SEAN

[Ashlee Vance @ashleevance]

I don't want to live in any other time

[Ruby Quinn @RubyQNUFC]

Hi @grok how many times does he blink in this video? Never seen anything like it

[JS ✈️ 🇬🇧 @steerwithmyrear]

On a road leading to RAF Fairford last night.

[Paddy @PaddyArsenal]

Let the records state zero Arsenal players took part in that collapse

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

When it comes to tax in the UK, a lot of people are deluding themselves, thinking the government will just go after the wealthy to pay for the ballooning commitments they’ve made.

The truth is, the real target is the middle class. And the reason is simple. The middle class is the only viable option for the kind of revenue the government wants.

Start with who’s off the table. A third of British adults pay no income tax at all. The bottom half of earners take home about a quarter of the income in this country and pay roughly a tenth of the tax. There’s no pot of gold buried down there, and every party has spent years promising to protect “working people.” Squeezing them is politically radioactive and would raise next to nothing anyway.

The rich are off the table too, whatever the Channel 4 documentaries say. The top 1% already pay 28% of all income tax. Their money is capital, dividends and gains, so they’re mobile, and they’ve already started leaving. One widely quoted forecast has Britain losing half a million millionaires by 2028. Push the rate on these people much higher and you collect less, not more. Threatening them polls brilliantly, but relying on them for a tax bonanza is pure fantasy.

Which leaves the middle class, and the middle class can’t run. Most are on PAYE, taxed at source before the money touches their account. They can’t turn a salary into a capital gain. They can’t declare residency in Monaco, because the job, the kids’ school and the mortgage are all here. Their wealth is a house they can’t hide under the mattress and a pension they can’t reach. Numerous, visible and immobile. The perfect target, and in some ways the only one.

And here’s how it’s already being done. They won’t raise your headline rate of income tax, because they promised not to. But the threshold freeze, the one that sounds like a non-event on Budget day, is quietly hammering you, and it’s now been extended to 2031.

Took out a student loan since 2012? You’ve been paying the graduate tax in all but name. Hold investments outside an ISA? You’ve watched CGT climb to 24%, and it’s likely to be equalised with income tax next. Sent your kids to private school? That’s the VAT charge. Saving into a cash ISA? That shelter just shrank from £20,000 to £12,000. And from 2027, your pension gets pulled into inheritance tax, so the pot you spent a career building can be taxed again on the way out.

There’s more coming. Mansion taxes, higher CGT, property levies, dividends. Most of the taxes we’re told will hit the ultra wealthy will actually land on the middle class. And in most cases they’re not sat on fortunes, they’re sat on assets they spent a working life building.

What’s worse, the burden grows with every Budget, because of the compounding commitments this government keeps making, and that nearly every other party has pledged too.

So who pays for the past, present and future spending of the UK government? The middle class. And there’s not a thing they can do about it. Debt-trapped, stuck in place, with nowhere to turn, and the government knows it.

If any of this resonated, you’re likely in the taxation crosshairs. I wish you luck.

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

The Arsenal. Your Premier League champions.

[JERSEYS & FOOTWEAR @Jibsman1]

@declassifiedUK Is he allowed to swear?

[Loulou Gunner ❤️ @GunnerLoulou]

The greatest GIF ever made?

[Football Tweet ⚽ @Footballtweet]

Someone at Bournemouth has given Thomas Frank a coffee with an Arsenal sticker on. 😭

They've stitched him right up. 😂

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

If you don’t know, now you know 🦅

[Football Factly @FootballFactly]

Carlo Ancelotti is enjoying his time on the beach in Rio 👀

[Scott Willis 🏆 @scottjwillis]

By my calculations, ball in play time in the 2nd half was 27 min and 18 sec. The first half was a bit more at 23 minand 37 sec.

Overall, it was 50 minutes and 55 seconds of ball in play time. Chelsea did a good job of killing time and the referees here didn't punish them putting it back on here.

[🇳🇴 kimmoFC @kimmoFC]

Excluding timewasting on corners, throw-ins, minor free kicks etc.

1st half
🔹5 mins added
🔹Reality: 8 mins 37 sec

2nd half
🔹4 mins added
🔹Reality: 9 mins 7 secs

Is this just decided at random on gut feeling?
https://t.co/fHx705TI1h

[The Touchline | 𝐓 @TouchlineX]

🔥 𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄: THE ABSOLUTE WORST REFEREE IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE!

[Rory Talks Football @Rory_Talks_Ball]

Yeah Anthony Taylor’s decided today is about him hasn’t he

[SH @saulhenderson]

26.4k a year for minimum wage 40 hours a week. Teaching salary is 30k a year to start with. So you’re telling me I have to go to university for 4 years to then start off on a salary 3.6k more than someone who works at Tesco?

That makes sense…

[Carole Malone @thecarolemalone]

This budget is going to punish all the working class and middle class people who have always done the right thing, who’ve saved and worked and never been a burden on the state and give their hard earned cash to the lazy, the feckless and the jobless !!

[Ben Habib @benhabib6]

So taxes on everyone who works, and pensioners, are going up.

Anyone who has made money, saved it and bought a valuable house will be penalised for their efforts and success. Pensioners who live in such homes will also have to pay tax with their depleted income.

People who cannot afford children will be incentivised to have more of them. Top of the list will be foreigners on benefits. Why not give workers a tax break for having children?!

National debt and taxes forecast to go up. Growth and productivity are forecast to flatline at best. A recession is round the corner.

This is a budget for those on benefits; punishing people who work, earn and save.

Mugabe economics in the UK.

[WelBeast @WelBeast]

Michael Oliver has awarded significantly more reds and yellows vs Arsenal than any other team.

Also significantly more penalties against than most teams.

He has awarded 0 red cards to Manchester City.

Keep Michael Oliver away from Arsenal games.

[SEAN @seanchaad]

lol

[B. @InvertTheWing]

Saka is a good player.

But my word, do Arsenal fans overrate him SO much. Like they put him on a completely different pedestal he’s not.

Guaranteed starter for England? Come on.