Robert Thomson

Scottish Sun sports reporter

[Nick Cohen @NickCohen4]

For years Nigel Farage insisted that he wasn't a far-right politician
Now, as he incites violence and spouts barefaced lies, we can see him for what he is

https://t.co/0gl8bdbuCl

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

At CPAC in Dallas was struck by number of people who knew about Rupert Lowe and who (unprompted) mentioned Restore. One even talked about politics in Great Yarmouth. The X algorithm has worked.

[thelefttake @thelefttake]

Actual Nazis mobilising and rioting on the streets of Southampton today.

The moustached man in this video is Luke Jahn of the National Rebirth Party, a neo-Nazi movement led by Alek Yerbury, an infamous Adolf Hitler cosplayer.

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

Because he’s a divisive, rabble-rousing, opportunistic conman?

[LBC @LBC]

'Sky, ITV and the BBC didn't take that'

@NickFerrariLBC asks why Nigel Farage's speech about the killing of Henry Novak wasn't touched by major media outlets.

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

🤢

[Florian Ederer @florianederer]

I believe we now have evidence of FIFA's World Cup ticketing shell game: FIFA is colluding with third-party resale platforms for its own supply management.

Look at this SeatGeek map (secondary market!) for Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde. The circled areas are not random single resale tickets, but large, contiguous blocks of seats: entire rows and swaths in sections 101/102, 112/113, 119/120, 134–137, 139, ...

The blue circles appeared weeks ago, then the purple blocks suddenly showed up a day or two ago, and the red blocks seem to have appeared recently too.

That's not what ordinary fan or even commercial scalper resale looks like who resell pairs, fours, and scattered seats. Instead, this looks like inventory being dumped in bulk onto secondary markets, at prices below FIFA's official site.

Why doesn't FIFA just lower prices on its own site Probably because official price cuts could trigger refund demands, chargebacks, or consumer-protection headaches from fans who already bought at much higher prices.

Instead FIFA keeps official prices high, avoids openly admitting the market-clearing price is lower, and moves unsold inventory through third-party resale platforms instead.

[Simon Harris @SimonHarrisMBD]

This really is Two-Tier Britain. Those who know how to respect a grieving family’s wishes, and those who don’t.

[Despotic Inroad @DespoticInroad]

Again, an awful lot of gaslighting re: "neoliberalism", denying the existence of a ~50yr policy/governance agenda on the basis of "the state spends a lot of money".

Public spending as %-of-GDP isn't high because we've had a period of Leftwing hegemony. (Outside of the arts, the academy & the social/cultural policy sphere, that's obvious nonsense). Rather, it's high because:
👉Demographic pressures have pushed up the 2 massive spending outlays, health & pensions – a problem common to the vast majority of Western democracies
👉UK growth/productivity has been stagnant for ~18yrs, since The City of London collapsed under the weight of its own poor investments, while spending pressures have continued to grow apace
👉We have a growing (& expensive) debt pile as a result of the taxpayer twice being forced to bail out the private sector to the tune of several hundred £BN – 1st during GFC, 2nd during Covid lockdown
👉We have huge revenue pressures from "sticking plaster" subsidies covering up the underlying issue of chronic low investment, e.g. housing benefits ballooning while municipal capex on housebuilding shrinks; or tax credits/UC top-ups disguising stagnant real wages; or increasing day-to-day NHS spending after years of squeezed capital budgets/social care sector collapse

Neoliberalism is defined by privatisation, the embrace of globalisation/free trade, monetarist central banking, the emasculation of the labour movement, & the transformation of the state from a prime actor in national production/investment into a post-hoc fiscal distributor. It has been consciously driven by market-liberal true believers (some even self-identifying as "neoliberals") – on the Right by Hayekian/Friedmanite think tanks, business groups & various Conservative ideologues, and on the Left by Third Way modernisers (see Blair) and their intellectual forebears in Marxism Today's revisionism, the Democratic Left etc. etc.

Pretending none of this happened (because 'muh the state still spends £££') is pure sophistry. They want us to believe they didn't sell off airlines, steelmakers, coal mines, energy generators, water companies, car manufacturers, banks, bus/train contracts & millions of council houses. That they didn't deregulate financial services to get their 'Big Bang'. That they didn't abolish rent controls, or capital/exchange controls, or wage boards, or price commissions. That they didn't outsource core services and state capacity to corporate providers. That they didn't impose some of the most draconian/restrictive trade union laws in the democratic West. That they didn't cede monetary policy to an independent central bank, or cede trade/migration policy to an unelected, supranational, continental bureaucracy. That they didn't squeeze public investment or prioritise tax cuts over infrastructure spending. That they didn't eschew industrial policy and take a lax approach to deindustrialisation because the future was services & the "knowledge economy".

This isn't simpy an accumulation of random policy titbits, but is the outcome of a coherent intellectual project that has consistently rebalanced the labour/capital relationship in the latter's favour. These people are conning you.

[Sam @SamCKx]

There's not a single person in Britain who doesn't agree that the death of Henry Nowak was a tragedy, and the way the police handled it was absolutely disgraceful.

There's only one political party, however, who want to take that family's pain and politicise it for their own benefit.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

This is Nigel Farage’s Britain 👇

[Nick Alexander @kinneston]

Another day and another good trainer packs up. Sensible for Noel but sad for the sport, the only way to turn the sport round is radical reform of prize money to create sustainability at all levels. Noel’s last winner would have earned £1917 for the Owner… says it all, completely unsustainable and the horses simply won’t be there in the future if this doesn’t change

[Liam Holman @Liam_Holman99]

This is on Nigel Farage. Words have consequences.

[Jack Dart @JackWDart]

This is precisely what Farage and his cronies have caused. Their language has inflamed the situation.

Reform is a disgrace.

[Shabana Mahmood MP @ShabanaMahmood]

The scenes this evening in Portswood are completely unacceptable.

The Nowak family made a powerful call to us all yesterday to not let Henry’s death be used to create further division, hatred or tension.

There can be no justification for hijacking this tragedy to stir up violence and disorder. Those responsible can expect to face the full force of the law.

I thank the police who have tonight shown great bravery and calm in the face of disgraceful violence directed at them.

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

These people are absolutely insane. Utterly rancid in everything they say and do

[Zia Yusuf @ZiaYusufUK]

On the day the whole political establishment claims we do not live in a two tier country, they announce this.

Note, the NHS makes NO drugs available exclusively to white people.

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

@TomABacon @forwardnotback Undoubtedly. Although at that stage he still was the same Peter Mandelson who was regularly booked for podcasts, political panels, election coverage programmes, writing articles etc

[Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield]

Henry Nowak's father outside court yesterday: "We do not want Henry's murder to be used to create further hatred, division or tension."

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

@pauljholmes Are you keeping the £15.5bn triple lock?

[Robert Thomson @robertthomson55]

@TomABacon @forwardnotback Rolling news on Sky for hours yesterday while they trawled the Whatsapps. Now item 4-5 on the agenda. A damp squib.

Hopefully McFadden leans into his comments on welfare more and explains it's a debate we need to have as a country, including pensions.

[Geoffrey Lean @GeoffreyLean]

Polls show that 80-89% of the global public understand the threat of climate breakdown and want their governments to act, but the world seems to be going backwards because the fossil fuel companies face fighting for survival, writes @fionaharvey

https://t.co/keIC2jqSbe

[Craig. @bambibristol]

From the bloke who hasn’t made it into his place of work for the last 77 parliamentary votes…