldn't wait twenty-four hours.

What we are witnessing at the Afghanistan Inquiry is not the pursuit of justice. It is a coordinated, eight-year crusade driven by a triangle of activist journalists, human-rights law firms, and risk-averse Whitehall bureaucrats who view Britain’s elite warfighters with contempt.

Look at the machinery behind these headlines. For nearly a decade, a dedicated unit inside BBC Panorama—led by Hannah O’Grady and Joel Gunter—has worked in lockstep with human-rights solicitors at Leigh Day and anti-military NGOs like Action on Armed Violence to hunt the men of 22 SAS. When Inquiry Counsel Oliver Glasgow KC drops a selective line in court, lobby correspondents at Sky News and The Guardian transcribe it as gospel. Have we learned nothing from the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) farce? Back then, the exact same legal-media ecosystem dragged thousands of British soldiers through a decade of hell over alleged war crimes in Basra, burning £60 million of public money before the whole thing collapsed with zero murder convictions and lawyer Phil Shiner struck off in disgrace.

Now look at yesterday’s "bombshell." Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey, the Royal Military Police Gold Commander who ran Operation Northmoor, told the inquiry that photographs from 2011 Helmand night raids "cried out for examination", yet never sent them to forensic experts. Think about that for a second. Operation Northmoor lasted five years, cost over £10 million, had more than a hundred investigators, and ended in zero charges and zero convictions. Now, fifteen years after the event, the investigator in charge complains that his team didn't check the photos properly—and the media spins his admin incompetence as proof of an SAS cover-up!

Even worse is how this witch hunt started. As the Inquiry’s own disclosures have let slip, the initial briefings against the SAS didn't come from the operators taking fire in Taliban compounds; they came from staff officers sitting in headquarters and petty inter-regimental rivalries, amplified by an MoD legal bureaucracy terrified of the ECHR. Ever since judges extended the ECHR onto foreign battlefields, Whitehall’s permanent civil service has treated our soldiers as sacrificial lambs to appease international courts.

In 2011, the British state sent young men into the most lethal provinces of Afghanistan night after night to dismantle Taliban networks in pitch darkness. When they came home, the state handed them over to civilian lawyers with slow-mo replays and hindsight. As Brigadier Ed Butler, President of the SAS Regimental Association, rightly warned, this relentless lawfare is actively disarming Britain. Who in their right mind will volunteer for Special Forces selection tomorrow when they know that fifteen years later, a BBC journalist and a KC will be picking through photographs of a firefight to put them in prison?

The Tories talked tough for fourteen years, yet it was a Conservative Defence Secretary who set up the Inquiry and left our veterans at the mercy of the ECHR. Labour’s Attorney General is cut from the exact same cloth. Only Reform UK has had the backbone to draw a line in the sand—with Zia Yusuf and new Shadow Armed Forces Minister Angus MacIntyre (himself a 40-year veteran) pledging to end the persecution of our veterans within 100 days and strip human-rights lawfare out of combat operations.

On Armistice Day of all days, this national self-harm needs to stop.

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

The Treasury finally admitting that the cost of replacing Britain’s nuclear deterrent surged by 75% in real terms between 2006 and 2015 is the definitive case study of Conservative defence mismanagement.

Back in Tony Blair’s 2006 White Paper, the submarine element of the deterrent was projected at £11 to £14 billion. By the time the Conservatives published their 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the price tag for the four Dreadnought hulls alone had exploded to £31 billion, with another £10 billion contingency quietly bolted on. That is over £41 billion for the boats, and well north of £50 billion once you factor in reactor development, warheads, and dockyard overhauls at Barrow and Faslane.

This catastrophic cost surge wasn’t down to technical hurdles. It was driven by political short-termism. In 2010, David Cameron and George Osborne made the reckless decision to push the Main Gate investment decision back by four years purely to balance Treasury spreadsheets for the short term. The Treasury’s own Value for Money study directly admits that this artificial delay was the single costliest blunder of the entire programme.

That choice slipped the delivery of HMS Dreadnought from the late 2020s into the early 2030s, forcing the Royal Navy to keep aging Vanguard-class boats in the water well past their design life. It led directly to HMS Vanguard’s deep refit at Devonport dragging on for seven gruelling years, swallowing hundreds of millions in unplanned repairs, while submarine crews were pushed into record-breaking six-month deterrent patrols just to keep the continuous at-sea deterrent operational.
Four hulls are now crawling through BAE Systems at Barrow—Dreadnought, Valiant, Warspite, and King George VI—with the lead boat not seeing service until the 2030s at the absolute earliest.

For fourteen years, the Conservatives posed as the party of national security while treating frontline defence procurement as an administrative line item to be squeezed, delayed, and hollowed out. Angus MacIntyre is completely spot on when he highlights how badly this institutional neglect has compromised our standing with allies and left our core defence posture vulnerable. You cannot project power or secure deterrence with patched-up legacy hulls and programmes that double in cost while gathering rust.
It will take Reform UK to tear up the bloated, risk-averse culture at Defence Equipment and Support, end the Treasury's penny-pinching veto over sovereign capability, and put real engineering competence back at the heart of British naval procurement.

[Samantha Pressdee @SammiePressdee]

Comedians sharing the "open secret" narrative about Russell Brand are lying, or they have been duped by "journalists" planting rumours.

If there was an "open secret" about Russell Brand in the comedy industry. As a female comedian, I would know.

I had a top publicist, shared with celebrities. My publicity photos, including this one, were sent to journalists and comedy bloggers in 2016.

The photo is taken by top photographer Steve Ullathorn. Who also photographed many famous comedians. (I am not saying this to brag, but to demonstrate I was connected to people who would have heard an "open secret".)

The cardboard cutout was on the stage during my show at The Edinburgh Fringe (The whole industry congregates there yearly). I spoke onstage about an ongoing campaign I was involved in, with Russell. (Sweets Way Resists)

I also drove a campaign van with his name on it, to comedy gigs and the Edinburgh Fringe.

It could not have been more obvious that I was connected to him. If everyone in the comedy industry "knew", someone would have warned me.

I was never TV famous, but I was well known by the industry and well connected. I socialised in the VIP bars at the Edinburgh fringe and was invited to exclusive industry events.

There may be comedians who want to come forward and speak against the narrative, but they can’t do that without being cancelled.

I am already cancelled. Which is the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. Coming out of the comedy industry, was like escaping a CULT.

A husband and father is in prison, after his human right to a fair trail was trashed. The media machine generating headlines about this over the past three years, has likely generated millions of pounds.

Do not be fooled! The human right to a fair trail, is your right too. Do not let the mainstream media make a mockery of the values this country stands for. The values people died for.

This is not just about Russell Brand, it’s about EVERY citezen of the United Kingdom. 🇬🇧 ✊🏼

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@Taity813112 Not always the case. If he were an old guy, I’d agree immediately, but he’s still seen as young(ish) and ripe for a beating. His arrogant bearing also doesn’t serve him well either.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

No, I wasn’t in the court and No, I’ve not heard all the evidence but frankly Brand’s 10 years is yet another example of two tier policing. An ‘offence’ from 20 years ago when girls were throwing themselves at him versus some immigrant pulling a girl off the streets getting 10 months.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@GatesheadLad23 May I suggest you’re a little more precise in directing those insults in future. Thank you

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

Rather than depending on your X anonymity, Alan from Gateshead, why don’t you DM me your full name and address and we’ll discuss your defamatory libel.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@GatesheadLad23 Yes he is and you are denying that the comment was originally directed at me?

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@benjii82 Another stunning argument!

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@GatesheadLad23 Look back and see if you can spot it. If you can’t, put your crayons away and see if you can take a nap.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@Unicorntimelord @carljfree I really do think that you’re mixing me up with another of your antagonists. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

[Sick of it….🇬🇧 @MediaSOI]

To celebrate the Indian festival of Diwali, I’ve thrown all my rubbish in the river and had a shit in my neighbours garden

Mr international me

[Radical Eyes @RadicalEyesUK]

9 months of Russell Brand’s sentence was for touching a woman’s breasts “without her concent”.

Although, she sucked him off in the toilets afterwards. He was found not guilty for the blowjob.

Below is a visual representation of everyone trying to look for the answer on how that makes sense:

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@RayMairead Very possible.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@CuriousandFemme Agree 100%. That offence should start at 10 years imo.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@Unicorntimelord @carljfree I think your confused BTL. Take a couple of aspirin and go les down in a darkened room.

[Phil Stringer @PhilStringer18]

@GatesheadLad23 I didn’t say he wasn’t and he got what he deserved. My original post was criticising the judicial inconsistency whereas my one to you was regarding your libel of myself. If you’d like to reinforce that comment, please do.

[Baroness Foster DBE #FreeIran🦁❤️ @jfoster2019]

Remarkable that @10DowningStreet is commenting on ‘allegations’ concerning a ‘high profile celebrity’ and I have no idea whether the accusations are true or false..

In addition, they had much to say on the conviction on RB ..

I have never been a fan of either .. and

I give no truck to sexual predators and would like to see them all locked up ..

However, I don’t recall @downingstreet commenting publicly on the convictions and allegations against the barbaric paedophiles involved in the..

child ‘Rape gang’ criminals..

The same politicians @UKLabour fought tooth and nail & voted against..

to prevent the Independent Public Inquiry taking place !

Makes you think ..🤔

[mary poppins @ozgal1965]

Regardless of personal opinions about Russell Brand, on the exact same day he received a prison sentence of ten years and six months, an Afghan national appeared in court for three counts of rape and penetration of a child under 13, but received a two-year suspended sentence.

🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡