Nigel J Walley

All my own nonsense when talking UK & Ireland, cycling, art and politics! The media tech stuff is under @nwalley & architecture tech under @ChimniWalley

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

My new pinned tweet

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

If you did that nowadays you’d be dragged through the courts for years.

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

Lieutenant Colonel “Mad Jack” Churchill stormed into battle playing the bagpipes, armed with a Scottish broadsword and longbow.

He captured 42 German soldiers single-handedly with just his sword and remains the last known man to kill an enemy with a bow and arrow in combat.

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

I’m just reading the Encyclopaedia @Britannica entry for Jordan. It flags up that ‘the West Bank area was under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967’. But it fails to explain that the ‘West Bank’ was actually the Israeli regions of Judea and Samaria which, in 1948, were part of the territory of the newly independent Israel.

The area was controlled by Jordan after 48 because the Jordanians joined in an invasion of by five Arab armies designed to wipe out the new Israeli state. Having been beaten by Israel, Jordan managed to cling on to Judea and Sumaria in the peace deal and renamed them the ‘West Bank’ after expelling all the Jews who lived there.

Israel didn’t ‘occupy’ Judea and Samaria in 1967, it reclaimed its own territory.

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

Unfortunate that I have to spend time in Israel combatting this ridiculousness, but here we are. The notion that these Irish citizens were not permitted into Ireland because they are Irish is simply not the truth. Once again in the Irish Times - similar to when a sports journalist of theirs propagated a false notion that Israeli security was present at the Ireland/Israel UEFA fixture in order to spy on Irish media - there seems to be, at a very generous reading, a fundamental lack of understanding of the security threats that the Israeli people are constantly under such that these measures are necessary. A less generous reading is that there is a portion of Irish society suffering from a chronic mix of main character syndrome and victimhood complex and with respect to a region in the Middle East wherein we are entirely irrelevant.

Do I have to spell this out? I am Irish and I arrived in Israel on Sunday. Here I am right now chilling in a kibbutz with the passport I used to enter the country. The Italian woman directly in front of me did not get through (she was questioning for approximately 20 mins), but I did after under 10 mins. I arrived on my own and the security man had no idea who I was. As much as I appreciate Irish people thinking I’m important enough to be known and that this is the reason I was let through with relative ease, that is simply not the case.

The questions I was asked included:

- Is it your first time in Israel?
- Are you here for work or pleasure?
- How long are you here for?
- Where are you staying?

Amongst a few others.

I answered those questions satisfactorily so I was permitted through. The reason other Irish citizens were not permitted into the country would have been because they did *not* answer these questions similarly satisfactorily.

Everyone knows Israeli security is extremely tough, and everyone should know the devastation that is wrought when it fails. The FlyDubai hijacking occurred mere weeks ago!

If you don’t want to be subjected to tough Israeli security then there is a simple solution: don’t visit Israel. There is no way you will get around it no matter what nationality you are. Indeed, it is quite interesting that people who so loathe Israel want to visit it at all.

Israel has a right to conduct robust airport security checks in order to protect its people. If they did not have such strict security measures, then in 1986, El Al Flight 016 would have blown up murdering 376 passengers. One victim would have been the unwitting Irish bomb carrier, Anne-Marie Murphy, who was five months pregnant. Anne-Marie’s Jordanian boyfriend, Zezar Himdawi, put her on the plane with a bomb; the most extreme and evil example of the anti-Israel movement using Irish people for its own ends, although certainly not the only one. The bomb in Anne’s suitcase was similarly identified through intense questioning by Israeli security after getting through the initial checks by British authorities.

The people complaining about Israeli security need to be asked: would you have wanted those 376 people murdered? Would you have wanted that poor, naïve Irishwoman to be murdered? Indeed, have you even heard of the Himdawi affair at all? If no, then ask yourself why.

The problem here is not that a random Irishman has a persecution complex and thinks he was denied entry because he is Irish. The problem is that this ridiculous notion is legitimised in our completely biased paper of record.

If the Irish Times wishes to do a piece on the warm welcome many Irish people received in Israel, there are many of us who can speak to that. But we won’t be holding our breaths.

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@London_W4 @PaulRusson7 I’m not any money actually moves anywhere in the deal.

[The Israel Guys @theisraelguys]

I bet the Jews were behind the elections in Israel yesterday...

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@ChildrenOfTrans @transwidows Jesus Christ! I knew the bill was bad but I hadn’t considered any of this?

[Children of Transitioners @ChildrenOfTrans]

Recommend this @transwidows article re the Draft Conversion Bill impact on our mums. Can a mum be arrested for asking a dad not to wear a dress showing his penis on O/N visits as the teenage daughter doesn't want to go? Can CoTs be arrested if we won't lie our dad is a woman?

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@aljhlester Are you not proud of the abolitionists?

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@aljhlester Yet GDP per head in Caribbean countries is 3-5 times the figure from the countries where slaves were sold from.

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@LoudBonnet Class action case?

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@aljhlester The enslaved are all dead as are the perpetrators. I’m unclear why the descendants of either need to be exchanging cash?

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@BrianSpanner1 @RegSimpkin Its definitely some form of colonial scapegoating, neo-liberal oppression

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@KingBobIIV @Loreign83 @PolitlcsUK That would cover one decent lunch in Nandos.

[ex RUC/PSNI Inspector @westiecop]

Well..... there it is.

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@Rebecca_SPaul When an MP says “we’ve been perfectly clear….” you know they’ve been anything but.

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@akuareindorf @Tara__Hughes @oliviabaileymp Once again MPs are proposing dodgy legislation, that is absolutely open for abuse, on the basis of a whimsical hope that “surely no-one would abuse this legislation?”

[Nigel J Walley @WalleyVision]

@foggydave @BijanOmrani @TonyDowson5 I’ve got one of these!

[Nusrat Ghani MP @Nus_Ghani]

👀 The big reveal…

I’ll be wearing the #Sussex flag on my tie for the Budget Statement today.

It features 6 gold martlets on a blue field and can be traced back to at least 1611- older than the role I hold as Chairman of Ways and Means.

#Budget2026

@PARLYapp