Rachel Disney 💙

Environmental scientist. Love food. Baker of cakes. Big sports fan. Former trials rider. Runner? Busy mum.

[Chino @ChinoUTD]

🚨 Roy Keane on Nico Williams disallowed goal against Argentina:

“I’ve just seen the biggest robbery of this World Cup. The ball comes into the box, nobody touches anybody, everyone goes up for it, then one Argentina player starts shouting. The next thing you know, two defenders are on the floor appealing,

Nico Williams has scored, and Emiliano Martinez … who wasn’t even touched… is somehow lying there as well asking for a foul.

The referee blows immediately. No VAR review. No replay. No check to see if there was actually any contact. Just disallowed. Apparently if enough Argentina players fall over at the same time, that’s now considered conclusive evidence.

If we’re being honest, Paredes shouldn’t even still be on the pitch after some of the tackles he’s made today. Yet somehow the only thing the referee managed to spot instantly was an invisible foul.”

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

NEW: A convicted money launderer has operated at the highest level of UK politics for a decade. Why? Because Farage has enjoyed almost total impunity from the UK press.

In my new piece for @thenerve_news, I expose the decade of denial that’s enabled him to act with impunity
1/

[Football on TNT Sports @footballontnt]

Declan Rice finishes this season with 69 games played (5,394 minutes) for club and country. Gave everything until the very end 💪

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Bukayo Saka. Our hat-trick hero.

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

STUDENT LOAN NEWS: The Treasury Committee of MPs has put out its report into student loans. Here's my view:-

I’ve long condemned the Chancellor’s planned freeze of the student loan repayment threshold next April as immoral and a breach of natural justice. So today is an important moment, as the cross-party Treasury Committee of MPs echoes this language in calling out a “moral obligation” for this to be reversed.

Changing terms for future students is a political choice, but that’s not what is planned next year. Freezing the threshold on existing Plan 2 loans effectively increases the amount those with those loans must repay each year. It is a retrospective, one-sided contractual change that would not be allowed in almost any other circumstance or sector. Worse, those hit often signed these contracts while just 18, with little or no explanation of what they were getting into.

This has to stop, and never be allowed again. That’s why one of the Committee’s most important proposals is that the Government should effectively be bound by the same Consumer Duty for student loans as a commercial lender, backed by proper fairness rules. Though it is only taking about student loan promotions, I think it should be for all student loan behaviour.

I have been pushing for this for over a decade. In 2016 we even got Wes Streeting, then a new MP, to propose FCA regulation of student loans and place restrictions on negative changes as a parliamentary amendment. It was rejected. Had that protection been in place, it could have stopped successive governments tinkering with the system, resulting in a horrific degradation of the original terms.

I hope this report, feeding into a new administration, means there is now a realistic chance of stopping the planned freeze and any future freezes.

Yet let’s be clear: that alone will not fix the Plan 2 student loan crisis - it’ll just stop it getting even worse. The report is titled "Student loans: broken and unfair?". There is no need for the question mark. The repayment threshold should be many thousands of pounds higher, interest should be reduced, maintenance thresholds need uprating, and the whole system, including the way it is communicated, needs a fundamental reset.

Here is the report: https://t.co/MPIOFE7mjy
Here is the MSE submission to the report: https://t.co/RIUPRO2svQ

[Dr Rachel Clarke @doctor_oxford]

How does Five Homes Farage possibly persuade ordinary people he is on their side? Imagine being rich enough to own 5 homes outright - 4 of them purchased since 2020. Imagine the sheer brass neck of not even declaring to parliament where the cash to buy 3 of them came from 😳

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

England student debt £295bn, to hit £500bn by 2040s.

Millions can't start family/business, buy a home.

Interest added until loan repaid or written-off

No tuition fees in Scotland, average debt £13,000 to £18,000; England £47,500.

Abolish tuition fees.
https://t.co/vslmQbTzIt

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

A) This a properly brilliant piece of investigative journalism by BBC & @hopenothate. Huge kudos to all involved.

B) The Kremlin operative who BBC names as directing arson attacks against Keir Starmer was taught his tradecraft by…drumroll…Sergei Nalobin !!! Pictured here with Boris Johnson. Also: the star of our podcast series, Sergei & the Westminster Spy Ring! Wtaf

[Brendan Cox @MrBrendanCox]

10 years ago my wife, the mum of our kids & the MP for Batley&Spen was killed by a far right extremist.

At anniversaries I try to be optimistic about the future. But not this time. In the ten years since she was killed we have gone backwards & I fear our democracy is now at risk

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The Government has announced all Year 13 pupils starting university this September will be offered the MenB vaccine

The first dose will be given from July and the second in August

Under-25s starting university for the first time will also be eligible

[Rachel Disney 💙 @rdisney39]

@DocPriyamMD Could this be picked up on an MRI ?

[Rachel Disney 💙 @rdisney39]

@DocPriyamMD Interesting! I've been reading about some health benefits of nicotine patches (preferable to smoking?)

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Farmers have figured out that the cheapest pesticide is a strip of flowers.

When you plant wildflowers through a crop field, not just around the edge but in strips running through the middle, you get ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps living in the field instead of visiting it.

They eat the aphids, the caterpillars, and the mites for free, all summer long.

In controlled trials, fields with tailored flower strips had leaf-beetle numbers 40 to 50% lower and crop damage cut by around 60%, enough to drop below the threshold where spraying was even considered worth it.

The flowers attract a standing army to our fields.

We spent decades engineering chemicals to kill the insects eating the crop, when the insects that eat those insects would have worked for the price of seed.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

Correlation is not causation but facts are facts.

@thenerve_news has also established that Harbourne has poured an extraordinary £30m into British politics! In just 6 years.

This is a story not just about Farage, but Johnson too.
4/

[John Dabell @John_Dabell]

The subway leading to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham is a disgrace - and it has been for years. This is my route to hospital: graffiti-scarred walls, litter-strewn walkways and the stench of urine. It’s hardly the welcome anyone should receive on their way to hospital. This is not just a subway; for many patients, families and staff, it is the first impression of care. People walk this route anxious about scans, treatment, surgery and bad news. They should not have to step through filth to get there. A city cannot claim to be proud of itself while neglecting the very paths leading to its hospitals. It is a dreadful advert for Nottingham and for the QMC. We must be better than this, Nottingham. Who is going to step up and make a difference?

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

So listen.

@thenerve_news has the receipts.

A comprehensive timeline of Nathan Gill & Nigel Farage’s pro-Kremlin influencing activities & 2 other MEPs, David Cobourn & Jonathan Arnott.

Please read & share.

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

“To all those of you, struggling with your own demons…”

Martin Lewis’ acceptance speech as he received the Special Award on 10 May at this year's BAFTA TV awards.

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

Dear Reform-voting ladies…

Do you know you’re voting for a party that wants to:

❌ Scrap the Equality Act - your legal protection against workplace discrimination & unequal pay

❌ Kill the Online Safety Act - the law protecting you from revenge porn

❌ Vote AGAINST the bill to stop workplace sexual harassment

❌ Stack the party with anti-abortion politicians - some opposing termination even in cases of rape

❌ Push “pro-family” policies that put women back in the home

I guess the question is…

Do you hate immigrants more than you love your rights?

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

At what point do we stop pretending our newspapers are ‘news’ and start calling them what they are…

Promotional pamphlets for the billionaires who own them and the agendas they’re selling.

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Martha's Rule helplines get more than 1,700 calls from worried NHS staff https://t.co/kUr1Iqj3cn