Tom

🇬🇧 Medieval History Postgrad, Anglo-Saxonist, enjoyer of cask ale, supporter of NUFC ⚫️⚪️

[Robert Kwolek @RobertKwolek]

Edward’s alternative is obviously superior to the eyes of 80%+ of the public though would be scorned by most architects and planners. That’s something that needs to change.

[Nicholas Boys Smith @boys_nicholas]

One day we’ll go back to creating places people love. But which day?

[Edward Teather @TeatherEdward]

An extension to Oxford designed with "cues from the [existing] skyline" in mind might look something like this. One day we will build spires again.

[Tom Jones @93vintagejones]

Britain’s national interest is to retake its mantle as the world’s leading nation for exploration, discovery and invention. We must not fade away into the sweet release of mediocrity and self-pity. We are the greatest nation on Earth. We must forever remember this.

[Kadott @Kadotttt]

I honestly don’t understand how Ads are supposed to work on me. There’s no way you think interrupting my video that I was watching will make me like your product

[Mark Wallace @wallaceme]

It’s a little known fact that all the words associated with paying to see the Bayeux Tapestry are derived from Anglo-Saxon while all the words for being invited to see it by a corporate sponsor derive from French.

[Tom Ough @tomough]

Do NOT accept a video call without initiating a Clanker Detection Protocol. Will your interlocutor advise you on bomb construction, quote copyrighted material, or shout racial abuse? If not, don't trust them.

[Luke Robert Black @lukerobertblack]

Reform’s usage of ‘Olukemi’, as a right-wing insult and as if Kemi/Tories are embarrassed that this is her full name perhaps would be a better attack if those posting it weren’t called Raheem Kassam or Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf.

What are we doing here?

[Aubrey Allegretti @breeallegretti]

Exclusive: A Conservative shadow minister has privately called for the pension triple lock to be replaced by an “entirely new” system.

Katie Lam, the shadow communities secretary, said there needed to be a “radical” shake-up of the coalition-era policy that Andy Burnham has committed to reforming.

A leaked recording obtained by The Times from June (when she held a different front-bench role) reveals her response to a question at a Tory association event about the triple lock policy.

“Ultimately I think what we will need in the end is an entirely new pension system,” she said.

“I mean, a baby that is born today has a 20 per cent chance of living to be 100 and I don’t think we can fund one in five people half of their lives, you know, for the first 20 and the last 30 years. But obviously if you are 90 you probably can’t go out and get a job right, so I think you have to be realistic about how you would taper that and bring that in across the population.”

She added: “I just think the whole system as it stands can’t stand for very much longer.”

The comments appear to break from Badenoch’s position, which is that pensions should continue to rise in line with the triple lock, by 2.5 per cent, average earnings or inflation, whichever is highest.

Lam said that “ultimately” the pensions system would be more likely to have to rely on private schemes.

She said: “Some of the coalition changes around private pension contribution rates are like directionally the right ones. I think ultimately we will just need to have individual pots that people have for themselves, private sector pensions, Sipps [self-invested personal pension], all of that kind of thing.

“Maybe some sort of annuity product that’s, like, guaranteed by the government or something like that, I don’t know. But it’s hard to imagine like, the triple lock for me is a bit like in the immigration system, like changing the conditions of a specific visa or, I think we need something more radical and less incremental than that.”

Public spending had risen dramatically as a percentage of GDP since 2010, according to Lam, who told attendees: “We have to have honesty and humility about the fact that that happened under a Conservative leadership.”

She added: “The state is just going to have to do dramatically less, which I suppose comes onto the pensions point.”

Her comments reflect the private view of some senior Tories. Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, said when he was a backbencher last November that the triple lock was “simply not affordable”.

After Burnham’s announcement that he would remove an annual earnings link in the next parliament, the Conservatives launched an appeal to “help us fight him”.

A petition launched by the party this week said: “Pensioners built this country. They worked hard, paid in and did the right thing. They live on fixed incomes. Most cannot work,. That is why the Conservatives invented the triple lock. Because we recognise contribution.”

Approached today about the comments, Lam said: “Our commitment to the triple lock is clear and unwavering. It is farcical that the prime minister wants to take away money from pensioners while billions are being spent on foreign nationals who have never paid into the system, and on people who choose not to work.

“Andy Burnham needs to focus on slashing the welfare bill, not on ideological attacks on pensioners. As I said in my full answer to the question, if you’re going to change the pension system for people who did actually pay in all of their lives, you’ve got to start by not giving benefits to people who aren’t Brits, and getting people back to work.”

[Tom @tommc____]

Why is this the business of the government?

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

You know that feeling when you book a flight for 50 quid and somehow it ends up costing 100?

Getting seats together, correcting a typo, another charge here and there, it all adds up.

When the cost of living is already squeezing people, those endless extras can feel relentless.

So we're changing the rules for you.

Parents won't need to pay a penny extra just to sit next to their own children.

You'll be able to fix any name errors on your booking free of charge.

And because the last thing you want once you're on the plane is more stress, we're working with the industry to make sure that disruptive passengers who have been banned from one airline can be banned from flying with other airlines too.

I know holidays are expensive and these are small things, but hopefully they'll make your trip just that little bit cheaper and easier.

That's exactly the kind of thing I want this government to keep on fixing.

[Tom @tommc____]

The exhibition is a purely VISUAL experience, the only thing you are gaining over viewing the online edition, visiting a related museum, or watching a documentary is the in-person viewing of the tapestry. Expecting different seems a fundamental misunderstanding of the point.

[The Telegraph @Telegraph]

A blind man has taken legal action against the British Museum over a lack of audio guides for the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition.

Law firm Leigh Day has sent a letter to the museum, arguing that it failed to comply with the Equality Act, on behalf of Dr Yusuf Ali Osman.

🔗 https://t.co/rIJqi1Jfb0

[Richard Kimber @swimdad74]

@Telegraph So why did the twat go? It's a visual experience, he would have been better served staying at home and listening to a documentary on the tapestry!

[J.B. Sauceda @jaybsauceda]

I am not joking when I say this.

Traveling is over.

Google Street View is now very, very good. You just don’t know yet because all the street views you’ve seen are from 2-3 generations ago.

Google Street View has solved infinite personalized travel.

[Katie Lam @Katie_Lam_MP]

Under these rules, if you leave YOUR property, that YOU OWN, empty for just six months, the state can *seize it*.

This is a horrifying attack on private property rights.

Your property belongs to you. This Government is going to steal it if they don't like how you use it.

[Ned Donovan @Ned_Donovan]

I don't want to hear the voices of the people of London, I want them drowned out by the noise of aeroplanes taking off.

[Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon]

‘High taxes, sometimes by diminishing the consumption of the taxed commodities, and sometimes by encouraging smuggling, frequently afford a smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from more moderate taxes.’
- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

[Daniel Fraser @TheReal_DealDan]

@SkyNews “History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which
the Party is always right”

They do realise how on the nose this is right? I mean you got a statue of the guy outside their fucking building.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

I recognise that there are major sensitivities here, but the optics of a first minister taking part in an unlawful protest in contravention of a determination by the Parades Commission and the wishes of her own police service are pretty appalling. How can a first minister just opt out of abiding by the decisions and orders of her own state agencies in this way?

[Kevin Hollinrake MP @kevinhollinrake]

The Loony Left are always keen to revoke our fundamental rights when it becomes convenient to do so; on this occasion, property rights.

Seizing someone's home because you disapprove of how they use it is classic socialist authoritarianism.

[Peter Hague @peterrhague]

"We saved the taxpayer money by implementing a fiscal cancer that is mathematically certain to consumer all government spending at some point if it is left alone"