Simon Gibbs

Opinionated computer programmer from nowhere in particular. New resident of Beckenham.

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@patrickcrozier Indeed. I was expecting a rapid collapse when momentum swung to Ukraine's favour. The switch of momentum is happening very slowly, and ballistic defence is a problem.

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

Before the summer, we will be talking about where Ukraine should stop its advance to set best defensive borders.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A man who spent thirty years reviewing sports cars has taught this country more about its own food than every minister, union and campaign of the last fifty years combined.

Here is what five series of Clarkson's Farm put in front of the public, and not one line of it is opinion.

- A thousand acres, worked flat out for a year, made a profit of £144. Under forty pence a day.
- By year six the same farm was losing money, weather and prices turning a projected £37,000 into a five grand loss.
- A crop can drown in the field after months of work and take everything with it, and nobody is coming to help.
- The farmer is the only man in the food chain who sells at a price he does not set. The supermarket sets it. He takes it or he takes nothing.
- The council can shut his restaurant, refuse his car park and stop him selling his own food off his own land.
- The subsidy he was told to lean on can be closed overnight, the big estates first through the door, the small farms locked out.
- One outbreak of bovine TB can lock a farm down for months, banned from buying or selling a single cow, through no fault of its own.
- Rear pigs with real care and the butcher's maths can still make them a loss, so the animals go and the loss stays.
- The margins are so thin that a rich man buys farmland not to earn from it but to shelter money that earns elsewhere. The shelter exists precisely because the farming does not.

Now hold that against the story you were sold. Greedy farmers. Subsidised for doing nothing. Wrecking a countryside they are somehow also the custodians of.

There is no profit. That was the reveal. A show that set out to be funny accidentally filmed the slow strangling of the people who feed us, and the country watched it happen and finally understood what its cheap food actually costs.

Clarkson has now admitted the plainest part out loud: it is the television money keeping Diddly Squat alive, and most farms do not have a television show. Britain grows about sixty per cent of its own food and the average farmer is past sixty. That is why both numbers are heading the wrong way.

It took a Lamborghini tractor and a man doing it for a laugh. Fifty years of earnest campaigning could not manage it.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Washington Post: "Argentina’s free-market renaissance continues to improve the country’s economic outlook, and investors are noticing.

Moody’s upgraded Argentina’s dollar bonds and revised its outlook from stable to positive this week. That was the third sovereign ratings upgrade for Argentina in less than three months"

I don't know, I'm starting to think this capitalism idea might be something that works.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

We can’t say we’re shocked that Andy Burnham has sacked Bridget Phillipson as Education Secretary.

One of her first acts as Secretary of State was to torpedo the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) — arguably the most consequential piece of free speech legislation in the past 15 years.

She reversed the commencement orders that would have brought the Act’s most important provisions into force, including the vital complaints scheme.

Rather than asking Parliament to do so, she bypassed it through ministerial fiat. The Free Speech Union challenged this in the High Court on two grounds: first, that it breached the sacrosanct constitutional principle that a minister cannot defy the will of Parliament; and second, that she had failed to carry out an adequate impact assessment.

Days before the case was due to be heard, Bridget Phillipson partially U-turned, announcing that she would commence most of the key provisions — and she duly did.

We then became embroiled in a long-standing dispute over who had won the case. That mattered because it determined who would pay the legal costs.

The High Court decided that the Free Speech Union had won and ordered the Government to pay our costs.

Importantly, when Phillipson announced her partial U-turn, the Free Speech Union offered to settle if the Government paid £80,000 — around a quarter of our total legal costs.

Pretty fair, no?

Well, the Government refused. The Free Speech Union believes this was because Phillipson did not want to admit she had reversed course.

The High Court has now ordered the Government to pay all of our costs. Bridget Phillipson’s hubris has cost taxpayers around £200,000. Combined with the Government’s own legal costs, the total bill exceeds £500,000.

That also means we now have the resources to challenge Phillipson’s successor, Lucy Powell, should she attempt to reverse any of the commencement orders that bring HEFSA into force — including the much-needed complaints scheme for academics, university staff and visiting speakers, which is due to come into force on 1 September.

Hear from @SpeechUnion General Secretary Lord Young of Acton 👇

[Eamonn Butler @eamonnbutler]

A reminder, Andy, of the Thatcher era:
•⁠ ⁠Income tax: 83% → 40%
•⁠ ⁠Basic rate: 33% → 25%
•⁠ ⁠Inflation: 21.9% peak (1980) → 2.4% (1986)
•⁠ ⁠Days lost to strikes: 29.5 million (1979) → 1.9 million (1990)
•⁠ ⁠Real pay for the average earner: up by a third

[Ole Lehmann @itsolelehmann]

i can't tell if i should love or be terrified of this startup lol

> their end goal is the complete eradication of mosquitoes

> they're building a $50/month pet drone that guards your home 24/7 so you never deal with a mosquito again

> it listens for mosquito wingbeats, locks on, then shreds them mid-air with its propellers

> every insect's wingbeat sounds slightly different, so it can tell a mosquito apart from a fly or a wasp

> by their math, 10 drones keep a full square kilometer mosquito-free

> the video below is their first ever air-to-air kill

[GB Politics @GBPolitcs]

🚨NEW: A message from YouTube to its content creators has been verified

It warns the UK government will force them to push legacy media outlets, like the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, over independent commentators and journalists

[Students For Liberty @sfliberty]

In 1825, a rich Welsh industrialist bought an entire American town to prove that socialism could work.

He had the money, the buildings, the theory, and hundreds of eager followers waiting to move in.

Two years later, it was over. 🧵

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

I'd like more *solar car parks* . The roofs make spaces shady so I would pay a premium to park under one (an easy sell today!). I expect the owner to make money on energy sold to EV charging networks or used in adjacent buildings. Developed at the owners expense there is no harm.

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@brian_armstrong @shivatalwar_ An upper house elected only by taxpayers (and public sector employees pay no tax)

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

Turns it the common ground between left and right is your basic variety of feminism.

[ZUBY: @ZubyMusic]

One of the craziest things about the UK rape gang scandal is that it's largely considered a 'right wing' concern.

In a sane, serious country, it would be completely bipartisan. In fact, it wouldn't even be seen as a political issue, but one of basic justice and morality.

[ZUBY: @ZubyMusic]

One of the craziest things about the UK rape gang scandal is that it's largely considered a 'right wing' concern.

In a sane, serious country, it would be completely bipartisan. In fact, it wouldn't even be seen as a political issue, but one of basic justice and morality.

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@RafHM @Echo16049 How about “Progressive” vs “Economically Informed”

[Perry de Havilland 🇬🇧🇺🇦🇨🇿 @cthulhupotamus]

What the actual fvck. Did the ghastly Islamic Republic of Iran just de facto win it's war with the USA? 😑

[Douglas Carswell🇬🇧🇺🇸 @DouglasCarswell]

I never expected that I’d have to organise the smuggling into Britain of Starlink kits and VPNs. So be it

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@Danialeyez @Mish_K_ @safewordsorg Here is a short video explainer https://t.co/L6uoGQQBhY just watch the first episode. 58 mins

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@craigh_ Or maybe anti-ban communities are more serious and engaged than you give them credit for? Occam’s razor.

[Martin Keegan @mk270]

On the day the UK government announces it's going to force everyone to rely on its IT systems working just to use social media, they also switch off Companies House such that people can't fulfil their legal obligations.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

Call me crazy, but I think parents should determine what their teenagers do online rather than the government.

And that governments shouldn't use system-level ID checks to identify and monitor everything.

[Simon Gibbs @SimonJGibbs]

@leicesterliz The government owns most schools and educates 93% of children. How are you unable to influence culture without authoritarian interventions away from schools? What are the actual obstacles?