Scaramouche

Born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

Socialism is a self-indulgent guilt trip for the Haves.

They exhort others to “good” deeds but what of themselves?

How many “refugees” taken in?

How many luxuries forfeited?

How many salaries forfeited?

How many sacrifices made?

Answers on a postcard.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@Callan4077 Hi Chris,
My foootsoldier account is hacked so would welcome a follow on this back up till I get it fixed.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@Battsby When did it not?

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@FlavellG What Ho!

[Sonny @thehonestletter]

A UK family where both parents work full-time, pay full council tax, and earn enough to be 'doing alright' on paper, can't afford to take their kids to the Tower of London on a Saturday in 2026.

Two adult tickets and two child tickets at standard price comes to roughly £100. Add £40-£80 in train fares and £50-£70 for lunch — that's around £200 for a single Saturday at one tourist attraction in their own capital city.

A family on full Universal Credit, living in subsidised housing, paying no council tax, can take the same four people to the same Tower for £1 a ticket — £4 total — under the 'inclusive access' schemes most major UK attractions now run.

The working family pays the full £200 day out AND covers — through their taxes — the £196 discount the benefits family gets on the same trip.

Whatever the original intention of those schemes, this is the structure most UK working families are now living inside. Pay the full bill, then watch the people next door enjoy the day out you can't take your own kids to.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@bo66ie29 I enjoyed mine.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@Irina_exh 20.

[J Stewart @triffic_stuff_]

Trevor Phillips just tore apart Keir Starmer’s disastrous time in office.

“How did a man who won a landslide victory in 2024 become so disliked by so many people so quickly, that even his own party’s candidate in Makerfield promised to get rid of him?”

Phillips begins by noting that Starmer “lacks the common touch” and “he obviously made mistakes. The winter fuel debacle for example”.

In a scathing verdict, he went on to explain:

“I think what did for Starmer is he promised to put country before party and on every occasion he had the chance to keep his word, he broke it.”

“The country wanted the two child cap on benefits, the party hated it. The country said it was time to cut welfare and boost defence, the party said that was unconscionable. The country cheered when the Pakistani-heritage Home Secretary said she’d demand more from migrants before they’d be allowed to settle permanently. Party activists called her un-British and racist.”

“In each case the prime minister chose the party, blamed someone else for his change of heart, ministers, advisers, civil servants, and threw them under the nearest bus.”

A brutal but accurate takedown of a prime minister who betrayed the country he was elected to serve. Spot on, @TrevorPTweets 👏

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@spinnerjohn @saniyafatma1278 Ditto with our elderly Border.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@NotFarLeftAtAll No, he’s just another WEF puppet. Should have gone to the Princess Royal.

[Vinnie Sullivan @VinnieSull1van]

Ladies and gents, please help my new business grow by giving @PubHistoryTours a follow and a share. Seeing as I'm not relying on large companies or mainstream sources, I need all of the help I can get. Thank you. 🤝

https://t.co/7mm0OXsGb2

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@spinnerjohn Bravo.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@francesbarber13 One lives and learns.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@DurhamWASP @rose1_scarlett Charles 1 is a good example.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@VinnieSull1van @BygoneBritain @PubHistoryTours A reminder.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@FreddSays Hope it’s not the Scillonian.
If so, prayers are offered.
Thunderstorms and a 7th wave predicted.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

Breath. Hold. Don’t.

[John Redwood @johnredwood]

I want Andy Burnham to revitalise the North and cities. First slash energy prices, removing net zero taxes and skewed investment. Great cities need industries with well paid jobs. Bans on oil,gas,petrol vehicles stop industry. Dear energy is a jobs killer.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

Burnham Promised Change. His National Security Adviser Has China Connections And An Unconfirmed Vetting Status.

Andy Burnham has not yet entered Downing Street. He has already made his most important national security decision. He has chosen to keep Jonathan Powell.

Powell was planning to leave in the autumn and return to Inter Mediate, the private consultancy he founded in 2011. An ally told the Observer that a sense of duty convinced him to stay. That formulation deserves scrutiny. Duty to whom. And to what.

Powell is the first political appointee ever to hold the National Security Adviser role. Parliament's joint committee on national security strategy was blocked from questioning him, unlike any previous holder of the post. Every parliamentary question about his vetting arrangements has been blocked using language identical to that deployed to obstruct questions about Mandelson. He conducted two secret visits to Beijing in six months. He maintains relationships through Inter Mediate with officials linked to China's intelligence apparatus, including the former head of PLA intelligence and the Secretary General of the CPAFFC, described by the US Congress as the public face of China's United Front Work Department. His vetting arrangements have never been publicly confirmed. None of that has changed. All of it will now continue under Burnham.

The Chagos deal Powell negotiated would have handed Beijing strategic proximity to Diego Garcia, the joint UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean, at a cost of up to £35 billion to the British taxpayer. It was postponed only after Donald Trump raised concerns about the security implications. Powell began working on it before his NSA appointment, in a personal capacity, through Inter Mediate. The constitutional lines between his private consultancy work and his government role have never been clearly drawn. Parliament was blocked from asking him about it.

Burnham says he wants to focus on domestic issues and spend less time abroad than Starmer. The man he has chosen to manage Britain's relationships with a dangerous world is the man whose undisclosed China connections triggered the most serious national security questions of the Starmer era. The man who ran a secret backchannel to a proscribed terrorist organisation. The man whose departure would have returned him to a private consultancy with documented PLA-connected relationships.

The fresh start narrative has a familiar cast. Powell stays as National Security Adviser, his China connections undisclosed and his vetting status unconfirmed. James Purnell arrives as chief of staff, a man who left Parliament in 2010, spent years in senior positions at the BBC and then worked at Flint, one of London's most influential corporate lobbying and political strategy firms, before joining Burnham's inner circle. Burnham himself entered Parliament under Blair in 2001. The fresh start is three New Labour figures, a corporate lobbyist and a set of unanswered national security questions.

This sits alongside a pattern documented across multiple pieces. Public money lent without adequate due diligence to a developer whose luxury towers were marketed to Chinese investors in Hong Kong. A bilingual confidential letter praising China's Covid response sent to the Mayor of Tianjin. A formal twinning relationship with Tianjin providing institutional cover for Chinese financial engagement. A Court of Appeal hearing on £140 million of those loans with judgment reserved. A wife on the board of a company holding a public contract with the transport authority her husband chaired. And now a National Security Adviser retained despite documented China connections that have never been subjected to the transparency the Mandelson affair demanded of everyone else.

Burnham enters Downing Street in three weeks. Powell goes with him. The questions that were never answered under Starmer deserve answers before the door of Number Ten closes behind them.

[Scaramouche @Seakens]

@FlavellG I used to work near to Chertsey. Is nothing sacred?

[Kathy Gyngell @KathyConWom]

#NetZero is the biggest con in British political history and here's why: the government has admitted £240bn must be spent upgrading the grid alone.

Bills are rising, not falling........

https://t.co/hpNpuGDvU0