Rob Atherton

Watches football.
Takes photos.
Goes scuba diving.
Economist.

My book "War Graves: The Story of Truk Lagoon" is available on Amazon.

[Anglo Futurism Capital LP 🇬🇧🐿️ @RollingHedge]

Oh for fuck’s sake give it a rest…

Brexit was FACTUALLY a de minimis footnote (I voted remain in 2016 so don’t even start…) when compared with a raft of the worst policy decisions imaginable since the end of WW2 across virtually all policy areas, by fuckwit politicians…

To name some of the biggest offenders:

- Most expensive energy in the developed world fuelling inflation across every good and service going - and net zero cultish insanity crippling our economy; we now make virgin steel only via emergency nationalisation in all but name - mainly because windmills and solar don’t produce the joules to produce concrete or steel, to build stuff

- Shuttering North Sea oil whilst buying the same stuff from the Norwegians who banked the oil: two trillion in the tank, three hundred grand a head, a quarter of the budget paid forever

- PFI. Blair and Brown fancied hospitals that didn’t trouble the books, so they put them on tick with loan sharks. £60b of buildings, £300b out the door, NHS still paying through the nose for a car park and a leaky roof.

- Tories borrowed the best part of £400bn at 0%, the cheapest money in three hundred years, and what have we got for it? Furlough, a fortune in PPE that didn’t work, and ~£20b handed to chancers with fake ltd co’s. Nothing built. Nothing that pays you back. The lot, gone. And here’s the one nobody says out loud… Money was free. Risk free. Rates at zero for the best part of a fucking decade. If a govt or their perm secs had any sense that was the moment to issue a 30y infra bond and build the grid, the reactors, the track, the housing, lock the cost in at basically nothing and let it pay for itself for two generations. Norway would’ve had it done by lunch. We didn’t issue a penny of it. Now the long end’s at 5.5 and the door’s now bolted shut. We had the cheapest money in history and spaffed it all.

- Capital markets that don’t work since Blair and Brown’s various legislative and regulatory changes, making pension fund allocations lower going into British companies, and making it harder and more costly to raise capital to grow and keep businesses here paying taxes and employing people - the collective cost of this to British households is conservatively estimated to be around £20trillion (per @andyroocraig’s figures) and countries that were literally communist within living memory are on track to overtake us this decade, on the IMF’s own numbers. Oh, and Mississippi HAS already overtaken us on GDP per capita basis (they are the butt of all poverty jokes in the US)

- Brown flogged 395 tonnes of gold, over half the national reserve, in 17 auctions between 1999 and 2002, at about $275 an ounce, near a twenty-year structural low. They call it “Brown’s Bottom” for a reason. Pocketed $3.5b but I t’d be worth around $52b today. So that socialist genius cleared the lot at the bottom of the market and torched the thick end of £40b in one decision (because he like many politicians since the 90s is a retard with no real world understanding)

- P90/P10 wage compression under social democracy is demonstrably worse than even the Soviets managed under Gosplan ffs

- Selling off and sweating various other national assets to fund our absurd debt borrowing pile that has mostly been spaffed up the wall on zero return or loss making initiatives / welfare socialism etc

- Series of the worst trade deals imaginable (pre and post Brexit)

- Too much of people’s money tied up in the resi property Ponzi scheme doing nothing (other than now: losing value in realtime)

- Planning laws that stop anyone building infrastructure on housing

I could go on…

Plus we have rising long yields now, which are (TL;DR) the price of having destroyed your own structural buyer base and then issuing into the gap while the central bank sells on top. Brexit doesn’t appear anywhere in that mechanism either.

So, this creepy obsession you have with Brexit is weird, lame and entirely worn out.

Bin.
🚮

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Inflation has eaten us alive. Wages wiped out. Savings eroded. Families poorer. Life more expensive. We are all getting ripped off. The economy does not work for us. Why?

Because Britain is addicted to the size of its own state.

It is simply far too big. The taxes to fund it are too great. The printing of money to prop it all up is so very addictive.

It is catastrophic for working men and women. It makes all of us poorer.

The indolent are rewarded, the productive are sucked dry.

There is one way to fix it, one painful way.

Slash back the size of the state, followed by enormous tax cuts and then we have to live within our means. No money printing.

Crush parasitic Britain.

We cannot tax and spend our way out of this hole.

It’s impossible.

There is one political party honest about the required pain, and that’s Restore Britain.

If you want to sit on universal credit in your pyjamas all day, don’t vote for us.

If you want to contribute and be rewarded for doing so, then there is finally a party for you.

Does this win us votes? Possibly not. I don’t know. But it’s the truth. And it needs to be said.

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@realmocktheleft Listed buildings are a nightmare, just add a thatched roof for maximum grief.

[The Farmer's Dog @FamersDog]

An update and a message from Jeremy.

“Thank you so much for all the kind messages I've had but now, an announcement.”

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@realmocktheleft Renovation work on an old house is always entertaining - you never know what you'll find.

[Hamed🎴 @anfieeldd]

@FabrizioRomano All this for getting eliminated in group stage

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@realmocktheleft This just the width of a door in our bathroom....the tiles are straight

[Burnside @BurnsideWasTosh]

How FIFA see hydration breaks, how the rest of the world see them.

[Stan Collymore @StanCollymore]

Yes, it matters.

Because the world gets to see the unique English football ecosystem played out in the towns and clubs that have fucking propped this sport up for 150 years.

That's why it matters.

A visible display of the oldest football heritage anywhere. You'd think that would matter.

[Dan Thomas @DanThomasESPN]

Cape Verde have had more possession than Arsenal did in the UCL final.

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@JonnyDeWolf Race you back

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@BurnsideWasTosh On first glance, I read this as aba-custards, not abacus-tards.

Either works for me.

[James 🔴⚪️ @JamNic1]

@OllieSC2005 i literally just posted a picture after the game where we beat a team 4-0, there is no rivalry 😂 can guarantee we will win a european trophy (which we already have) before you’re back in the prem

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@Bkasparas @HeathrowAirport Thanks - my dates were £198 compared to LHR prices of £215.

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@HeathrowAirport Not that the train was particularly cheap. A degree of flexibility on the return leg is needed in case of flight delays so was looking at £150+ for a 2 hour train journey for the flexible option.

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@HeathrowAirport I'm flying long haul out of LHR in a few weeks. Was thinking of using the train as parking in airport long stay is outrageous but I'm not prepared to risk this level of unreliability with public transport.

[Rob Atherton @robatherton]

@IpswichTownFans @jackalbion96 As a comparison, England allocates 30% of their non-tournament tickets via a ballot. It rewards those who regularly attend but it also doesn't become a closed shop.

I guess the ballot % will always be a point of discussion but the principle is good.

[Tottenham Independent Transfer Stories @solventspurs]

To be fair, sacking a manager because winning a trophy and finishing 17th is “unacceptable”, then proceeding to finish 17th with no trophy, would be the funniest thing this football club has ever done.