Vivienne Michael

Former Council Leader and Charity CEO; Consultant and Campaigner. Passionate about politics, football and Dylan (Bob and @dylanmichael77). Views my own.

[Tory Fibs @ToryFibs]

The UK State Pension is not a welfare benefit.

You pay your National Insurance stamp throughout your working life.

It’s taxable.

Don’t allow the media and right wing politicians refer to it as a welfare benefit. They’re gearing up to cut it.

[Essex Patriot @Essex_Patriot]

The UK State Pension: £12,500/year for a lifetime of work

An illegal migrant: £41,000/year to the taxpayer

We are spending over THREE TIMES more on unvetted arrivals than on the seniors who built this country 🇬🇧

[Burnside @BurnsideWasTosh]

We need a land value tax to cause a massive housing crash, push homeowners into negative equity, create a sharp rise in mortgage defaults, destroy the value of the banking sector’s mortgage portfolios, threaten the solvency of banks, raise interest rates, freeze first time buyers out of the market, collapse the construction industry, and cause a massive recession by making everyone poorer and killing any discretionary spending. And we need it now.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy’s departure from X has rightly raised eyebrows.

But, as @RobertJenrick has pointed out, there is something even more sinister going on. Just 10 days ago, Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons that the Government plans to force social media companies to promote what it deems to be “trustworthy” news providers.

The Government is trying to dictate what you see online.

This is beyond dystopian.

[alexmassie @alexmassie]

Soon everyone who lives north of Manchester will have to head south to "change their perspective" too.
This performative nonsense is already very trying.

[David Shaw @David90shaw]

🚨 THE GREAT ENERGY BILL SCAM!

Good morning to the millions of everyday Brits looking at the 13 percent energy bill hike that just hit you on July 1st.

But here is the massive scandal the energy companies are deliberately hiding in the small print.

You are forced to pay £315 every single year before you even turn on a single light switch.

Not for gas. Not for electricity. Just for the absolute privilege of being connected to the grid!

Whether you are home or not, these hidden standing charges have doubled since 2021.

Ofgem quietly allowed this to happen while the media distracted you with the unit rates.

Ed Miliband deliberately banned our own North Sea drilling and promised his Net Zero crusade would magically lower your costs. 🤡

Instead, your bills are surging, our energy independence is completely destroyed, and the grid is reliant on expensive foreign imports.

And to make the joke even worse, Andy Burnham is currently lining up this exact same climate zealot to be your next Chancellor!

They are bleeding the working class dry to fund their green obsession.

RT if you are completely sick of this Net Zero grift and want our country back! 🔁🇬🇧🔥

[William Clouston SDP @WilliamClouston]

One overlooked aspect of Burnham’s rhetoric on devolution is that it’s taken at face value that he can implement by decree. In fact, a serious plan would require new statue law which would take up to 2 years. So Burnham would be practically out of office before anything serious happens. There has been little cognisance of this in the typically shallow press reporting and little recognition of it among the adulation from Labour’s rather dim MPs.

It’s very revealing of Labour’s ineptitude that they were elected with no clear plans and hence still feeling their way almost half way through the parliamentary term. Welfare reform is another perfect illustration of this with Alan Milburn’s reports being used to ‘roll the pitch’ prior to any meaningful reform.

It’s abysmal.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

I’m starting to worry he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. And has no time to learn. The price of water and electricity is already controlled by the state.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

Burnham’s Spending Commitments So Far Add Up to More Than £250 Billion https://t.co/Dl7SHkPnGM

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

Yes, Burnham really is this stupid.

To avoid breaking Labour’s manifesto pledge on income tax, VAT and NI, he thinks he’s found a clever workaround! whack more tax on warehouses.

Except warehouses are part of the supply chain.

So the cost gets passed on through goods, deliveries, storage, fulfilment and distribution.

Meaning this isn’t really a tax on “big business”.

It’s a tax on the public, increasing the cost of living! … he just hopes you won’t notice.

[William Clouston SDP @WilliamClouston]

The Times reports the 76% of people allowed to settle under Article 8 of the ECHR are unemployed.

Ruinous. Insane.

[Richard James @skisidjames]

These poor, confused MPs have it exactly backwards. The state doesn’t subsidise private school parents; those parents subsidise the state by paying taxes for state education they don’t use, while also paying school fees, and providing employment.. https://t.co/WY2TlRXu6f.

[Richard North @ollieparrot]

This does not end well...

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Britain’s countryside — the rolling hills, ancient hedgerows, patchwork fields and sweeping moorlands that define our national rural identity — is under systematic assault. What is being sold as “technological progress” is, in reality, industrial-scale countryside vandalism: the deliberate scarring of rural Britain with thousands of acres of prime farmland plastered with solar panels, wind turbines and hulking concrete energy guzzling AI data centre fortresses.

These are not modest structures. Modern turbines reach tip heights of 150–200 metres — taller than Big Ben or the London Eye. Their concrete foundations, access roads and substations carve permanent scars into the landscape. Visual impact assessments repeatedly show they dominate skylines for miles, turning once-pristine views into industrial clutter.

Ground-mounted solar now covers more than 52,000 acres of UK land — with the vast majority on former agricultural land. Around 65% of this was arable land and 30% improved grassland before panels arrived.

They are sprawling industrial installations: row upon row of panels on steel frames, surrounded by fencing, security cameras, access tracks and substations. Fields that once produced food or supported wildlife are now covered in silicon and glass for 25–40 years. Prime agricultural land is being lost at a time when food security matters.

The newest and most aggressive countryside vandals are the hyperscale AI data centres. UK data centres already consume around 2.5% of national electricity, with forecasts of a fourfold increase by 2030 as AI demand explodes.

AI data centres are often the size of small towns — requiring enormous land, constant cooling, and colossal electricity and water supplies. UK data centres already use an estimated 14 million litres of water per day for cooling; this could triple to 42 million litres daily under current AI targets. They are the diametric opposite of environmentalism.

Protests are mounting against proposed mega-complexes in rural and semi-rural locations, including near small Scottish villages where local residents fear being overwhelmed by 115-foot structures that bring noise, heat islands, light pollution, and permanent visual intrusion.

These projects do not come cheap. Renewable subsidies have already cost UK electricity consumers around £220 billion since 2002 — with ongoing levies still inflating bills. The estimated cost of Ed Miliband’s net zero zealotry over the next 25 years amounts to £trillions.

Wind and solar are intermittent. They require backup generation and massive grid reinforcement, further industrialising rural areas with new pylons and substations.

Wind turbines and solar panels have approximately 25 years lifespan. Many of the components will end up in landfills - not exactly environmentally sustainable.

Britain does not lack space for energy. It has rooftops, car parks, brownfield sites, offshore zones out of sight from coastal views and disrupting fishing waters, and the potential for reliable low-carbon sources like nuclear. Instead, governments are ramming through data centres, solar panels and wind turbines across the countryside because rural land is cheaper and planning objections sometimes weaker. And rammed through despite local community objections.

The British countryside is not an empty canvas for industrial experimentation. It is a finite, irreplaceable national treasure — the setting of so much of our literature, art, history and identity. Turning it into a patchwork of turbine blades, solar arrays and data centre warehouses is an act of cultural and environmental vandalism dressed up as net zero climate action.

It is time to call this what it is. The relentless industrialisation of rural Britain by AI data centres, solar farms and wind turbines is countryside vandalism — and it must stop before the damage becomes irreversible.

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

Labour’s new “bottle tax” is a masterclass in how not to do climate policy.

They’ve designed a weight‑based levy that hammers glass – the infinitely recyclable, genuinely sustainable option – while giving cheaper plastic a relative free pass.

The result?

Up to 10–12p slapped on basic glass packaging, with fees on glass beverage containers reportedly around 49 times higher than for some less recyclable materials.

Unions and industry are spelling it out in words of one syllable: this isn’t a green transition, it’s a de‑industrialisation plan. British Glass and GMB warn tens of thousands of jobs in a 120,000‑strong supply chain are now in the firing line, with investors stalling “billions” in planned UK projects because ministers have just made domestic production uncompetitive overnight.

Labour dresses this up as “extended producer responsibility”. In reality it’s extended unemployment responsibility: loading costs onto UK manufacturers until production migrates to lower‑regulation economies, and Britain ends up importing the same bottles, with higher transport emissions, and fewer decent jobs at home.

If you wanted a policy designed in a spreadsheet by someone who has never visited a factory but loves a COP photo‑op, this is it.

[Vivienne Michael @vivmichael1966]

I understand the Green Party councillor responsible for this decision has just moved into a nearby property and complained about the seating. If he's not declared this, he should be challenged as there's a clear conflict of interest.

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

Interested Chiswick locals at The City Barge right now, posing for The Telegraph about the Green Party councillor Rick Rowe forcing the pub to take their outside seating away. Seating that’s been there at least seventy years. I stood out of the photo because as you know, I’m shy.

[Kathryn Porter @KathrynPorter26]

This has been explained to you many many times. Why don't you engage with the answer?

Only the wholesale price is set by gas

The wholesale price is c40% of the bill we pay

Renewables subsidies are almost all higher than the wholesale price so if the wholesale price falls the subsidy element rises. This is a separate charge on the bill

Other charges on the bill are
Backup for renewables
High cost of connecting renewables
Extra balancing costs for renewables

In the autumn energy execs set this out in detail to the DESNZ Select Committee. They were very clear....

WHOLESALE PRICES COULD FALL TO ZERO AND BILLS WOULD STILL GO UP

[WeGotitBack 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇺🇸 @NotFarLeftAtAll]

It emerged during the MPs' expenses scandal of 2009 that Andy Burnham submitted a single expenses claim for £16,644 to cover the purchase of the property, covering their stamp duty and legal fees as well as a new kitchen.

By claiming the windfall as a parliamentary expense, Andy Burnham escaped having to pay thousands of pounds in Capital Gains Tax – a levy that his allies want him to increase when he becomes PM. 

It seems that Andy and Angela Rayner have more in common than first thought.. avoid paying taxes

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

This is the City Barge pub in Chiswick right now. What do you notice? It’s 3pm and they’re open. It’s a sunny day. Yes, that’s right; they have had to remove all of the tables and chairs outside. They have had to destroy their own business. Why? Because Rick Rowe, a Green Party councillor on Hounslow council, who lives very, very, very close to this pub and complains about it almost daily, has banned all three pubs here on strand on the Green Chiswick, from having outside tables. I can only assume he hates pubs, hates business and hates the British way of life. This would usually be buzzing with people enjoying their afternoon. However, they’re the wrong sort of people for Rick.